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The Beheading

2019-09-26T20:39:10Z

2600:1006:B105:8611:D53C:B0DF:41A1:8F26: /* Coup */

'''The Beheading''' was an event in 546.M32 where Drakan Vangorich, the Grand Master of the [[Officio Assassinorum]] rebelled against the [[High Lords of Terra]].

==Coup==
In the mid-32nd millennium a great calamity befell the Imperium: [[The Beast|the WAAAGH! Beast]]. The most vicious rampage made '''''EVER''''' by orkind drove the Imperium to its knees as dozens of Space Marine chapters were annihilated, the [[Imperial Fists]] were reduced to a single Astartes, and thousands of worlds were put to the torch. Terra itself was in a state of constant threat during a good chunk of the war.

The reaction from the [[High Lords of Terra]] varied from total incompetence to outright hindering the war effort (special note goes to the Ecclesiarch [[Heresy|who wanted to WORSHIP the Orks and abandon the cult of the Emperor]], and the Fabricator-General who just wanted to loot the Orks' tellyporta technology so the AdMech could teleport Mars out of the way, leaving Terra to its fate (extra stupid points to him since [[Derp|the only reason Mars was in danger was his demand fhat the Imperial Fists not destroy the Attack Moon so he could get the teleporter technology from it]])) and thus costing more worlds and trillions if not quadrillions of lives. Except for one (later two): Drakan Vangorich, the Grand Master of Assassins himself; and in spite (or perhaps because) of such a grim task, he was a ''bona fide'' patriot. He and Chapter Master Koorland made great efforts and manoeuvrers to get the filthy and complacent asses of the High Lords to work on the threat at hand. It suffices to say the two of them may be amongst the greatest heroes of the Imperium, for without them mankind would have been annihilated or reduced to savagery a la the Age of Strife.

Once the war was over, Drakan realized that, should there be another threat of a similar caliber, mankind would be wiped out due to the incompetence of the High Lords. This was especially evident when, as The Beast sent his diplomats asking for their surrender (yes, Ork diplomats had become a thing, thanks to the Beast), the High Lords were more concerned about their own political power than saving mankind. The final straw came when Vangorich found out that the Fabricator-General had teleported Ullanor away (instead of [[Exterminatus]]-ing it; the planet eventually became [[Armageddon]]). For the sake of the Imperium, the High Lords needed to die, and die they did. With the resources of the Assassin's temples at his call, it wasn't too hard for Vangorich to kill / replace every other member of the High Lords within 5 days. Vangorich himself was left top dog of the High Lords and had the rest of the council replaced with impostors or puppets making him sole ruler of the Imperium, which he led for about one-hundred years.

Vangorich's intentions were good, but he grew increasingly paranoid about the Imperium ever backsliding back into the state it had been before the Beast invaded. So while on the good side he did rebuild the Imperium's armed forces and restored planets that had been ravaged by the orks, his reign was marked with [[Grimdark|massacres, vicious reprisal, harsh punishment and increasingly totalitarian control]]. The Imperium remained strong and united under his rule (recovering well enough to sustain the Fourth Founding), but Terra finally grew sick of living in constant fear of their single ruler as he grew more and more erratic. The Astartes and Inquisition, agreeing on a unified goal for a change, decided that it was time to relieve Drakan Vangorich from office. Every other department in the Imperium stepped aside to let them do it.

==Response==

A strike force of 400 marines led by the [[Imperial Fists]] under [[Chapter Master]] [[Maximus Thane]] and supported by elements of newly created chapters (The [[Halo Brethren]] and [[Sable Swords]] specifically) landed on the Imperial palace to hunt down Drakan and seize control of the Senatorum Imperialis. The Officio responded in kind, deploying its most lethal operatives: the landing zones became killzones filled with snipers and the disembarking Astartes were assailed by hundreds of assassins from various temples. [[Callidus]] and [[Culexus]] harassed their advance, while [[Vindicare|Vindicares]] took shots at them from every angle. Venenum and Vanus operatives probably worked from behind the scenes to hinder their advance, but strangely no [[Eversor|Eversor]] assassins were present. Despite losing half their numbers in the process, [[Plot Armor|the Astartes managed to carve their way through the assassins]] and clear out the Senatorum for the most part. Thane then confronted Inquisitorial Representative Wienend, who revealed Vangorich had fled to the Eversor temple at the North pole. Both had a row of words lamenting the situation before Thane departed to hunt Vangorich down. Wienand stayed behind to die by a bomb trap Vangorich had placed in the Senatorum (she was aware of it, but felt it appropriate to go out with a bang given the circumstances).

The remains of the strike force assaulted the temple and confronted Vangorich, who had some final words with Thane, with both accusing the other of having some responsibility for the current situation (to be fair, running the Imperium would eventually drive anyone crazy, and Thane really should have stayed behind to help get things in order instead of crusading). Regardless, Vangorich sprung his trap by flooding the room with smoke and unleashing one hundred Eversors on the Astartes. The two forces cut each other down till only three remained: Chapter Master Thane of the [[Imperial Fists]], Vangorich, and a single Eversor (Beast Krule, a former favored assassin of Vangorich who had been forcibly converted into an Eversor after betraying Vangorich earlier). Vangorich ordered Krule to cut down Thane, but the Assassin broke his programming long enough to refuse, giving Thane time to get a bead on Vangorich. Oddly, Vangorich's last words were asking if Thane would like to know how [[Konrad Curze]] died (possibly drawing a parallel between their intended roles in the Imperium) but Thane was having none of it, killing him before he could answer.

Over the next millenia, many reformations were implemented to prevent one person gaining complete control of the Imperium and causing such trouble (abolishing the position of Lord commander of the Imperium, for instance), helped along by [[Goge Vandire|a certain asshole]] being another great example of what the Imperium does NOT need in a leader. Also, the Ordo Sicarius was set up to keep some assassins pointed at the assassins.

==Aftermath==
In the immediate aftermath of Vangorich's death the [[Imperium]] fell into a state of anarchy, as everyone and their sisters vied for a place in the new version of the Senatorium Imperialis, leading (ironically as Vangorich had predicted) to yet another period of anarchy due to human incompetence. For a century long there was no central leadership and no official successors for the High Lords as people vied and struggled for political power. Luckily Agnathio, the then-[[Chapter Master]] of the [[Ultramarines]] got fed up with this shit real quick, gathered up no less than fifty of his fellow Chapter Masters and their Space Marines; and they all set course for Terra where they proceeded with cock-slapping everyone in the Senatorum until once again twelve High Lords were chosen, finally restoring stability to the Imperium.

==Clash of the Canon==
One of the Chapters who fought against the Assassins was the Sable Swords. The Chapter that is currently known as the Sable Swords was formed from the remnants of the [[Astral Knights]], nearly wiped out during their siege of [[The World Engine]]… which was in 926.M41. ''9380 years later.'' It is possible that they have been refounded after their destruction (like with the [[Minotaurs]]), but this is not being hinted in what is known about them like with the Minotaurs. Or it could have been another fuckup, who knows.

The Offical Cannon does however list the Sable Swords as Losing over 800 Marines in the fighting. So they were most likely Massacred and re-built.

In addition, there's a footnote in the fluff that says the administratum didn't realise that there were two chapters named the Sable Swords until both were destroyed in fighting in the 13th Black Crusade. This probably explains it.

{{40k-Timeline}}
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category: Imperial]]

The War of The Beast

2019-09-26T20:23:47Z

2600:1006:B105:8611:D53C:B0DF:41A1:8F26: /* Terra under threat and the Proletarian Crusade */

{{spoilers}}
{{cleanup}}

'''The War of the Beast''' is the focus of the ''The Beast Arises'' series and is one of the major events in [[40k]] history in which the [[Imperium]] received the biggest [[Anal circumference|buttfucking]] it would ever get in-between the [[Horus Heresy]] and [[Time of Ending|the tremendous dumpster fire that is the late 41st millennium]]. The series serves as a reminder that the Orks represent serious business and, goofy moments aside, they can be as cruel, hateful and threatening as any other enemy of the Imperium.

==The Imperium at the time==
Believe it or not, during the years prior to the biggest [[WAAAGH]]! that has ever been, the Imperium was living in a time one might call peaceful. Yes, there were silly little wars here and there such as the first Black Crusade, the first battle of Cadia, the Battle of the Fang, multiple traitor Primarchs fucking over many worlds, not to mention all of the Daemon cults that were popping up everywhere, but if we ignore all of those 'minor' events/chaos invasions we're left with a few others which basically consisted of the Imperials wiping out some xenos races. The Astartes were ''dying out'' because the author forgot the other shit that happened, the Imperial Fists-for example- hadn't left Terra for centuries and it was said nearly none of its battle brothers had had real battle experience in any substantial terms. The Emperor's Herd had grown complacent.

==The Catastrophe: Slaughter at Ardamantua==
For the first time in centuries, the [[Imperial Fists]] left their role as praetorians of the throneworld and went on to slaughter alien scum known as the '''Chromes''', who were considered little better than non-sentient vermin.

The Fists were caught by surprise by strange gravitational hazards, which started chewing up the landscape and causing their starships to fail and crash, and were dealt severe losses. The [[High Lords of Terra]], reluctant to lend their own aid to the Fists on what they considered a trivial matter of fighting Chrome pests, allowed the remaining Fists who were guarding the throneworld to deploy to Ardamantua, along with a contingent of Guard forces commanded by the '''Lord Commander Militant Heth.'''

When the counter attack commenced, an ENTIRE MOON materialized in the system; the process by which it was traveling had been messing up the planet's gravity, practically destroying it, while causing navigational hazards which scattered the fleets in orbit around Ardamantua, crushing them.

Then appeared the WAAAGH! Beast.
[[Lord of the Rings|This was no mindless rabble of Orks. These were Uruk-hai. Their armour is thick and their shields broad.]] It was said that its Boyz were as strong and big as Space Marines, as tall as them and quite cunning to boot. Its Nobs were quite massive as well. However, its biggest threat was the Ork Warboss: [[The Beast]], (who will bring much) Slaughter. The Beast was a leader of unprecedented tactical acumen and sophistication for an Ork, and thus managed to turn his WAAAGH into a cohesive fighting force that uses actual battlefield tactics and even diplomacy.

Lord Commander Militant Heth died as his forces were slaughtered right after warning the Imperium of the greatest threat they had ever faced before. The Imperial Fists were slaughtered to a man. There remained only one survivor: '''Captain [[Slaughter Koorland]]''', the future [[Chapter Master]] of the [[Imperial Fists]] and then-Lord Commander of the Imperium.

==Galaxy-Spanning Threat==
The WAAAGH! Beast threatened to engulf the whole galaxy: the Guard was bogged down on many fronts, and the Space Marine chapters were mostly tied down trying to fight the invading Orks. The Ultramarines had 2 of their worlds invaded and had been forced to bring in successor reinforcements. Many chapters were annihilated as they struggled to fend off an enemy the likes of which they hadn't ever faced. Worst of all was the fact that the Orks were DEVELOPING technology, having such things as gravitational whips and massive teleporters capable of teleporting whole armadas in the blink of an eye.

The Imperium couldn't help but lose ground as '''Lord High Admiral Lansung''' - leader of the [[Imperial Navy]] and main topdog of the High-Lords - focused more on deploying his fleets to gain favours from other High-Lords and protect his own interests, rather than ferrying the Imperial Guard and fighting the Ork fleets. The rest of the Lords were about as incompetent, barring one man: '''Drakan Vangorich''', the infamous Grand Master of Assassins who would later stage [[The Beheading]]. The man was a patriot and tried his damn best to get the Imperials to move their damn fat asses. The pay off took a while, but it was noticeable.

==Battle for Port Sanctus==
After a lot of political maneuvering and tug-o-war, Lansung decided to move his fat ass into fighting the Orks (mainly because one of his admirals had broken his orders and he didn't want to lose face) for the shipyards of Port Sanctus. There, half of what was a Segmentum's fleet fought the Orks, and it went horribly at the beginning: the Ork attack moon's gravity whip was so powerful that BATTLESHIPS were torn apart by it, and the moon's WAAAGH! gate brought in constant reinforcements to fend off the Imperial Navy as thousands of boarding ships and small cruisers sent in boarding parties to the Imperial vessels, even with the void shields up and the gellar fields on. Lansung decided he couldn't take any more of this shit, and for the first time in two whole novels of total incompetence he went on and got shit done: he led a suicidal assault towards the moon. Dozens of battlecruisers and battleships were lost to the Imperium, but the void shields of the gargantuan construct were drained by the energy consumption and the Imperial Navy was able to obliterate the threat.

==Terra under threat and the Proletarian Crusade==
But all wasn't so well. Yes, the Navy had, at a great cost, destroyed the attack moon ''(and closed its WAAAGH! Gate)'', but the thing was that the Orks had more of those buggers around. And one of them had recently popped out... right by Terra itself. Right then the Navy assets were on Port Sanctus and the massive network of star forts was still in construction. Basically, the throne world was under threat and there was nothing that could defend them. At that time, Lansung's power had been almost lost as many of his political allies turned from him, with a new figure taking his place: '''Juskina Tull.''' Tull, evidently a [[Hot Chicks|rather attractive woman]] who's "decorative" wardrobe is described in some detail in the novel, represented the chartist captains, and had a "brilliant idea" ''(read: a suicidal, stupid idea)'' to lead a crusade [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Crusade from the very bottom]: a "[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Crusade Proletarian Crusade]" made up of the ordinary citizenry of the Imperium. The idea was to take the massive merchant fleet available in Sol and load it chock full with people, guardsmen and civilian alike. Literally billions were ferried into ships that ranged from massive mass conveyors to tiny shuttles in a massive tide of steel. The Ork defense forces shot down a great number (if not the majority) of the vessels, but the Imperials still managed to land millions of sods and hundreds of vehicles.

There they frigging zerg rushed and beat the crap of the Ork forces on the surfaces... only to be crushed by mountains. The Orks manipulated the surface of the moon and shifted the mountains close to a door to the moon's interior. Trapped between the stones, the Imperial Forces were crushed by their own bodies and the master-crafted trap the Orks laid. Still, that the citizens did so well is extremely impressive and goes to show just how vast the Imperium’s manpower truly is. The Ork invasion would have failed anyway when they ran into the literally countless armed and screaming fanatics on Terra below the top levels.

Thus ended the last ditch effort of the Proletarian Crusade, with a single survivor: a female Adeptus Arbite (Arbites, acutally, it’s both singular and plural).

Oh, and the [[Eldar]] show up in the Imperial Palace trying to warn the humans not to let the Orks distract them from [[Chaos]], cuz, you know, Chaos has to be your #1 priority even though the Imperium is being torn apart by killer Ork death stars. This cryptic crap achieves absolutely nothing other than getting the hard-line [[Inquisitor]]s into a frenzy of saying "I told you so" to anyone who will listen.

==The Last Wall, a Legion reunified==
Dorn had envisioned the chance of something BIG happening. So he had ordered his sons that, should the need arise, they reunited at '''Phall''', where the Heresy began for the Imperial Fists. There they would unify into a single legion and fight as one again, albeit keeping their traditional heraldry. The note was sent with not much time in advance, but the majority of the second founding chapters managed to be present. There, Koorland revealed to the utter shock of his fellow chapter masters from the [[Black Templars]], [[Crimson Fists]], [[Excoriators]] and the [[Fists Exemplar]] that he was the last Imperial Fist alive. The truth was almost too much for them to process, but in the end they decided to get over it and banded together. Over 3000 Astartes and 50 ships went into [[Terra]] and led a glorious assault to neutralize the attack moon.

The fleet was joined by the [[Iron Knights]] chapter, and succeeded in destroying the WAAAGH gate at the heart of the moon and rescuing the remaining human prisoners ''(including the aforementioned female Arbitrator),'' but unfortunately leaving the moon intact while also suffering substantial casualties; amongst them was Chapter Master Malfons of the Iron Knights, who sacrificed himself to save Koorland from an Ork Warboss the size of a Dreadnought.

==The Imperium Strikes Back==
After the battle of Terra and the blockade of the attack moon, the Last Wall ''(the new name for the Fist Legion)'' were praised by The Lord Guilliman ''(also: Lord Commander of the Imperium, also: Warmaster, also: your boss)'' '''Udin Macht Udo''' ''(a fellow more useless than Abaddon),'' who wanted to make a show of having five chapters bow to him and invited them to a party. He also wanted to keep the loss of the [[Imperial Fists]] chapter a secret for public relations and ordered the successors to play dress up and give Koorland an honour guard. Udo would also show himself "gracious" enough to ratify Koorlands's position as Chapter Master, since according to rules lawyers, the successors aren't allowed to do that.

The Fists were explicitly ordered NOT to destroy the attack moon that remained in orbit, because the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] wanted the Ork technology for themselves. ''(oh the irony)'' The Fists were also disgusted by the constant power playing between the high lords and were happy enough to leave. Suffice to say, the space marines consider them all dicks.

==The Destruction of Prax (aka "So that thing about Chaos? Orks are Way Worse")==
Despite the warnings from the Eldar, Chaos were also getting their asses kicked by Orks. The [[Iron Warriors]] were getting their ass beat while also being hunted by some Black Templars with a grudge. Realizing that the fight wouldn’t end well, they decided to join forces temporarily, (yes, out of ALL the fucking Marine chapters, the ones headed by [[Rogal Dorn|Dorn]] and [[Perturabo]]), but even with this ultimate show of desperation they still couldn’t overcome the Orks, and just barely managed to survive. When a relief force of Fists Exemplar showed up to pull them out, the Orks used their gravity based weapons to SPAWN A FREAKIN' BLACK HOLE, destroying nearly the entire star system. The Imperial fleet escaped by scattering into the warp, with one ship turning up on '''Prax''' along with the Iron Warriors.

Prax, as it turns out, was a key world in the new "Ork Empire" and the unlikely allies soon discovered that the Orks had been evolving much faster than anticipated. Where previously they were considered to be little more than savages who could hammer bits of technology together and make it work, they now had their own society and specialists, “Bloody Axes" and "Leering Moons" and so forth. They actively conquered and enslaved other races; taking humans, feeding them steroids and farming them like cattle, while some "lucky ones" got their teeth punched out, shaved bald, branded like slaves and pushed into battle as [[Grimdark|auxilia cannon fodder]].

The combined Fists and Iron Warriors destroyed the planet rather than letting the Orks keep it.

Back on Terra, Vangorich manoeuvred Koorland into taking the top job of Lord Guilliman from Udo, who seemed to think it business as usual, despite the Ork threat still signalling imminent doom. The Imperial Fists marched right into the Senatorium and denounced him. Udo tried to order their arrest, but failed to notice that everyone, bar the Ecclesiarch and the Fabricator General, had switched sides and actually wanted someone competent to take command.

==The new regime==
With Koorland in charge, Vangorich brought him evidence of the Mechanicum withholding vital information to the war effort because of their fanatical need to hoard knowledge ''(and abscond with any new Ork tech)''. So Koorland's first act was to land military troops on Mars and bluff the Mechanicum into stepping into line. After a brief "incident" which was totally not a micro-civil war, the Fabricator General finally started singing the Imperial national anthem and revealed that the Orks were coming from '''Ullanor''', which had sunk into ancient legend because of its significance to the Great Crusade.

Deciding the Imperium needed its own legend, they went looking for [[Vulkan]], since the [[Inquisition]] conveniently knew where he was ''(and had been for a thousand years)''. Gathering a fleet, they went to the backwater volcanic planet and found Vulkan singlehandedly defending it against MILLIONS of Orks. Their arrival turned the tide, scattering and slaughtering the Ork invasion force. They even managed to destroy the attack moon being constructed in orbit. GOOD JOB IMPERIUM.

==Attack on the Beast==
With Vulkan on board and confirming Koorland's position, the Imperium launched an assault against the Beast Capital, though upon coming to Ullanor the Imperial Fleet found massive resistance and were forced to adopt a suicide approach in order to allow troops to disembark. Once landed, the armies of the Imperium stormed The Beast's main citadel, and after a brutal raid a killteam composed of the Primarch himself and a bunch of chapter masters found the Beast, first confusing it with an humongous statue. The Beast soon revealed its power, reducing the Smurf Chapter Master to a bloody pulp (seems like Games Workshop has finally apologized for 5th edition) and killing most of the Imperial forces in a few minutes. Vulkan ordered the survivors to pull back while he dueled the Beast. Vulkan then went full martyrdom: he used his own might to refocus the Waaagh! psychic energy to blow both himself and the Beast up. The Imperial armies retreated from the planet thinking the Beast slain, at the cost of a Primarch. Upon reaching Terra, they discovered to their horror that the Beast had somehow survived the confrontation.

==The Deathwatch is born, the Sisters of Silence return==
With the Imperium getting overrun, Koorland and Vangorich envisioned the creation of the Deathwatch. Knowing that this would not be enough, the Imperials, helped by inquisitor Veritus, managed to get the Sisters of Silence back from their self-imposed exile. Koorland ordered a new assault on Ullanor, this time using the brand new Deathwatch and the Sisters to assassinate The Beast. Sadly, they only managed to get a shadow of the former forces thrown into the assault, as the High Nutheads of Terra argued they couldn't leave Segmentum Solar undefended or something (not that it would matter in a few months, considering how bad the war was going). Still Koorland managed to punch through the Ork defenses once more and this time, with the help of the Sisters and an Ork psyker getting used as a Waaagh! chain-reaction bomb, he managed to kill the Beast. Except it wasn't The Beast, but a lesser Prime-Ork. The real Beast appeared and proceeded to kill Koorland and destroy his [[Geneseed|progenoids]], effectively destroying the Imperial Fists. The remaining survivors, seeing defeat, were totally demoralized and forced to pull back.

==The Fist of the Imperium==
The Imperium had mere weeks of life left, with their entire galactic military on the verge of annihilation and thousands of worlds being overrun, their populations murdered by an unending tide of Orks. Meanwhile, on [[Inwit]], [[Maximus Thane]], Chapter Master of the [[Fists Exemplar]], presided the successor chapters a farewell ceremony for the last Imperial Fist, which took the form of the [[Feast of Blades]]. While competing (and subsequently winning) the Feast, suddenly he got an idea: so, the Last Wall protocol was active, right? That means technically the Imperial Fists legion was back, riiiiight? So, technically they could just say they were Imperial Fists too. After some agreement with the successors they pooled up and reformed the Imperial Fists, because, why not?

He returned and asked the High Lords what they thought about it; some of them didn't get it and refused to cooperate, so Thane, teaming up with Vangorich, got them in line at gun point (finally, someone got fed up with them) and forced them to unleash everything they got in a last ditch assault against Ullanor, '''''everything!''''' Regiments of Astra Militarum, Skitarii macro-clades, Titans, Mechanicus and Imperial Navy capital ships were sent. And this time, they decided to take note of the Orks' tactics, retaliating [[Awesome|by unleashing asteroids against the Ork Capital, filled with the entire newly reformed Imperial Fists chapter and the remaining Sisters of Silence]] (problem, [[Administratum|Adepts]]?), and it worked! With the combination of asteroid drop, point-blank orbital bombardment and a Chapter-sized spearhead, they forced a breach into the Beast stronghold; using the last remaining captured Ork psykers, they finally managed to kill the main Beast, the other Beasts and all nearby Orks, ultimately cleaning Ullanor of Ork presence and finally breaking the back of the greenskins' unified galactic assault. The planet would have then been subjected to Exterminatus in order to ensure the greenskin threat was over, but the AdMech instead teleported the planet elsewhere so they could loot the Ork technology for themselves.

==Aftermath==
The Imperium was saved! Chapter Master Thane and the Imperial Fists had defeated the Ork menace, but the Imperium's flaws had not been fixed, and in light of the Adeptus Mechanicus' blatant disregard for how close the Orks had been to wiping out Terra, Vangorich decided it was time to fix things forever.

Interestingly, [[The Beheading|killing most of the High Lords of Terra]] actually wasn't as bad as the one-sentence timeline entry seemed to think. For the first few decades, Vangorich's single-handedly ruling the Imperium while Thane was busy recovering all the territories lost to the Orks seemed to work. Sadly, the fear that future High Lords could screw things up caused Vangorich to go mad- like, Angron-mad, and he established a reign of terror (brutal even by the standards of the Imperium) on Terra. In the end, Thane went back and stormed the Throneworld to kill Vangorich (by this point you may be wondering why is it that Failbaddon, Imotekh or the Tyranids find this so hard).

Vangorich unleashed the killing talents of the combined Assassin Temples on the liberating forces. His final stronghold was home to 100 Eversors, and if you watched that video made by Karl the Deranged from the Alpha Legion then you may imagine how bad it went for Thane. Fortunately, the final assassin was an ex-operative of Vangorich forcefully converted into a WRRYYY! who fought against his psycho-conditioning and gave Thane the opening to kill Vangorich. The erstwhile Grandmaster's final words were

{{quote|Wanna know how [[Konrad Curze]] died?}}

The rest is history. Hey, this series was cool, and unlike the Horus Heresy, it actually went somewhere, don't you agree? {{BLAM}}

==Major revelations==

'''Here come some major spoilers!'''

The series has revealed many events which have previously only been hinted at or not really touched on at all:
*The [[Imperial Fists]] were completely wiped out during the war, it took the combined effort of the successor chapters to bring them back.
*It was Captain Koorland who came up with the idea of creating the Deathwatch from the marines who have survived the first months of the war.
*Drakan Vangorich was actually quite a cool guy, and it was only after 100 years passed from the beheading that he went mad and had to be removed.
*The novel series gives an excellent idea of the state of the human colonies during the Age of Strife when there wasn't an Imperium to defend mankind from the alien threat and why surrendering to xenos was a very bad idea.
*That inquisitor named Veritus? None other than Kyril Sindermann, formerly the Luna Wolves' [[Iterator]] and one of the founders of both the [[Imperial Creed]] and the Inquisition. This explains how he knew so much about, well, everything, and he came with the idea of the Ordo Malleus and the Ordo Xenos as separate defined branches, making him the grand-daddy of the modern Inquisition.
*Chapter Master Janus from the [[Grey Knights]] makes a cameo.
*Vulkan was still alive, and of course he will still be due being a perpetual, but it was good to have him back for a while, also, there are hints Rogal Dorn may be still alive too.
*After the defeat of the Beast the Mechanicus feinted destroying the planet of Ullanor by teleporting it to another solar system. It has become well known in the 41st millennium by the name of [[Armageddon]] (yeah THAT Armageddon).
*All the remaining Sisters of Silence were killed during the final battle against the Beast, the last one sacrificing herself to destroy the Ork-Prime, however it seems they too were later restablished, even if not so well funded and nurmerous as in M41, they arrived on Luna to stop Magnus from mopping the floor with Guilliman.
*[[Eldrad]] had a hand helping the Imperium to stop the orks, and during the final passages of the last book it was revealed to him that Mankind and [[Eldar]] fates are irrevocably intertwined.
*Throughout the siege of Terra, the Orks taunted the defenders with transmissions from orbit across all vox-channels in their own tongue: the name of their commander, a phrase roughly translating as "Beast", "I am Slaughter", or "Lord Who Brings Great Slaughter". It is revealed in the final passages of the last book that, in Orkish, this phrase is "Mag Uruk Thraka". Granted, [[Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka]] has exactly nothing on the Beast...at least, not yet.
**It's worth considering that the Orks believe that dead Orks go back to Gork and Mork to be belched into another body. And when ten zillion Orks believe a thing...
*Orks can be eradicated in mass through the use of the Pariah Gene and Weirdboyz, but only if the WAAAGH energies reach a certain critical mass first. Unfortunately, this is when they are also at their strongest, and Pariahs with enough power to pull it off are a rarity themselves.

{{40k-Timeline}}

The War of The Beast

2019-09-26T20:21:55Z

2600:1006:B105:8611:D53C:B0DF:41A1:8F26: /* Terra under threat and the Proletarian Crusade */

{{spoilers}}
{{cleanup}}

'''The War of the Beast''' is the focus of the ''The Beast Arises'' series and is one of the major events in [[40k]] history in which the [[Imperium]] received the biggest [[Anal circumference|buttfucking]] it would ever get in-between the [[Horus Heresy]] and [[Time of Ending|the tremendous dumpster fire that is the late 41st millennium]]. The series serves as a reminder that the Orks represent serious business and, goofy moments aside, they can be as cruel, hateful and threatening as any other enemy of the Imperium.

==The Imperium at the time==
Believe it or not, during the years prior to the biggest [[WAAAGH]]! that has ever been, the Imperium was living in a time one might call peaceful. Yes, there were silly little wars here and there such as the first Black Crusade, the first battle of Cadia, the Battle of the Fang, multiple traitor Primarchs fucking over many worlds, not to mention all of the Daemon cults that were popping up everywhere, but if we ignore all of those 'minor' events/chaos invasions we're left with a few others which basically consisted of the Imperials wiping out some xenos races. The Astartes were ''dying out'' because the author forgot the other shit that happened, the Imperial Fists-for example- hadn't left Terra for centuries and it was said nearly none of its battle brothers had had real battle experience in any substantial terms. The Emperor's Herd had grown complacent.

==The Catastrophe: Slaughter at Ardamantua==
For the first time in centuries, the [[Imperial Fists]] left their role as praetorians of the throneworld and went on to slaughter alien scum known as the '''Chromes''', who were considered little better than non-sentient vermin.

The Fists were caught by surprise by strange gravitational hazards, which started chewing up the landscape and causing their starships to fail and crash, and were dealt severe losses. The [[High Lords of Terra]], reluctant to lend their own aid to the Fists on what they considered a trivial matter of fighting Chrome pests, allowed the remaining Fists who were guarding the throneworld to deploy to Ardamantua, along with a contingent of Guard forces commanded by the '''Lord Commander Militant Heth.'''

When the counter attack commenced, an ENTIRE MOON materialized in the system; the process by which it was traveling had been messing up the planet's gravity, practically destroying it, while causing navigational hazards which scattered the fleets in orbit around Ardamantua, crushing them.

Then appeared the WAAAGH! Beast.
[[Lord of the Rings|This was no mindless rabble of Orks. These were Uruk-hai. Their armour is thick and their shields broad.]] It was said that its Boyz were as strong and big as Space Marines, as tall as them and quite cunning to boot. Its Nobs were quite massive as well. However, its biggest threat was the Ork Warboss: [[The Beast]], (who will bring much) Slaughter. The Beast was a leader of unprecedented tactical acumen and sophistication for an Ork, and thus managed to turn his WAAAGH into a cohesive fighting force that uses actual battlefield tactics and even diplomacy.

Lord Commander Militant Heth died as his forces were slaughtered right after warning the Imperium of the greatest threat they had ever faced before. The Imperial Fists were slaughtered to a man. There remained only one survivor: '''Captain [[Slaughter Koorland]]''', the future [[Chapter Master]] of the [[Imperial Fists]] and then-Lord Commander of the Imperium.

==Galaxy-Spanning Threat==
The WAAAGH! Beast threatened to engulf the whole galaxy: the Guard was bogged down on many fronts, and the Space Marine chapters were mostly tied down trying to fight the invading Orks. The Ultramarines had 2 of their worlds invaded and had been forced to bring in successor reinforcements. Many chapters were annihilated as they struggled to fend off an enemy the likes of which they hadn't ever faced. Worst of all was the fact that the Orks were DEVELOPING technology, having such things as gravitational whips and massive teleporters capable of teleporting whole armadas in the blink of an eye.

The Imperium couldn't help but lose ground as '''Lord High Admiral Lansung''' - leader of the [[Imperial Navy]] and main topdog of the High-Lords - focused more on deploying his fleets to gain favours from other High-Lords and protect his own interests, rather than ferrying the Imperial Guard and fighting the Ork fleets. The rest of the Lords were about as incompetent, barring one man: '''Drakan Vangorich''', the infamous Grand Master of Assassins who would later stage [[The Beheading]]. The man was a patriot and tried his damn best to get the Imperials to move their damn fat asses. The pay off took a while, but it was noticeable.

==Battle for Port Sanctus==
After a lot of political maneuvering and tug-o-war, Lansung decided to move his fat ass into fighting the Orks (mainly because one of his admirals had broken his orders and he didn't want to lose face) for the shipyards of Port Sanctus. There, half of what was a Segmentum's fleet fought the Orks, and it went horribly at the beginning: the Ork attack moon's gravity whip was so powerful that BATTLESHIPS were torn apart by it, and the moon's WAAAGH! gate brought in constant reinforcements to fend off the Imperial Navy as thousands of boarding ships and small cruisers sent in boarding parties to the Imperial vessels, even with the void shields up and the gellar fields on. Lansung decided he couldn't take any more of this shit, and for the first time in two whole novels of total incompetence he went on and got shit done: he led a suicidal assault towards the moon. Dozens of battlecruisers and battleships were lost to the Imperium, but the void shields of the gargantuan construct were drained by the energy consumption and the Imperial Navy was able to obliterate the threat.

==Terra under threat and the Proletarian Crusade==
But all wasn't so well. Yes, the Navy had, at a great cost, destroyed the attack moon ''(and closed its WAAAGH! Gate)'', but the thing was that the Orks had more of those buggers around. And one of them had recently popped out... right by Terra itself. Right then the Navy assets were on Port Sanctus and the massive network of star forts was still in construction. Basically, the throne world was under threat and there was nothing that could defend them. At that time, Lansung's power had been almost lost as many of his political allies turned from him, with a new figure taking his place: '''Juskina Tull.''' Tull, evidently a [[Hot Chicks|rather attractive woman]] who's "decorative" wardrobe is described in some detail in the novel, represented the chartist captains, and had a "brilliant idea" ''(read: a suicidal, stupid idea)'' to lead a crusade [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Crusade from the very bottom]: a "[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Crusade Proletarian Crusade]" made up of the ordinary citizenry of the Imperium. The idea was to take the massive merchant fleet available in Sol and load it chock full with people, guardsmen and civilian alike. Literally billions were ferried into ships that ranged from massive mass conveyors to tiny shuttles in a massive tide of steel. The Ork defense forces shot down a great number (if not the majority) of the vessels, but the Imperials still managed to land millions of sods and hundreds of vehicles.

There they frigging zerg rushed and beat the crap of the Ork forces on the surfaces... only to be crushed by mountains. The Orks manipulated the surface of the moon and shifted the mountains close to a door to the moon's interior. Trapped between the stones, the Imperial Forces were crushed by their own bodies and the master-crafted trap the Orks laid.

Thus ended the last ditch effort of the Proletarian Crusade, with a single survivor: a female Adeptus Arbite (Arbites, acutally, it’s both singular and plural).

Oh, and the [[Eldar]] show up in the Imperial Palace trying to warn the humans not to let the Orks distract them from [[Chaos]], cuz, you know, Chaos has to be your #1 priority even though the Imperium is being torn apart by killer Ork death stars. This cryptic crap achieves absolutely nothing other than getting the hard-line [[Inquisitor]]s into a frenzy of saying "I told you so" to anyone who will listen.

==The Last Wall, a Legion reunified==
Dorn had envisioned the chance of something BIG happening. So he had ordered his sons that, should the need arise, they reunited at '''Phall''', where the Heresy began for the Imperial Fists. There they would unify into a single legion and fight as one again, albeit keeping their traditional heraldry. The note was sent with not much time in advance, but the majority of the second founding chapters managed to be present. There, Koorland revealed to the utter shock of his fellow chapter masters from the [[Black Templars]], [[Crimson Fists]], [[Excoriators]] and the [[Fists Exemplar]] that he was the last Imperial Fist alive. The truth was almost too much for them to process, but in the end they decided to get over it and banded together. Over 3000 Astartes and 50 ships went into [[Terra]] and led a glorious assault to neutralize the attack moon.

The fleet was joined by the [[Iron Knights]] chapter, and succeeded in destroying the WAAAGH gate at the heart of the moon and rescuing the remaining human prisoners ''(including the aforementioned female Arbitrator),'' but unfortunately leaving the moon intact while also suffering substantial casualties; amongst them was Chapter Master Malfons of the Iron Knights, who sacrificed himself to save Koorland from an Ork Warboss the size of a Dreadnought.

==The Imperium Strikes Back==
After the battle of Terra and the blockade of the attack moon, the Last Wall ''(the new name for the Fist Legion)'' were praised by The Lord Guilliman ''(also: Lord Commander of the Imperium, also: Warmaster, also: your boss)'' '''Udin Macht Udo''' ''(a fellow more useless than Abaddon),'' who wanted to make a show of having five chapters bow to him and invited them to a party. He also wanted to keep the loss of the [[Imperial Fists]] chapter a secret for public relations and ordered the successors to play dress up and give Koorland an honour guard. Udo would also show himself "gracious" enough to ratify Koorlands's position as Chapter Master, since according to rules lawyers, the successors aren't allowed to do that.

The Fists were explicitly ordered NOT to destroy the attack moon that remained in orbit, because the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] wanted the Ork technology for themselves. ''(oh the irony)'' The Fists were also disgusted by the constant power playing between the high lords and were happy enough to leave. Suffice to say, the space marines consider them all dicks.

==The Destruction of Prax (aka "So that thing about Chaos? Orks are Way Worse")==
Despite the warnings from the Eldar, Chaos were also getting their asses kicked by Orks. The [[Iron Warriors]] were getting their ass beat while also being hunted by some Black Templars with a grudge. Realizing that the fight wouldn’t end well, they decided to join forces temporarily, (yes, out of ALL the fucking Marine chapters, the ones headed by [[Rogal Dorn|Dorn]] and [[Perturabo]]), but even with this ultimate show of desperation they still couldn’t overcome the Orks, and just barely managed to survive. When a relief force of Fists Exemplar showed up to pull them out, the Orks used their gravity based weapons to SPAWN A FREAKIN' BLACK HOLE, destroying nearly the entire star system. The Imperial fleet escaped by scattering into the warp, with one ship turning up on '''Prax''' along with the Iron Warriors.

Prax, as it turns out, was a key world in the new "Ork Empire" and the unlikely allies soon discovered that the Orks had been evolving much faster than anticipated. Where previously they were considered to be little more than savages who could hammer bits of technology together and make it work, they now had their own society and specialists, “Bloody Axes" and "Leering Moons" and so forth. They actively conquered and enslaved other races; taking humans, feeding them steroids and farming them like cattle, while some "lucky ones" got their teeth punched out, shaved bald, branded like slaves and pushed into battle as [[Grimdark|auxilia cannon fodder]].

The combined Fists and Iron Warriors destroyed the planet rather than letting the Orks keep it.

Back on Terra, Vangorich manoeuvred Koorland into taking the top job of Lord Guilliman from Udo, who seemed to think it business as usual, despite the Ork threat still signalling imminent doom. The Imperial Fists marched right into the Senatorium and denounced him. Udo tried to order their arrest, but failed to notice that everyone, bar the Ecclesiarch and the Fabricator General, had switched sides and actually wanted someone competent to take command.

==The new regime==
With Koorland in charge, Vangorich brought him evidence of the Mechanicum withholding vital information to the war effort because of their fanatical need to hoard knowledge ''(and abscond with any new Ork tech)''. So Koorland's first act was to land military troops on Mars and bluff the Mechanicum into stepping into line. After a brief "incident" which was totally not a micro-civil war, the Fabricator General finally started singing the Imperial national anthem and revealed that the Orks were coming from '''Ullanor''', which had sunk into ancient legend because of its significance to the Great Crusade.

Deciding the Imperium needed its own legend, they went looking for [[Vulkan]], since the [[Inquisition]] conveniently knew where he was ''(and had been for a thousand years)''. Gathering a fleet, they went to the backwater volcanic planet and found Vulkan singlehandedly defending it against MILLIONS of Orks. Their arrival turned the tide, scattering and slaughtering the Ork invasion force. They even managed to destroy the attack moon being constructed in orbit. GOOD JOB IMPERIUM.

==Attack on the Beast==
With Vulkan on board and confirming Koorland's position, the Imperium launched an assault against the Beast Capital, though upon coming to Ullanor the Imperial Fleet found massive resistance and were forced to adopt a suicide approach in order to allow troops to disembark. Once landed, the armies of the Imperium stormed The Beast's main citadel, and after a brutal raid a killteam composed of the Primarch himself and a bunch of chapter masters found the Beast, first confusing it with an humongous statue. The Beast soon revealed its power, reducing the Smurf Chapter Master to a bloody pulp (seems like Games Workshop has finally apologized for 5th edition) and killing most of the Imperial forces in a few minutes. Vulkan ordered the survivors to pull back while he dueled the Beast. Vulkan then went full martyrdom: he used his own might to refocus the Waaagh! psychic energy to blow both himself and the Beast up. The Imperial armies retreated from the planet thinking the Beast slain, at the cost of a Primarch. Upon reaching Terra, they discovered to their horror that the Beast had somehow survived the confrontation.

==The Deathwatch is born, the Sisters of Silence return==
With the Imperium getting overrun, Koorland and Vangorich envisioned the creation of the Deathwatch. Knowing that this would not be enough, the Imperials, helped by inquisitor Veritus, managed to get the Sisters of Silence back from their self-imposed exile. Koorland ordered a new assault on Ullanor, this time using the brand new Deathwatch and the Sisters to assassinate The Beast. Sadly, they only managed to get a shadow of the former forces thrown into the assault, as the High Nutheads of Terra argued they couldn't leave Segmentum Solar undefended or something (not that it would matter in a few months, considering how bad the war was going). Still Koorland managed to punch through the Ork defenses once more and this time, with the help of the Sisters and an Ork psyker getting used as a Waaagh! chain-reaction bomb, he managed to kill the Beast. Except it wasn't The Beast, but a lesser Prime-Ork. The real Beast appeared and proceeded to kill Koorland and destroy his [[Geneseed|progenoids]], effectively destroying the Imperial Fists. The remaining survivors, seeing defeat, were totally demoralized and forced to pull back.

==The Fist of the Imperium==
The Imperium had mere weeks of life left, with their entire galactic military on the verge of annihilation and thousands of worlds being overrun, their populations murdered by an unending tide of Orks. Meanwhile, on [[Inwit]], [[Maximus Thane]], Chapter Master of the [[Fists Exemplar]], presided the successor chapters a farewell ceremony for the last Imperial Fist, which took the form of the [[Feast of Blades]]. While competing (and subsequently winning) the Feast, suddenly he got an idea: so, the Last Wall protocol was active, right? That means technically the Imperial Fists legion was back, riiiiight? So, technically they could just say they were Imperial Fists too. After some agreement with the successors they pooled up and reformed the Imperial Fists, because, why not?

He returned and asked the High Lords what they thought about it; some of them didn't get it and refused to cooperate, so Thane, teaming up with Vangorich, got them in line at gun point (finally, someone got fed up with them) and forced them to unleash everything they got in a last ditch assault against Ullanor, '''''everything!''''' Regiments of Astra Militarum, Skitarii macro-clades, Titans, Mechanicus and Imperial Navy capital ships were sent. And this time, they decided to take note of the Orks' tactics, retaliating [[Awesome|by unleashing asteroids against the Ork Capital, filled with the entire newly reformed Imperial Fists chapter and the remaining Sisters of Silence]] (problem, [[Administratum|Adepts]]?), and it worked! With the combination of asteroid drop, point-blank orbital bombardment and a Chapter-sized spearhead, they forced a breach into the Beast stronghold; using the last remaining captured Ork psykers, they finally managed to kill the main Beast, the other Beasts and all nearby Orks, ultimately cleaning Ullanor of Ork presence and finally breaking the back of the greenskins' unified galactic assault. The planet would have then been subjected to Exterminatus in order to ensure the greenskin threat was over, but the AdMech instead teleported the planet elsewhere so they could loot the Ork technology for themselves.

==Aftermath==
The Imperium was saved! Chapter Master Thane and the Imperial Fists had defeated the Ork menace, but the Imperium's flaws had not been fixed, and in light of the Adeptus Mechanicus' blatant disregard for how close the Orks had been to wiping out Terra, Vangorich decided it was time to fix things forever.

Interestingly, [[The Beheading|killing most of the High Lords of Terra]] actually wasn't as bad as the one-sentence timeline entry seemed to think. For the first few decades, Vangorich's single-handedly ruling the Imperium while Thane was busy recovering all the territories lost to the Orks seemed to work. Sadly, the fear that future High Lords could screw things up caused Vangorich to go mad- like, Angron-mad, and he established a reign of terror (brutal even by the standards of the Imperium) on Terra. In the end, Thane went back and stormed the Throneworld to kill Vangorich (by this point you may be wondering why is it that Failbaddon, Imotekh or the Tyranids find this so hard).

Vangorich unleashed the killing talents of the combined Assassin Temples on the liberating forces. His final stronghold was home to 100 Eversors, and if you watched that video made by Karl the Deranged from the Alpha Legion then you may imagine how bad it went for Thane. Fortunately, the final assassin was an ex-operative of Vangorich forcefully converted into a WRRYYY! who fought against his psycho-conditioning and gave Thane the opening to kill Vangorich. The erstwhile Grandmaster's final words were

{{quote|Wanna know how [[Konrad Curze]] died?}}

The rest is history. Hey, this series was cool, and unlike the Horus Heresy, it actually went somewhere, don't you agree? {{BLAM}}

==Major revelations==

'''Here come some major spoilers!'''

The series has revealed many events which have previously only been hinted at or not really touched on at all:
*The [[Imperial Fists]] were completely wiped out during the war, it took the combined effort of the successor chapters to bring them back.
*It was Captain Koorland who came up with the idea of creating the Deathwatch from the marines who have survived the first months of the war.
*Drakan Vangorich was actually quite a cool guy, and it was only after 100 years passed from the beheading that he went mad and had to be removed.
*The novel series gives an excellent idea of the state of the human colonies during the Age of Strife when there wasn't an Imperium to defend mankind from the alien threat and why surrendering to xenos was a very bad idea.
*That inquisitor named Veritus? None other than Kyril Sindermann, formerly the Luna Wolves' [[Iterator]] and one of the founders of both the [[Imperial Creed]] and the Inquisition. This explains how he knew so much about, well, everything, and he came with the idea of the Ordo Malleus and the Ordo Xenos as separate defined branches, making him the grand-daddy of the modern Inquisition.
*Chapter Master Janus from the [[Grey Knights]] makes a cameo.
*Vulkan was still alive, and of course he will still be due being a perpetual, but it was good to have him back for a while, also, there are hints Rogal Dorn may be still alive too.
*After the defeat of the Beast the Mechanicus feinted destroying the planet of Ullanor by teleporting it to another solar system. It has become well known in the 41st millennium by the name of [[Armageddon]] (yeah THAT Armageddon).
*All the remaining Sisters of Silence were killed during the final battle against the Beast, the last one sacrificing herself to destroy the Ork-Prime, however it seems they too were later restablished, even if not so well funded and nurmerous as in M41, they arrived on Luna to stop Magnus from mopping the floor with Guilliman.
*[[Eldrad]] had a hand helping the Imperium to stop the orks, and during the final passages of the last book it was revealed to him that Mankind and [[Eldar]] fates are irrevocably intertwined.
*Throughout the siege of Terra, the Orks taunted the defenders with transmissions from orbit across all vox-channels in their own tongue: the name of their commander, a phrase roughly translating as "Beast", "I am Slaughter", or "Lord Who Brings Great Slaughter". It is revealed in the final passages of the last book that, in Orkish, this phrase is "Mag Uruk Thraka". Granted, [[Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka]] has exactly nothing on the Beast...at least, not yet.
**It's worth considering that the Orks believe that dead Orks go back to Gork and Mork to be belched into another body. And when ten zillion Orks believe a thing...
*Orks can be eradicated in mass through the use of the Pariah Gene and Weirdboyz, but only if the WAAAGH energies reach a certain critical mass first. Unfortunately, this is when they are also at their strongest, and Pariahs with enough power to pull it off are a rarity themselves.

{{40k-Timeline}}

Culexus

2019-09-26T19:49:51Z

2600:1006:B105:8611:D53C:B0DF:41A1:8F26: /* Overview */

[[File:Culexus.jpg|400px|thumb|right|You done fucked up]]
{{Topquote|That which is unknown and unseen commands the greatest fear.|Motto of the Culexus Temple}}

'''Culexus''' ([[Games Workshop]]-Latin of "Culex," meaning "Mosquito", sucking warp power instead of blood) is an [[Assassin]] temple of the [[Officio Assassinorum]] in [[Warhammer 40,000]]. They are all psychic blanks (aka Pariahs or nulls), meaning they have no signature in the [[Warp]] and generally mess with psykers.

==Overview==
The origin of the Pariah gene is an unknown, it may have been part of the [[C'tan|Deceiver's]] plans to fuck with the [[Old Ones]], but much of that fluff is no longer referenced and is believed to be [[Matt Ward|retconned]]. More recent fluff variously considers the gene to be leftover by some tampering during the [[Dark Age of Technology]], or some kind of evolutionary adaptation against the forces of the the warp.

Individuals with the Pariah gene are rare enough, but to regular humans, their aura is filled with some degree of sickness both figuratively and literally that it means that a lot of them are killed during their early years of childhood. Coupled with the fact that the [[Sisters of Silence]] have been quietly maintaining their numbers for millennia and the Inquisition have their own various uses for Pariahs means that the Officio Assassinorum has to do well to get their hands on any. That, and most initiates to the Officio Assasinorum undergo merciless testing that thins their numbers out even further before they can even undertake their first apprenticeships within their Temples, meaning that the "rare few" pariahs the temple receives probably dwindles even further. That said, given pariahs’ usefulness and rarity, the Culexus is likely much more careful with their initiate’s lives than the other temples so that failures can still be useful to the Imperium.

As early as the [[Great Crusade]] the Culexus Clade/Temple had been working with the Mechanicum to clone their own pariahs in laboratories, which is certainly is one way to bulk up the numbers. Though at some point prior to the [[Siege of Terra]] the Tech-Priests declared that they were ending their "Pariah Project" and made a big show of "executing" their specimens. Though the records of the event revealed that the [[A Game of Pretend|number of executions didn't match the number of pariahs]], and what they actually did was move themselves to a hidden fortress on Terra to continue the project.

After the Wars of Vindication in M36, there was a requirement that the temples be separated from each other to avoid corruption, so the Culexus Temple moved to a hidden planetoid somewhere beyond the reach of the [[Astronomican]], and keeps all Assassins within the facility unless they are on active duty; meaning [[Neckbeard|they really don't have much of a social life outside the Officio Assassinorum.]] Ironically, at some time after M37, the Adeptus Mechanicus attempted to claim ownership of the Fortress of the Soulless on Terra ''(likely the one they built in the first place, but left abandoned)'' but got into a conflict with the entire Officio Assassinorum who ended the crisis with a [[Vindicare|snipers bullet]]. Say what you want about the Assassinorum, but at least respect that they seriously stand up for each other.

Those who survive their initiation receive biological implants to increase their reaction speed and agility, which when coupled with their extensive training means that a Culexus assassin is one of the deadliest and rarest individuals in the Imperium.

A fully trained Culexus assassin is pretty much the worst thing a psyker could ever encounter, as their mere presence is enough to cause considerable pain and even death to weak-minded psykers. The Eldar harbor a particular hatred and fear of blanks, what with every Eldar being a psyker and whatnot. Furthermore, blanks are totally invisible to daemons due to their lack of warp signature. The Culexus assassins therefore target exclusively psykers, as most psykers would rather chew their own arteries out and slowly bleed to death than face one.

And not only psykers, like that time a full [[Assassinorum_Execution_Force|Execution force]] (4 assassins, one of each kind) was sent to kill Tau VIPs...and the only one to succeed was the Culexus. And Tau don't even have psykers! Still, even against non-psychic targets, the Culexus has the advantages of a maddening aura of distilled fear and pseudo-invisibility, their Pariah gene allowing them to be ignored ''so hard'' by both the living, the machines and the [[Daemon|neverborn]] that this one "sneaked" inside a transport by merely not bumping into the passengers, like a fa/tg/guy in a disco.

<strike>Culexuses</strike> <strike>Culexii</strike> These guys also somehow manage to have no soul so hard (nah, they just have a weird sort of anti-soul, and psyker's reaction to them is kinda like an anti-matter and matter reaction) that they're able to fire beams of not-soul (anti-soul) out of the gun attached to their heads and assuming there's enough psykers around, this beam can become arguably one of the best anti-infantry guns in the game.

==On the Tabletop==

With the advent of a new edition, the Officio Assassinorum is undergoing a fire sale (no, of course not in model prices)! The culexus is no exception. Still the same psyker-screwing, hard-to-hit unit it always was, it is now even harder to target with shooting thanks to being a CHARACTER. Solo operatives indeed. The downside is the boatload of special rules that made assassins feel special are just available to everyone now. At least you throw your grenade and shoot your... speculum... in the same phase. And you thought ''your'' last cancer screening was uncomfortable.

Its stats are as awesome as all the other Assassins:

{| class=wikitable
! || Pts || M || WS || BS || S || T || W || A || Ld || Sv
|-
| '''Culexus Assassin''' || 85 || 7" ||2+||2+|| 4 || 4 || 5 || 4 || 9 || 6+/4++
|}

'''Special Rules'''

*'''Independent Operative:''' Can't have a warlord trait and can appear out of fuckin' nowhere more than 9" away from an enemy model. Just in range for their Animus and maybe even a charge.
*'''Lightning Reflexes:''' A model with this special rule has a 4+ invulnerable save. In addition, they do not suffer the penalty to their Initiative for charging enemies through difficult terrain. That said, initiative is gone now.
*'''Life Drain:''' All attacks made by the Culexus in close combat ignore armor saves. Yeah, that's right. No AP -4, no AP -5, no armor at all. Very useful in combination with null zone.
*'''Abomination:''' Now gets the credit it deserves for being disliked by everyone, not just psykers. In addition to total immunity to psychic powers, it now just gives a flat -2 to most enemy psychic rolling within 18". Add all these abilities up, and you've just successfully created a bubble with a 18" radius that no smart player using psykers will enter.
*'''Psychic Assassin:''' Can ignore the CHARACTER targeting limitations that it so greedily benefits from when trying to shoot at psykers.

'''Equipment'''
*'''Animus Speculum:''' Much more normal in 8th, now just gets a better number of shots if within 18" of psykers. Still S5, still not really that concerned about armor (AP -4).
*'''Psyk-Out Grenades:''' Now just kinda-crappy grenades with that on-6+-to-hit-deal-a-bonus-mortal-wound rule that replaced rending. Sadly limited only to psykers. As if psykers needed help receiving mortal wounds.
*'''Etherium:''' All units targeting the Culexus Assassin, in close combat or range, have to shoot or hit at BS and WS 6+. Psykers hate Culexi by default, but this is why ''everyone'' hates him. Be wary of stuff that can ignore this like Kharn hitting on 2+ in CC (why you would try to fight Kharn in assault with a Culexus is beyond us).

All in all, the Culexus is for killing Psykers, and he is horrifyingly good at it. Unless you charge them into the Daemon Primarch Magnus, in which case you deserve the results you'll get.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Image:1204002502106og9.jpg|Culexus assassins are psyker's worst nightmare, though they are very friendly.
File:Aun'Va is Fucked Three Ways to Sunday.png|600px|right|thumb|The fate of [[Aun'Va]] [[Tau|and his Blueberry cohorts.]] [[RAPE|Their souls fucked so bad it makes even]] [[Slaanesh]] [[FATAL|stop his/her/its orgy in horror.]]
Image:Shoo_Fly_by_IronShrineMaiden.jpg|Culexus-kun has no friends.
Image:Culexus_LOLWUT.jpg|Culexus will bring LOLWUT to the enemy.
Image:C_TS.jpg|Nobody likes you.
</gallery>
{{Inquisition}}
{{Template:Imperium}}

Culexus

2019-09-26T19:47:17Z

2600:1006:B105:8611:D53C:B0DF:41A1:8F26: /* Overview */

[[File:Culexus.jpg|400px|thumb|right|You done fucked up]]
{{Topquote|That which is unknown and unseen commands the greatest fear.|Motto of the Culexus Temple}}

'''Culexus''' ([[Games Workshop]]-Latin of "Culex," meaning "Mosquito", sucking warp power instead of blood) is an [[Assassin]] temple of the [[Officio Assassinorum]] in [[Warhammer 40,000]]. They are all psychic blanks (aka Pariahs or nulls), meaning they have no signature in the [[Warp]] and generally mess with psykers.

==Overview==
The origin of the Pariah gene is an unknown, it may have been part of the [[C'tan|Deceiver's]] plans to fuck with the [[Old Ones]], but much of that fluff is no longer referenced and is believed to be [[Matt Ward|retconned]]. More recent fluff variously considers the gene to be leftover by some tampering during the [[Dark Age of Technology]], or some kind of evolutionary adaptation against the forces of the the warp.

Individuals with the Pariah gene are rare enough, but to regular humans, their aura is filled with some degree of sickness both figuratively and literally that it means that a lot of them are killed during their early years of childhood. Coupled with the fact that the [[Sisters of Silence]] have been quietly maintaining their numbers for millennia and the Inquisition have their own various uses for Pariahs means that the Officio Assassinorum has to do well to get their hands on any. That, and most initiates to the Officio Assasinorum undergo merciless testing that thins their numbers out even further before they can even undertake their first apprenticeships within their Temples, meaning that the "rare few" pariahs the temple receives probably dwindles even further. That said, given pariahs’ usefulness and rarity, the Culexus is likely much more careful with their initiate’s lives than the other temples so that failures can still be useful to the Imperium.

As early as the [[Great Crusade]] the Culexus Clade/Temple had been working with the Mechanicum to clone their own pariahs in laboratories, which is certainly is one way to bulk up the numbers. Though at some point prior to the [[Siege of Terra]] the Tech-Priests declared that they were ending their "Pariah Project" and made a big show of "executing" their specimens. Though the records of the event revealed that the [[A Game of Pretend|number of executions didn't match the number of pariahs]], and what they actually did was move themselves to a hidden fortress on Terra to continue the project.

After the Wars of Vindication in M36, there was a requirement that the temples be separated from each other to avoid corruption, so the Culexus Temple moved to a hidden planetoid somewhere beyond the reach of the [[Astronomican]], and keeps all Assassins within the facility unless they are on active duty; meaning [[Neckbeard|they really don't have much of a social life outside the Officio Assassinorum.]] Ironically, at some time after M37, the Adeptus Mechanicus attempted to claim ownership of the Fortress of the Soulless on Terra ''(likely the one they built in the first place, but left abandoned)'' but got into a conflict with the entire Officio Assassinorum who ended the crisis with a [[Vindicare|snipers bullet]].

Those who survive their initiation receive biological implants to increase their reaction speed and agility, which when coupled with their extensive training means that a Culexus assassin is one of the deadliest and rarest individuals in the Imperium.

A fully trained Culexus assassin is pretty much the worst thing a psyker could ever encounter, as their mere presence is enough to cause considerable pain and even death to weak-minded psykers. The Eldar harbor a particular hatred and fear of blanks, what with every Eldar being a psyker and whatnot. Furthermore, blanks are totally invisible to daemons due to their lack of warp signature. The Culexus assassins therefore target exclusively psykers, as most psykers would rather chew their own arteries out and slowly bleed to death than face one.

And not only psykers, like that time a full [[Assassinorum_Execution_Force|Execution force]] (4 assassins, one of each kind) was sent to kill Tau VIPs...and the only one to succeed was the Culexus. And Tau don't even have psykers! Still, even against non-psychic targets, the Culexus has the advantages of a maddening aura of distilled fear and pseudo-invisibility, their Pariah gene allowing them to be ignored ''so hard'' by both the living, the machines and the [[Daemon|neverborn]] that this one "sneaked" inside a transport by merely not bumping into the passengers, like a fa/tg/guy in a disco.

<strike>Culexuses</strike> <strike>Culexii</strike> These guys also somehow manage to have no soul so hard (nah, they just have a weird sort of anti-soul, and psyker's reaction to them is kinda like an anti-matter and matter reaction) that they're able to fire beams of not-soul (anti-soul) out of the gun attached to their heads and assuming there's enough psykers around, this beam can become arguably one of the best anti-infantry guns in the game.

==On the Tabletop==

With the advent of a new edition, the Officio Assassinorum is undergoing a fire sale (no, of course not in model prices)! The culexus is no exception. Still the same psyker-screwing, hard-to-hit unit it always was, it is now even harder to target with shooting thanks to being a CHARACTER. Solo operatives indeed. The downside is the boatload of special rules that made assassins feel special are just available to everyone now. At least you throw your grenade and shoot your... speculum... in the same phase. And you thought ''your'' last cancer screening was uncomfortable.

Its stats are as awesome as all the other Assassins:

{| class=wikitable
! || Pts || M || WS || BS || S || T || W || A || Ld || Sv
|-
| '''Culexus Assassin''' || 85 || 7" ||2+||2+|| 4 || 4 || 5 || 4 || 9 || 6+/4++
|}

'''Special Rules'''

*'''Independent Operative:''' Can't have a warlord trait and can appear out of fuckin' nowhere more than 9" away from an enemy model. Just in range for their Animus and maybe even a charge.
*'''Lightning Reflexes:''' A model with this special rule has a 4+ invulnerable save. In addition, they do not suffer the penalty to their Initiative for charging enemies through difficult terrain. That said, initiative is gone now.
*'''Life Drain:''' All attacks made by the Culexus in close combat ignore armor saves. Yeah, that's right. No AP -4, no AP -5, no armor at all. Very useful in combination with null zone.
*'''Abomination:''' Now gets the credit it deserves for being disliked by everyone, not just psykers. In addition to total immunity to psychic powers, it now just gives a flat -2 to most enemy psychic rolling within 18". Add all these abilities up, and you've just successfully created a bubble with a 18" radius that no smart player using psykers will enter.
*'''Psychic Assassin:''' Can ignore the CHARACTER targeting limitations that it so greedily benefits from when trying to shoot at psykers.

'''Equipment'''
*'''Animus Speculum:''' Much more normal in 8th, now just gets a better number of shots if within 18" of psykers. Still S5, still not really that concerned about armor (AP -4).
*'''Psyk-Out Grenades:''' Now just kinda-crappy grenades with that on-6+-to-hit-deal-a-bonus-mortal-wound rule that replaced rending. Sadly limited only to psykers. As if psykers needed help receiving mortal wounds.
*'''Etherium:''' All units targeting the Culexus Assassin, in close combat or range, have to shoot or hit at BS and WS 6+. Psykers hate Culexi by default, but this is why ''everyone'' hates him. Be wary of stuff that can ignore this like Kharn hitting on 2+ in CC (why you would try to fight Kharn in assault with a Culexus is beyond us).

All in all, the Culexus is for killing Psykers, and he is horrifyingly good at it. Unless you charge them into the Daemon Primarch Magnus, in which case you deserve the results you'll get.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Image:1204002502106og9.jpg|Culexus assassins are psyker's worst nightmare, though they are very friendly.
File:Aun'Va is Fucked Three Ways to Sunday.png|600px|right|thumb|The fate of [[Aun'Va]] [[Tau|and his Blueberry cohorts.]] [[RAPE|Their souls fucked so bad it makes even]] [[Slaanesh]] [[FATAL|stop his/her/its orgy in horror.]]
Image:Shoo_Fly_by_IronShrineMaiden.jpg|Culexus-kun has no friends.
Image:Culexus_LOLWUT.jpg|Culexus will bring LOLWUT to the enemy.
Image:C_TS.jpg|Nobody likes you.
</gallery>
{{Inquisition}}
{{Template:Imperium}}

Knights-Errant

2019-09-26T14:33:34Z

2600:1006:B105:8611:D53C:B0DF:41A1:8F26: /* 5. Epimetheus/Epithemius */

[[Bretonnia|Not to be confused with a variant of Warhammer Fantasy Bretonnian knight.]] The '''Knights-Errant''' are/were a group of [[Space Marines]] brought together from various different [[First Founding|Legions]] at the behest of [[Malcador the Sigillite]] in order to create a cadre of the best and brightest that the space marines had to offer, and use them to form a [[Grey Knights|new Chapter]] to combat the threat of daemons and dark magic that the [[Imperium]] was not prepared to fight against, due to the erasure of all knowledge of them as part of the Imperial Truth. Members of the Traitor Legions which refused to follow their Primarchs into corruption made up a surprisingly large part of their number. Having proven themselves truly pure and strong of spirit in the face of absolute corruption and despair, the Knights-Errant offered these legion-less marines a new purpose, away from the taint of their old Legions.

It is confirmed that they were the forerunners of [[Grey Knights]]. Despite what we think we know of the original Grey Knights and that eight of the initial recruits would become the first Grand Masters of the new chapter, those that initially joined the first member, [[Nathaniel Garro]], were not necessarily destined to become Grey Knights themselves. Author [[James Swallow]] has come out and said as much himself in an interview. In any case, most of these Knights would not survive the Horus Heresy anyway, but it's worth knowing that these guys possessed a very special and believable type of [[awesome]] (unlike [[Kaldor Draigo|this guy]]), and loads of it.

==Known Members==
===Nathaniel Garro===
Battle-Captain (the formal title of the 7th Captain of the [[Death Guard]]) and captain of the ''Eisenstein''. The first member. The guy who fled the massacre at Istvaan III and managed to bring word of the Horus Heresy to the Imperium, thanks to his honor-brother, and a very cool guy, Saul Tarvitz of the [[Emperor's Children]]. On the way there, he also became the first of the Loyalists to encounter what would later be known as the Plague Marines, as the corpses of his traitorous legion-brothers came back to life as they traveled through the Warp.

He was given a list of twenty names from Sevarian ''(see below)'' who would become the Knights-Errant, and the task of collecting them would take him all over the galaxy during the Horus Heresy, from Calth ''(through the Ruinstorm no less)'' all the way back to Isstvan III.

He would attempt to sneak into the [[Phalanx]] to recruit some Imperial Fist librarians "incarcerated" there, but was caught and turned away as they were happy enough as is.

He would also win a duel with a mid-ranked Custodes, though even he admitted the effort taxed his abilities and he only won through playing to the particular individual's overconfidence.

Garro would also unwittingly uncover Malcador's plans to build a new [[Grey Knights|Astartes force on Titan]] intended for the coming war ''after'' the Horus Heresy, though he initially believed it to be a traitor force because of the secrecy involved with its construction.

Partly because of those shrouded circumstances and the uncomfortable lengths the Sigillite would go to to protect humanity, Garro would repeatedly say that his ultimate fate would not lie on Titan, and previews for future BL books refer to him as "the first martyr of the Lectitio Divinatus", and martyrdom by definition ultimately involves dying.

Following the assembly of the soon-to-be Grand Masters and their departure to Titan, he was released from Malcador's service to aid in the defense of Terra alongside Loken and the other Death Guard Loyalists that had accompanied him on the ''Eisenstein''.

Given rules as part of the lead-up to Horus Heresy Book 6 'Retribution', Garro can be a trolltastic addition to an army. He's built up as a challenge character, earning double combat resolution scores and gaining a 3+ invulnerable save. Despite this, he's not a combat monster, as ''Libertas'' is only a two-handed blade with AP3, despite having Rending. However, Garro's Death Guard resilience shows through, having ''Eternal Warrior'' AND the chance to get back from death the first time he kicks the bucket during battle.

===Garviel Loken===
Captain of the [[Luna Wolves]] 10th Company, who is very much the protagonist of the first trilogy of Horus Heresy novels. He was known for being able to think independently and rationally, as well as being exceptionally humane for an Astartes. A true stoic and principled person, as well as a bad-ass. Was thought dead after Istvaan III was virus bombed and then fire bombed, followed by a 3 month siege by 4 traitor legions and a warlord titan, followed by being defeated by [[Abaddon]] in a duel and having a building collapse on him, trapping him in the rubble, while the planet was being bombed into dust for a third time, this time with cyclone bombs. [[Not as planned|But NOPE]]! When Nathaniel Garro first discovered him, survivor's guilt and distrust had driven him half mad and he was convinced he was the only Loyalist left alive in the Imperium. Calling himself Cerberus, due to an inability to remember his own name, he then forced a reign of terror upon the totally dead, but [[Nurgle|reanimated]] population (read: Plague Zombies) of Isstvan III. Was supposedly the final member that Garro would recruit according to Malcador, although other members were inducted after Loken himself.

His major highlights include:
*Being a member of the '''Mournival''': the four advisors of Horus Lupercal, along with Abaddon, Tarik Torgaddon, and "Little Horus" Aximand.
*Hilariously making [[Lucius]] his bitch in a duel, pointing out beforehand, that the duel would not be about their skill in blades. As he saw Lucius make the first move, he dropped his sword and in one stroke won the duel, by breaking that arrogant prick's nose into smithereens with a single punch, ruining Lucius' "perfect" face and by making the first mark upon it. This trick was later over-exaggeratedly used again, by Saul Tarvitz.
*Fighting Abaddon himself on Isstvan III.
*Making [[Kharn]] his side bitch by going toe to toe with him and then impaling the dude on the dozer blades of an advancing [[chaos|spikey]] land raider. What a fucking savage.
*Being present on [[Caliban]] during the [[Fallen Angels|Fallen uprising]] who had been largely ignorant of the Heresy, and quite possibly throwing a lit match on the whole powder keg.
*Giving Horus and an overwhelming majority of his traitor legion a virtual bitch-slap by turning his back on them when he was asked to join the rebellion.

Was revealed in "The Buried Dagger" that he was supposed to become a founding member of the Grey Knights. Though when they were given an audience with the Emperor to explain their new purpose; Loken became laden with doubts, feeling that when the Emperor said ''"If that is to be your fate"'' he was singling him out. Almost immediately Loken determined that it was not to be his fate and decided to join up with his old pal Garro instead to most likely die a heroic death in one of the coming books ''(it has long been foreshadowed that Garro is supposed to become the first martyr of the Lectitio Divinitus)''.

Intriguingly, Rubio, who does leave for Titan to become one of the First Grand Masters of the Grey Knights, notes prior to their meeting with the Emperor, that Loken has "the touch of the warp in him", since his thoughts project as loudly as gunshots, heavily implying that Loken himself is a nascent psyker (which would make sense too, as we all know all Grey Knights are psykers).

Formerly the only member with tabletop rules in Horus Heresy, though that's his pre-Knight status, when he is a Legion Praetor character with Initiative 6 and a Paragon Blade, with the ability to get back from the dead once per game. Strangely he's the only Praetor with Power Armour (Sevatar, Ophion) rather than the standard issue Artificer Armour as the typical attire for Praetors, though he does get an Iron Halo which usually has to be bought for extra dough.

We've yet to see Loken as a Knight Errant, but no doubt Forgeworld will just take his original rules and slap on the option to upgrade to the generic "Knight Errant" rules for a few points in an updated list.

===Tylos Rubio===
An [[Ultramarines]] Librarian who was the first member to be inducted by Garro. He was recruited in the midst of the [[Betrayal at Calth|Battle of Calth]]. Rubio would essentially become Garro's second in command for several missions, and got his own job of travelling to Baal to collect all of the wargear of the Blood Angels (to give to the future Grey Knights) when everyone thought Sanguinius had fallen at Signus. Unknown to everyone, he had been implanted with a psychic suggestion to assassinate Malcador courtesy of Erebus back when he was on Calth, but that didn't pan out.

Rubio is one of the more powerful/reliable psykers on the tabletop of his era that isn't one of the Thousand Sons (which isn't hard as his primary competition is generic Librarians or special characters with "repressed" abilities). So compared to a Librarian, he's a ML2 psyker who can reroll failed Psychic tests when manifesting ''Divination'' powers, meaning he's practically guaranteed to cast. He's also no slouch in combat either, with Init 5 stock and can invest his warp charges into his Force Sword granting +1 Strength for each charge not spent on a power, meaning he can quite happily smack a bitch, although only at AP3 since its still just a sword.

===The Nemean Reaver===
His real name is unknown, but it is widely suspected (and also confirmed by statements from himself) that he was a Dark Angel. Heavily injured in the Rangdan Xenocides, he is supposed to be a mess of scar tissue and [[Rage]]. Was the head of his own [[Blackshield]] fleet made up of dispossessed legionaries called the "Dark Brotherhood" until he was approached by Garro for recruitment, a meeting which the [[Alpha Legion]] did their best to foul up. It's notable that his Blackshield fleet was NOT a loyalist fleet nor was it allied with Horus, but instead a completely independent group that just happened to fight and pillage traitors instead of loyalists because they were in a sector that the Alpha Legion wanted. The Reaver's excuse for this was that, cut off from everyone and in prime traitor territory, he was merely doing what he had to do to survive. While loyal himself, his fleet was not, so he left it behind when he was recruited.

On the tabletop he's probably one of the higher tier challenge characters out there (not counting Primarchs), coming runner up to [[Sigismund]] in lethality but is superior in terms of survivability. He's got Toughness 5, ''Eternal Warrior, Adamantium Will'', 2+/4+ saves and rerolls failed saves against Blast or Template weapons. He also has a S+1 AP2 sword which inflicts -1 WS to enemies in a challenge and strikes at initiative. He also causes ''Fear'' and is ''Fearless'', meaning he can't be overrun and has a chance of just trolling generic legionaries who are not immune to fear.

There are two versions of him, representing him as the commander of the Dark Brotherhood in a Blackshields army, or can be taken by any Loyalist force if you upgrade to Knight-Errant, making him even deadlier in a challenge with ''Preferred Enemy (Traitors)''.

'''Trivia:''' Both his name and his armour are allusions to [[Lion El'Jonson|lions]], which is no surprise given his supposed heritage. The '''Nemean Lion''' was slain as the first of the twelve labours of Heracles, while the pelt of the '''Cithaeron Lion''' was worn by Heracles and was said to be impervious, which accounts for the sheer number of benefits granted by his Kithaeron warplate.

===Others===
*'''Severian (The Wolf)''' - Not a Space Wolf, though artwork portrays him to look similar to one, but a [[Luna Wolves|Luna Wolf]]. He was a member of the Crusader Host (basically Space Marine Ambassadors to Terra) but was imprisoned on Terra with all bar the Imperial Fists due to suspicion. He broke out of prison and was brought back into the fold by the Samurai (not kidding) Nagasena. He is a latent psyker whose powers were unlocked by Magnus' psychic message that broke the Golden Throne, though Malcador explains it such that Severian uses them so instinctually that he does not know he has them, which makes him unique.
**Severian was also an early addition to the Knights-Errant, being recruited by Malcador directly about two years into the Heresy, but was recruited before Rubio since it was Severian's psychic abilities which that identified other potential candidates for recruitment, giving Garro a list of twenty names to find.

*'''Ares Voitek''' - [[Iron Hands]] Techmarine. Also knows how to whip up alcohol on the fly, and with such potency that only Space Wolves and White Scars would like seconds. Even Dorn gets in on it.

*'''Fel Zharost''' - A [[Night Lords]] Chief Librarian who was exiled by [[Sevatar]] after the Edict of Nikaea mostly because no-one could be bothered to care about the Librarius except Zharost himself. He somehow fled back home to Terra and was eventually collected for induction into the Knights-Errant. Notably one of the very very few loyalist Night Lords.

*'''Vardas Ison''' - A Blood Angels Librarian. Loathed his original Legion and refused to divulge it when asked.

*'''Theodor Ruttveld''' - A Space Wolf, was assigned to watch over Konrad Curze and ensure that the Edict of Nikaea [[Fail|was obeyed]]. Heavily maimed by Curze and delivered to Terra [[Grimdark|as a message]]. It is uncertain if he is to become a Knight-Errant though he he kept alive on the Sigillite's Authority and it is made clear that he it to be kept as whole as possible and not interred in a Dreadnought.

*'''Kaspian Hecht \ Barthusa Narek:''' A bit of a mystery; Narek was a member of the [[Word Bearers]] who still believed in the divinity of the Emperor and wanted to kill [[Lorgar]] to sort out his Legion's problems; however he had no apparent interest in joining the "Loyalist" cause. He was captured on [[Macragge]], and even though [[Inquisition|he wasn't a traitor, he was interrogated daily and to be executed if he incriminated himself]]. However he somehow escaped and was implanted with the memories of a separate person: "Kaspian Hecht" who was apparently on his way towards Macragge to recruit someone for the Knights-Errant. How or why this was done is as yet unknown, but Narek eventually sorts his memories out though it's not yet known if he'll remain as one of the Knights Errant.

===Deceased Members===
As we know several members were inducted into the Knights Errant, but many did not survive, and considering that the number above is greater than eight, we know that several more will perish or find other duties.

*'''Iacton Qruze''' - Captain of the Luna Wolves' 3rd Company. One of the oldest members of the Luna Wolves and one of the few Legionaries who had been recruited before Horus was found. Referred to as "The Half-Heard" mostly because no-one was paying attention to what the old coot was saying. Got the job of overseeing the prisons on Titan for people who know far too much to be let loose in the Imperium, though is killed by Horus on board the Vengeful Spirit when an attempt at placing teleport beacons for the Space Wolves to deep strike aboard was discovered.
*'''Dio Promus''' - Former Chief Librarian of the [[Ultramarines]], he got the job of sifting through wounded legionaries looking for experiences and memories that would help in Malcador's [[Grey Knights|great project]], then removing all evidence of his passing, even going so far as to destroy the space marines in question and the ships and crew they came with. He got roped into the quest to hunt for the shards of [[Magnus]], but failed at Nikaea when Ahriman absconded with them. He was then slain by a Space Wolf who took exception to the job that Malcador had given him, seeing the destruction of loyal space marines to be traitorous.
*'''Bror Tyrfinger''' - An actual Space Wolf. Dies at the [[Battle of Trisolian]]. His name translates to "Brother Bullfinger" in danish, so that's at least something. Tyrfing is also the name of the sword made by dwarves in the Norse legend of Tyrfing. It was said that Tyrfing could cut through the hardest of stones and would never rust, dull or miss; however, it also carried the curse of having to kill a man each time it was drawn and would be responsible for three great evils. He's the only Knight-Errant to leave with the permission of his Primarch, though for sinister motives, as [[Leman Russ]] ordered him to kill Loken if he tried to go back to Horus. Fortunately Loken didn't, so Tyrfinger didn't have to.
*'''Macer Varren''' - A [[World Eaters]] Captain who was one of a group of loyalist refugees that fled to the Terran Solar system, a cockney-marine (despite being visualized as Scottish Gerard Butler) and an utter badass. Really pissed off at Angron for trying to have him killed. Although he's more rash and angry than his fellow knights, compared to his parent legion he's surprisingly level-headed for someone with the Butcher's Nails jammed into his brain. Dies just before the Siege of Terra after being possessed by the Nurgle daemon called the Lord of the Flies, killing himself before the daemon can take full control of his body.
*'''Tubal Cayne''' - [[Iron Warriors]] member of the Crusader Host like Severian. His name comes from the Biblical Tubal-cain, a descendant of Cain and the first blacksmith.
*'''Rama Karayan''' - [[Raven Guard]]
*'''Altan Nohai''' - [[White Scars]] Apothecary
*'''Callion Zaven''' - [[Emperor's Children]] Champion.

==Grey Knight Grand Masters==
We knew that there were eight Grand Masters who travelled with Malcador to Titan when it was cast into the warp, unfortunately we don't yet know who they all are yet, and is made more difficult to guess since Grey Knights ritually change their names to mirror their daemonic foes.

In [[Aaron Dembski-Bowden]]'s ''The Emperor's Gift'', all eight are long dead and entombed together in the Chapter's cemetery on Titan.

===1. Koios===
See '''Tylos Rubio'''.

===2. Satre===
See '''Vardas Ison'''.

===3. Janus/Ianius===
Known to us as the first Supreme Grand Master and commander of the 3rd brotherhood, though his original name and legion were at first unknown. His one appearance so far in M32 describes him as a warrior saint, a venerable space marine of massive psychic potency yet also emanating a sense of holiness one step down from the Emperor Himself. He also has a squint in one eye, possibly due to an old injury.
*The true identity of Janus is '''Revuel Arvida''' of the [[Thousand Sons]], or more precisely the result of an experiment to save him as follows: After arriving on Terra, he was taken by the Sigillite to cure his rampaging flesh-change at [[Jaghatai Khan]]'s insistence, as he had been vital in allowing the White Scars to reach Terra. Malcador secretly planned to make Arvida the host of a shard of [[Magnus the Red]], hoping that it would restore enough of the Primarch for him to sit upon the Golden Throne in the Emperor's place. Instead, he merged with the shard, who held all Magnus' nobility (either killing off the good part of Magnus holding all his nobility which would have prevented him from becoming the complete spiteful asshat he is now...or preserving it so said nobility would not be corrupted as part of the Crimson King). The newly created entity, neither Arvida nor Magnus, called himself '''"Ianius"''' '' henceforth (ironically the name of his Tutelary. Interestingly, he then said that he believed that this had always been his true name),'' which is a variant wording of "Janus" . He also has a mass of scar tissue surrounding one eye, which perfectly matches Janus's description and is the result of him being a merger of the former Thousand Son with the shard of Magnus. Why this quasi-Primarch obviously was not immortal would be an interesting avenue to explore as he is quite clearly dead in the 41st millenium. It is quite obvious that "Ianius" was a flawed creation, with Jaghatai Khan threatening to cut off Malcador's head and mount it on a spike if the Sigillite didn't give him a chance. When they calmed down, Ianius apologised to the Sigillite for not being what he intended, which means he fully understood what his intended role was and what his inability to assume that role meant to Malcador.
*Interestingly, when all the others were given new names seemingly chosen at random from a bag of silver coins to represent the erasure of their former identities, Ianius was allowed to keep his name, which makes some sense considering that Arvida's original identity had already ceased to exist. In the end Malcador took him and other members of the Knights Errant before the Emperor, and shortly afterwards sent them to Titan, stating that Ianius and Ianius alone would determine when they would re-emerge to the materium.

===4. Yotun===
Unknown, stated to be a former Wolf Priest of the [[Space Wolves|Sons of Fenris]]. Almost certainly '''Theodor Ruttvelt''', previously sent to Konrad Curze as part of the watch packs and returned mutilated. Also possibly Bodvar Bjarki, a Rune Priest following Malcador's orders via Yasu Nagasena in Crimson King.

===5. Epimetheus/Epithemius===
Epimetheus is a [[Dark Angels]] psyker of prodigious strength who survived into the 41st Millennium by being stasis-locked in the Damnation Cache on Pandorax. Epimethius would eventually be captured by [[Abaddon]] and given to [[Fulgrim]] in a bid to gain the allegiance of the [[Emperor's Children]] for the 13th Black Crusade, Epimethius himself was intended to become the [[What|Avatar of Slaanesh]].
*At the first meeting of the Grand Masters, he was described as a hooded figure who never showed his face and described himself as not having a name before, so is potentially the Nemean Reaver, a former Blackshield lord. Garro name drops him shortly before the Sigilite dismisses him.
*It gets a bit convoluted because according to himself ''"Someone switched places with me. That is now his path to walk"'', and completely wrong-footed a [[Lord of Change]]; Whoever '''eventually''' became Epimetheus and was locked in the damnation cache was the ''"one who nearly unravelled everything"'' [[Caliban_(Warhammer 40,000)#Fall of Caliban|when half a legion turned to Chaos]] and avoids the 40k Dark Angels as if he were one of the [[Fallen Angels]]. Perhaps he is uncertain of who actually won their civil war. Or...perhaps he [[Grimdark|does]]. Meaning the second Epimetheus had to have been present on [[Caliban]] during the Scouring. While whoever was first intended to be Epimetheus departed for a different fate.
*In any case, 40k Epimetheus spends the near entirety of the last ten-thousand years trapped in stasis, so any fallout related to his original identity would have been delayed until his later capture by [[Abaddon]].

===6. Iapto===
See '''Severian'''.

===7. Ogen===
Unknown, described as sable haired and pale skinned, wearing a string of onyx beads [[Raven Guard|resembling the skulls of avians]]. Almost certainly '''Balsar Kuthuri''', Chief Librarian of the Raven Guard, exiled to Terra by Corax in penance for breaking the Edict of Nikaea and supposedly the one who opened Terra's gene-vaults for Corax.

===8. Khyron===
First Grand Master of the Eighth Brotherhood, with a name that, keeping in with the theme, is that of a celestial body near Saturn. His tomb on Titan depicts a helmeted warrior leaning casually on a halberd. The tomb's epitaph closes with ''"If you wish to grow wise, learn why brothers betray brothers"''.
*As the halberd and casual attitude was the hallmark of the Eighth Legion's First Captain [[Sevatar]], and Jago Sevatarion was last seen in Imperial hands relearning his psychic gift at the end of ADB's ''The Longest Night'', many Night Lords fanboys believe it is Sevatar. Having once betrayed the Emperor but then disillusioned with Chaos and Horus, could he have then betrayed his brothers in the the Eighth to return to the Imperial fold?
*''The Buried Dagger'' describes him as a hatchet eyed legionary with a staff. Almost certainly the Night Lords' Chief Librarian '''Fel Zharost''', previously name dropped as being recruited by Tylos Rubio.

===9. Crius===

'''Garviel Loken''' was slated to be the ninth Grand Master at first, but he rejected the offer and stayed on Terra alongside Garro when the other eight soon-to-be Grand Masters departed for Titan. As mentioned previously, he had a feeling that joining the Grey Knights would not be his fate.

==Human Members==
While not necessarily Knights-Errant, we also know that four humans were recruited by Malcador to form the founding members of the Inquisition.

*'''Kyril Sindermann''' ''(confirmed)'' - once an Iterator in Horus' own war fleet, he was considered old even during the close of the Great Crusade where he was somewhat of a mentor figure for Gavriel Loken. He escaped the massacre of Isstvan III as part of the flight of the Eisenstein and wasn't really heard from much during the Heresy itself. However, he reappeared 1500 years later as an Inquisitor named Veritus during the [[War of The Beast]], having been kept alive thanks to a suit of specially adapted power armour. Despite several disagreements with Inquisitorial Representative Wienaud regarding their differing views of what the Inquisition should focus its attention on, he ended up working with her to found what would become the Ordo Malleus and the Ordo Xenos. Unfortunately, his colleague, Grand Master Drakan Vangorich of the Officio Assasinorum, got disillusioned with the High Lords' incompetence and selfishness during the war and proceeded to poison Veritus with a special toxin designed only to become dangerous when exposed to the chemicals in his life-support armor and kill off the other High Lords in [[The Beheading]] despite Veritus being one of the most competent of the High Lords at the time.
*'''Lemuel Gaumon''' ''(confirmed)'' a former [[remembrancer]] and psyker who was tutored by [[Ahriman]] himself. Escaped the destruction of Prospero but was captured and held by the Sisters of Silence for years until the quest for the shards of Magnus brought the Thousand Sons and Knights Errant to come looking for him. He would end up possessed by three fragments of Magnus' soul at the same time, only to be stripped of all that power by the Crimson King. Quite possibly the first person to be exorcised he was thereafter immune to any future daemonic possession and brought before Malcador to share his insights into Magnus and the Thousand Sons. Not before renaming himself '''Promeus''' in honour of the deceased Dio Promus. As Promeus, he would initiate the resurrectionist faction of the Inquisition after their formation, hoping to find a way to bring the Emperor back to life. This faction would later evolve into the Thorians.
*'''Moriana''' ''(confirmed)'' - Stated to be one of the founding four members of the Inquisition, and rumored to be a "handmaiden" of the Emperor. Claimed to have performed a vital role in the spreading of the Imperial Cult. Along with Promeus, sought to resurrect the Emperor. However, she turned to the forces of Chaos to do so, inventing Horusianism and becoming the first Radical Inquisitor. Exiled to the Eye of Terror, she eventually came into the employ of Abaddon the Despoiler as a seer and now answers directly to the Chaos Gods (who have seen fit to grant her a Daemon World to rule over). Of note, the original story of Moriana and Promeus didn't name the other two founders, but described one as being a man with an aged voice (In hindsight, probably Sindermann) and the other as being a man with a long, sharp, hawkish nose.
*'''Amendera Kendel''' - ''Agentia Tercius'' to Malcador (after Garro himself) and a former [[Sisters of Silence|Sister of Silence]]. She is still a Pariah of course, but she gave up her vow to become one of the first members of Malcador's [[Inquisition|band of merry travellers]]. She is quite possibly the first "True" Inquisitor, by virtue of her background as a Witch-Hunter and the later development of her character which shows her radically using the authority granted to her by the Sigillite to get shit done: Co-opting Space Marines from the survivors of the ''Eisenstein'' into her retinue, and later ordering a battle-barge to enact ''[[Exterminatus]]'' on a planet turned renegade, despite the fact that no-one other than a Primarch or the Emperor himself had ever ordered such an act before her.
*'''Yasu Nagasena''' - the Last Samurai (eat your heart out, Tom Cruise) and expert tracker who was tasked with finding the [[Outcast Dead]], then chasing down and killing Severian. He was only stopped from doing so by Malcador, who wanted them both for his [[Inquisition|new project]], giving Nagasena a rosette to mark his authority. Nagasena was a sage who was, according to legend, responsible for converting the Indo-Greeks to Buddhism.
*'''Khalid [[Hassan]]''' - A Stormtrooper who was into the Sigillite's employ to collect an artefact from Egypt, despite being told not to look into the box, he did and was brought before Malcador to explain himself. It turns out that the artefact was the ''Rosetta Stone'' and Malcador was part of an order that kept history and learning safe and intact. He also gets shown the doorway to the Emperor's Webway.
*'''Katanoh Tallery''' - a scribe who discovered that someone was using galactic scale tax avoidance schemes to fund and build a legion sized force under the Imperium's nose and within their territory. She was aided by Garro in finding who was diverting Imperial equipment in such an underhanded manner. Turns out it was Malcador and he was pissed at Garro for uncovering the Grey Knight fortress on Titan before it was finished, but was convinced to keep Tallery in order to better manage the bookkeeping. It's unlikely she is going to end up being an Inquisitor though (although, looking for funny spending would be an excellent way to find heretics... In fact, [[Eisenhorn]] uncovers a coven of heretics due to unusual accounting).

[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]][[Category: Imperial]][[Category:Space Marines]][[Category:Grey Knights]]

Broken Aquila

2019-09-26T13:52:29Z

2600:1006:B105:8611:D53C:B0DF:41A1:8F26:

{{Infobox CSM Warband
|Name = Broken Aquila / First Claw / Warband of the Exalted
|Heraldry =
|Battle Cry = Unknown
|Origin = [[Night Lords]]
|Warband Leader = The Exalted, [[Talos]] Valcoran, Decimus
|Base of Operations = Unknown
|Specialty =
|Strength = 3 marines of the original warband ; potentially command of many more
|Colours = Dark blue
}}
{{Wh40k-stub}}
The Warband of the Broken Aquila, formerly the [[Night Lords]] 10th Company, is a warband of Chaos Space Marines, of the Night Lords Legion if we still had to point that out. They're the guys you see in [[Aaron Dembski-Bowden]]'s Night Lords trilogy.

It was known as the Warband of the Exalted when it was headed by the Exalted/Vandred. Its name was changed informally to the Warband of the Broken Aquila when [[Talos]] took over, because his breastplate has an Aquila that was broken with a hammer to signify that they piss on their old ties to the Imperium. [[FAIL|It was originally inspired when Talos took a bolt shell to the chest on Isstvan and his friend Cyrion said it looked good.]]

The warband is a comparitive new-comer to the 41st Millenium, being displaced in the warp from some point after the flight from Tsagualsa to a couple of centuries before the events of the books (ADB admited that the timings he described in the first and second books didn't quite make sense and added an errata to the third book). As a result, the Warband more closely resembles a Heresy era company than a 40k era Chaos Warband.

==Members==
*'''[[Talos]]:''' The leader of First Claw and former [[apothecary]]. His main schtick is that he has part of the Night Haunter's precognition, which is occasionally useful, but is also breaking his body down. Is oddly principled for a traitor marine and spends a lot of his time looking for some purpose other than just terror murdering. He also makes a point of looking after his serfs well, provided they do what he tells them. A notable part of his character is that he isn't the most powerful or even the best fighter ; instead he's the best at keeping a cohesive squad together and focused, which considering how dysfunctional the Night Lords are is saying something. He's also notable for being the one who hunted down and killed Curze's assassin, although she [[Blood Ravens|got away with the relics]] first. Dies alongside most of the squad while taking down [[Jain Zar]] herself, although given that she's a [[Phoenix Lord]] she'll be back at some point in the future. It's never made clear exactly how his prophetic powers work - he's not described as a psyker or even psychically sensitive in any meaningful way and he differentiates his abilities from the farseeing of warp sorceres as being "pure". Then again, Curze's abilities were described as psychic in the Heresy novels, and Talos's abilities are inferred to be a genetic inheritance. Possibly due to this, he was one of the very few Night Lords that Curze genuinely liked (or at least didn't actively despise).

*'''Xarl:''' The beatstick of First Claw. Talos's childhood friend (less so now) and regarded as the best fighter in the company. He's used as a threat by Talos to make anyone trying to edge for command by murdering their superiors. Apart from being an abrasive snarker, there isn't a lot else to say about him. Dies after headbutting a loyalist marine champion to death through his HELMET - Xarl wasn't wearing one. Oh, and it was a FUCKING TERMINATOR CHAMPION. WITH A THUNDERHAMMER AND STORMSHIELD. Badass to the end.

*'''Cyrion:''' The snarky, witty one. The closest thing to a friend Talos has and would appear to the be most normal of the claw. Unknown to everyone, he has a Slaaneshi curse that lets him sense the fear of everyone around him. This would normally be considered an absolute chaos-godsend for a Night Lord but has the rather drastic drawback of not being able to turn it off and being horribly addictive, forcing him to go on secret serial-killing spree's of the ships crew. Luckily for Cyrion, he has an eminently suitable patsy in...

*'''Uzas:''' The one no likes but keeps around because he's useful. The most obviously corrupted member of the squad, openly worshipping Khorne and going into berserker furies. Whilst he usually targets crew serfs, he occasionally attacks his fellow Night Lords. Even Xarl has problems keeping him at bay during his rages. He's put on execution notice by Talos for his various transgression, though the sad part is that it's not entirely his fault - he doesn't remember anything he does when he loses control and Cyrion keeps getting him to take the fall for his own murder sprees. He's more than a bit tetchy when he finds out the truth. Towards the end, he starts taking skulls in Talos' name and First Claw instead of for Khorne, signifying... something.

*'''Mercutian:''' The closest thing to a normal member of the squad, being First Claw's heavy weapons guy. Not originally a member of 1st Claw (Talos' squad), he is adopted during the events of the first book. Unlike the others, who were typical gangsters on Nostromo, Mercutian was a spire-born aristo, something the others don't let him forget. Is a believer in the in-universe fan theory that Sevetar is still alive in the present, which given he was unaccounted for by the end of the Heresy, might have some credence.

*'''Variel:''' A [[Red Corsairs|Red Corsair]] who joins the Night Lords because they're more his style (and the Red Corsairs are pricks). Former Apothecary Secundus, neat-freak, and medic/torturer extraordinaire. Nicknamed "the Flayer" because he likes skinning peoples' faces and wearing them on his armor. Comes across as borderline autistic('borderline'? seriously? he's just the most autistic of all ADB's autistic characters, I mean he literally describes the Night Lords as 'staring in autistic silence'. Hell, Talos is non verbal at school.- sincerely, A. N. Autist); hates being touched and incapable of picking up on relevant social cues. Despite this, he and Talos have a bond of loyalty based on principle rather than friendship. Is the only member of the squad to survive the events of the books. After Talos dies, he takes his geneseed and pursues Octavia and Septimus through the stars, to recruit their child to the Legion. Considering the existence of Decimus, it seems he was successful.

*'''Lucoryphus:''' The leader of the Bleeding Eyes [[Chaos Raptor|raptor cult]] (which his in fact do, somehow through his helmet) and all round creepy bastard. Is sufficiently mutated that he finds walking on all fours easier. Is also decaying alive under his armor, and eats people to keep it under control. Has no sense of personal space and gives off the impression of being ready to betray his commander at a moment's notice. He doesn't, however - in fact, he remains absolutely loyal to everyone of his commanders. He's not a great leader himself as he gets most of his cult killed by taking on a group of Salamander terminators in the cramped confines of a space hulk but makes up for it by having lightning claws for feet and realising that an overcharged melta gun is a very effective tool for dungeon bypassing.

*'''Ruven:''' The one EVERYONE doesn't like, not just the Night Lords. Former [[librarian]], [[Sorcerer (Warhammer 40,000)|sorcerer]], and all-round prick. Ditches the Night Lords to join the Black Legion but is quickly ditched by them when his plans don't work. Joins the Red Corsairs but fucks up again, and is chained up in a room with no food or water and really powerful spotlights shining in his eyes, which is a very effective method of torturing a Night Lord. Is allowed to rejoin the warband for probably the most elaborately stupid heist to steal a strike cruiser back (by attacking a loyalist fortress monastery as a distraction). Is so unpopular that two baseline humans, a navigator, and a blind mutant with a sawn-off basically tell him to fuck off and succeed. Stupidly decides that betraying the only people who took him back in was a good idea, but Talos was sensible enough to cut him in half before he could even try. Continues to haunt Talos after his death...somehow.

*'''Malcharion:''' The War-Sage and former Captain of the 10th company before he was interred in a Dreadnought. Due to the difficulty of reactivating him, he was left in the care of 10th Company's resident tech priest, who mostly just let him sleep. Was reawakened on Talos' orders when a leadership dispute threatened what little cohesion the Warband of the Exalted had. His first action was to turn an assault terminator who had been sent to stop his awakening into Swiss cheese with his autocannon. Can be described as Talos' cool grandpa. Was "killed" again taking down the Blood Angel's equivalent of Bjorn the Fell-Handed... for the second time, the two of them having first dueled as regular Astartes during the Siege of Terra. Unknown to the rest of the crew, his casket was saved and he was reactivated for the events of Void Stalker. Takes down a large number of Ulthwe Eldar in the crypts of Tsagualsa whereafter he falls asleep for the last time.

*'''Vandred/The Exalted:''' Leader of the warband before Talos took over. Is in the slow process of possession by a Tzeentch demon, who keeps Vandred's soul bottled down. Is a genius at naval warfare but only whilst it can draw on Vandred's memories - it starts panicking when it can't do this. It has a love/hate relationship with Talos, seeing him as a threat to its authority but acknowledging his influence and precognitive gifts. Vandred's soul plays a veeery long game of patience with it, saving enough willpower over the centuries to take control back at the right moment, save the rest of the warband, and then relinquishing control back so the demon would be destroyed in his body.

*'''Septimus/Coreth:''' A human serf of Talos, the 7th if the name wasn't a giveaway. A former Imperial shuttle pilot, he became Talos' artificer after being captured on a raid, which makes him rather invaluable to the crew in general. Loyal to 10th company rather than Chaos or traitor forces in general. Also survives the events of the series, with a slim vestige of a happy ending (WHAT?! IN MY 40k!).

*'''Octavia/Eurydice Mervallion:''' Talos' 8th serf and a [[Navigator]]. Quite young and unmutated for a member of the Nobilite (explained by her family being a weak one genetically and not very powerful on Earth). Got snatched from a 4th-rate rogue trader and suddenly became the Navigator of an Astartes warship. Reality ensues when her inexperience and lack of power make this a very difficult job to perform. Gets knocked up by Septimus, earning the latter a pretty big beating from Talos when he hears her fetus' heartbeat. Has an odd relationship with Talos, hating his guts for enslaving her and betraying the Imperium but kind of resigned to it. Also escapes the end of the books with a potentially happy ending.

*'''Nonus:''' Talos's 9th serf, taken on a raid on a munitions station. Technically adept but really really horrified by all the things he sees during his short time with the Night Lords. Is killed protecting Octavia by a deamonically possessed Red Corsair, although he got a few shots off first.

*'''Deltrian:''' The [[Tech-Priest]] assigned to 10th Company and the Warband(s). Looks like a taller, thinner version of a terminator in a robe (the metal skeleton, not the armor), partly as a move to inspire the same kind of fear his masters have. Creates a stealth device by broadcasting the tortured screams of a Warhound princeps and converting it into a jamming signal. The other Night Lords were impressed by this practical application of their usual MO. Also survives the events of the books.

*'''Decimus:''' He is the guy that appears in the epilogue of Void Stalker, and being mentored by Variel and Lucoryphus. Implied to be the son of Septimus and Octavia, which might explain his name (or as a refernce to the 10th Company he owes much of his image to). When the Night Lord warbands ask him who he is and why he is standing in Talos's place; he says: "My name is Decimus. I am the prophet of VIIIth Legion." Pure badassery. His geneseed originally belonged to Talos, and he wears different parts of First Claw's armour. Unlike Talos, his prophetic powers don't seem to be breaking his body down and he's able to use them without going into fits and fugues. If he is Octavia’s child then his Navigator lineage would make this reasonable.

{{Template:Chaos-Official}}

Night Lords

2019-09-26T13:25:37Z

2600:1006:B105:8611:D53C:B0DF:41A1:8F26: /* Night Lords Character */

{{Infobox Traitor Legion
|Name = Night Lords
|Heraldry = [[File:Nightlordslogo.png|250px]]
|Battle Cry = "We have come for you!" or "Ave Dominus Nox!"
|Number = VIII
|Primarch = [[Konrad Curze]]
|Original Homeworld = Nostramo
|Current Homeworld = Unknown
|Champion = Krieg Acerbus (Daemon Prince)
|Specialty = Stealth, guerrilla warfare, and terror tactics
|Strength = Unknown
|Allegiance = Depends on the warband (at least with regards to the Ruinous Powers. Otherwise, it's mostly to themselves).
|Colours = Midnight Blue, with Brass trim, and living lightning effects accross the armor. *Apply blood liberally, or as needed.*
}}
{{topquote|Because the Wolves kill cleanly, and we do not. They also kill quickly, and we have never done that, either. They fight, they win, and they stalk back to their ships with their tails held high. If they were ever ordered to destroy another Legion, they would do it by hurling warrior against warrior, seeking to grind their enemies down with the admirable delusions of the 'noble savage'. If we were ever ordered to assault another Legion, we would virus bomb their recruitment worlds; slaughter their serfs and slaves; poison their gene-seed repositories and spend the next dozen decades watching them die slow, humiliating deaths. Night after night, raid after raid, we'd overwhelm stragglers from their fleets and bleach their skulls to hang from our armour, until none remained. But that isn't the quick execution the Emperor needs, is it? The Wolves go for the throat. We go for the eyes. Then the tongue. Then the hands. Then the feet. Then we skin the crippled remains, and offer it up as an example to any still bearing witness. The Wolves were warriors before they became soldiers. We were murderers first, last, and always!|[[Sevatar|Jago Sevatarion]]}}

{{topquote|I am the thing that keeps you up at night. The fear that haunts every dark corner of your mind. I will never rest. And neither will you.|Slade Wilson}}
{{topquote|I'm Batman, god damn it!|Batman, Batman's voice actor, and every Batman fan ever, including Konrad Curze}}
{{topquote|BOO!"|Warcry of the night lords when they sneak up on you}}

The Night Lords [[Space Marine]] Legion consists of some of the more batshit(HA!)-crazy emos, kind of like the Chaos version of the [[Raven Guard]]. [[grimdark|They get off to catching their enemies, skinning them alive and crucifying them, all the while recording it for later.]] Also notable for having a strong vampire motif and playing too much Mortal Kombat; they're scary creatures that live in the dark but scorn the [[Chaos Gods]], much like the [[Vampire Counts]]. Their backstory is surprisingly compelling and deep (Just one step behind of senseless [[Edgy]] wank), but they are nevertheless bitter, brutal, terrifying assholes whose battle cries include "We have come for you!" or "Ave Dominus Nox" (translated as "Hail the Lord of the Night").

==History==
[[File:Oh shit the batmarines by sonicbrew-d2z88fe.jpg|200px|left|thumb|Masters of Ambush]]
Their Primarch called himself the Night Haunter (his IRL name was [[Konrad Curze]]). When [[Chaos]] abducted the infant [[Primarch]]s, they were scattered across the galaxy. Poor lil Konrad ended up on Nostramo, a world of perpetual darkness. And unlike the other Primarchs who were found by the inhabitants of a planet and taken care of, Konrad was left all alone to fend for himself, [[Grimdark|in a world that was a dark, lawless land]]. But who's to say it would've been better? So then he grew up, he became like the Batman of the 31st millennium, where he punished the corrupt and the evil. Only the difference from Batman is that he did it in the most gruesome manner possible, such as by hanging the guilty person's disemboweled corpse for all to see or beating the person to literally an unrecognizable pulp, to the point the sewers were clogged with bodies. [[Grimdark|Strangely enough, this was actually considered an improvement]]. So yeah, he became such a popular icon that the people of Nostramo basically fixed their shitty society because they feared that the "Night Haunter" would screw their asses to unimaginable levels, thus making him Vlad the Impaler IN SPESS!!! It says something about his world that, even as Vlad the Impaler, he was still clearly quite the good guy.

Curze tried to be a good leader for his people, but there was one thing he was just unable to do: delegate. So when [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Big.E]] came rolling by and took him along for [[Great Crusade|a good scrap all over the galaxy]], it didn't take long for Nostramo to fall back into crime, anarchy and the like. With the scary thing in the night gone kicking ass AnywhereButHere, it suddenly wasn't scary anymore. Insult to injury, Nostramo provided most aspirants for the Night Lords, and soon only those that thrived in such a lawless environment ascended to become Space Marines... with all the complications one could imagine. Despite the psycho-indoctrination, many Night Lords were serial-killers and sociopaths, hiding their bloodlust beneath a thin veneer of loyalty to the Crusade, and this rot slowly but surely spread to the Legion as a whole.

They also have an unhealthy addiction to flying and lightning. Known for scaring the hell out of civilians for shits and giggles. They are also known for being insanely giant fucking nutheads. Wherever the Night Lords strike, they leave corpses and signs of their assault on display and generally make it look like all the Segmentum's worst metal bands had a gig in the exact same area at the exact same time.

Despite being "traitors" they claim not to be terribly fond of the Chaos Gods and make little to no use of daemons, so they're more of a renegade legion than an unclean one. Which makes them less likely to (accidentally) become possessed. It won't matter though, because they are fucking insane anyway, not only because of their combat doctrines, but also because they have been around for a very long time.
Notable exceptions include Krieg Acerbus, a [[Daemon Prince]] currently leading the largest warband of Night Lords, who also happen to be hardcore, full-on '''bat'''shit chaos worshippers. There's also the first claw's Uzas, who's all about blood for the [[Khorne|Blood God]]. In fact, earlier incarnations of the background listed them as a Khornate Legion, and Khorne smiles upon those who murder for the sake of murder, even one's allies, which Night Lords do whenever they can. However, because they're in denial about their religion, they neither get the goodies of the Chaos Gods, nor the technology of the [[Imperium]]. So whenever loyalists show up with assault cannons, stormbolters, cyclone missile launchers, land speeders, drop-pods, and hunter killer missiles they silently cry in the night. Or take it out on them by kicking the shit out of the local chapter of [[Ultramarines|Ultramarines]].

== Tactics ==
Night Lord warbands, for the most part, are somewhat sensible in that they don't just send in their marines to die in droves. So they generally don't titty-rush the nearest Titan for the lulz unless said Titan is REALLY fucking their mojo up. When they do engage in direct combat, they generally prefer complete overwhelming force to ensure minimal losses, maximum carnage, and enough skulls to stick on their pauldrons. So they're pretty much a chaos version of [[Reasonable Marines]]. Including the [[Alpha Legion]] too, obviously (maybe?).

'''ALTERNATIVELY:'''

They make use of their sneakiness and fuck shit up that way. Striking behind enemy lines, ambushes, sabotaging generators and command centers, etc. Knowing this, one considers them being pretty sensible. In one-on-one combat a Night Lord will do his best to make sure he has the upper hand, and thus resort to cheat tactics by breaking every rule possible and use every dirty trick to avoid being 'on equal footing' with the opponent. Just like [[Dark Eldar|certain slimy BDSM pricks]].
Basically what I'm trying to say is that they make good card/poker players.

They like unconventional shock-and-awe tactics (read. Terror with a capital T). One of them, Talos, disabled a ship's bridge by doing a fifteen-second-long vox-amplified scream, which, thanks to his three lungs and super-humanly strong vocal chords, blew out every unprotected eardrum in the room and put many of the bridge staff in a coma. Another method was to '''kill a planet's population from fright''' when they broadcasted a horrible snuff movie over the comm waves. More methods include impaling innocents in hard-to-reach areas and spamming the local Internet (or whatever passes for it) with video broadcasts made of extremely scary jumpscares, torture footages and sounds, sort of a superhuman Los Zetas/ISIS/Internet Troll hybrid on crack.

If they can't use fear as a tactic, they will always resort to trying to break morale by sabotaging objectives of strategic import or executing leaders and commanders.

'''BUT:'''

This isn't to say that their tactics make them unstoppable. Terror-tactics only work well on people who can be scared, meaning that their normal operations tend not to work well on other [[Space Marines]], [[Eldar]], [[Necrons]], [[Tyranids]], [[Orks]], or any sort of [[Ecclesiarchy|fanatical]] [[Chaos Cults|religious]] [[Genestealer Cult|zealots]], meaning that [[Imperial Guard]] are one of their favorite targets.

Especially noteworthy is that the last time they really had to fight face-to-face, mano-a-mano, was right after the Heresy, when the [[Ultramarines|Toilet Marines]] came looking for them on their fortress world of Tsagualsa. The Night Lords got slaughtered. Now, to be fair, by that time it was a while since they replenished their numbers after the Heresy. Additionally, in their stupidity, they chose to "bunker down" instead of using their typical hit-and-run tactics. Not to mention the fact that many warbands were not present, the Legion having started to split up after the death of Konrad and Sevatar. Also, the character recounting this, when challenged by another about "losing to the Ultramarines", points out that it wasn't JUST the Ultramarines chapter, but every successor chapter as well. He comments on [[Howling Griffons]] working side-by-side by [[Novamarines]], while being supported by [[Genesis Chapter]] flanking maneuvers. He comments on how every single chapter involved was running by the same playbook (The [[Codex Astartes]]), in perfect unison, and pretty much without any dissension or rebellion (unlike the Night Lords). The result was that the Night Lords were pinned down, outflanked, bombarded, assaulted (or counter-assaulted), besieged and simply fucked over in every way in a textbook fashion. The Night Lords lost so badly that they fragmented, and were never united as a whole force ever again (although there were signs of a semi-reunification in the period leading up to the [[13th Black Crusade]]). And before you cry some "Wardian bullshit", this was in the Night Lords own book, written by [[Aaron Dembski-Bowden|a pretty cool guy]] (actually it was Games-Workshop's fluff that limited the Night Lords.). Besides, against a legion fighting in co-ordination it was a given who would win, not bullshit. Notice the Codex Astartes clearly works well...when working with at least a thousand Marines or multiple Chapters together (as opposed to individual companies...something Astartes are largely too stupid to realize, apparently).

Bear in mind that upon returning to this fortress planet, the Night Lords proceeded to get revenge on the Ultramarine Genesis Chapter, defeating them with the time honored strategy of [[Skaven|blowing up the fucking moon]]. Why fight fair when you have nukes?

[[Huron Blackheart]] worked out the best way to use the Night Lords: as an advance force for performing a crippling first strike on the enemy. When he assaulted the [[Marines Errant|Marines-Errant]] in their home base, he asked for a detachment of Night Lords to find a way to let his main force into the Marines-Errant fortress. So a squad of Night Lords scaled into the [[fortress-monastery]] and drew off the Marines-errant and their serfs while a squad of Night Lords raptors went higher up the fortress and destroyed the actual shield generators.
So you offer them something they want, tell them what to fuck up, let them work out the details on their own and do their thing and, as Huron found out, don't expect them to help much in the actual fighting afterward (which to be fair Huron neither expected nor wanted) nor should you [[Blood Ravens|leave any shiny toys for them to elope with]] while you're busy (now that dit piss Huron off! [[butthurt|Royally!]]).

==Fun Facts==
*It is believed they're linked to [[Scary Marines]].
*They are one of the few Astartes legions who actually think ambushing is a good idea, rather than standing in front of a line of guns and charging it.
*NANANANANANANANANANANANANA BATMAN!
*Kids check under their beds for the boogie man, first company captains check under their beds for the night haunter
*Konrad Curze IS that thing that goes bump in the night...and he's heading this way
*The Night Lords know all of the things you're afraid of, and they think they are utter shit, wait til they show you what true horror is
*The first most brutal hour of any attack by the Night Lords against is more commonly called thee "Candlyand Hour" for all good children...those poor children
*The Night Lords once discovered records of an ancient Terran mythological figure called "Santa Claus". Reading about this fat jolly man, they couldn't help but be both amused and annoyed with his jovial antics, they were impressed with his ability to get into any habitation block, no matter how well fortified(and assumed warp trickery was at play)his army of slaves in his polar fortress and they greatly admired his almost Orwellian list of "naughty and nice" but couldn't really understand the whole gift giving thing, good children don't get presents, they get the greatest gift of all! They get to live! Bad children... will be made an example of in the style of the Night Haunter and his criminal mob bosses. We'll see who's naughty and nice then
*The Night Haunter used to keep a record of who's naughty and who was nice... and then severely punish those kids who were naughty (Hint it involved disemboweling) today, his sons don't keep a record. they just disembowel whoever might be in the vicinity, naughty or niceness be damned.
*Upon reading about this 'Santa Claus' figure most Night Lords assumed he used some sort of jetbike or skimmer to get around furthermore upon discovering that bad children get "lumps of coal" for their bad behavior in their stockings, the night lords hit upon a great idea, once a year they would deliver coal to all the children on a particular imperial world because, "They are bad and thus must be vindicated", coal themed terrorism was rampant, in what was known as "Ash Thursday" or the Night of 1000 Sorrows, the Night Lords proceeded to unleash a planet wide coal themed reign of terror upon a hapless imperial world, coal was shoved in their stockings...and in their throats...then they were set upon fire, the local Mechanicus weather machine was set ablaze making it rain ash, various coal trucks were detonated raining coal onto hapless imperial citizens, local water purification centers were destroyed (hint coal is used for cleaning) and countless Adeptus Mechanicus kidney dialysis machines were smashed.
Then they set the weather machine to "snow" and took all the coal back into space so they'd freeze in their habitation blocks and let a note that said "next Sanguinala be a little nicer"
*Nostramo is described as being like Gotham City, if Gotham City had no lights, there was another Gotham City on top of that, and only mob bosses and rich scumbags got to enjoy sunlight and medicine and everyone had guns and Batman ate his victims. Oh did we mention the Night Haunter was so bad he made everyone "nice"? Yeah. Curze killed so fucking many criminals that the survivors were too scared to do crime anymore. At least until Curze left the planet.
*They stick bats in their helmets to help them fly.
*They don't get Daemons or other warp dickery. So they always go to sleep with ease without all the voices in their heads (other than their own psychotic subconsciousness).
* [[Aaron Dembski-Bowden]] (AKA the newest edition to the Bald Brotherhood of Awesome 40K Writers) has made them fucking GREAT. 10th Company GETS SHIT DONE!
*When the [[Word Bearers]], [[Iron Warriors]], the [[Alpha Legion]], or [[Black Legion]] (the only four legions that really give two shits about [[Chaos Undivided]], and even then the Iron Warriors aren't the biggest fans of it and the Alpha Legion are closet loyalists(''or are they really?'')) try to recruit them for their next great Black Crusade, the Night Lords usually tell them to piss off and send the messengers back in a box(or several).
*They are also the origin of the Raptor and Warp Talon units, the Chaos version of assault marines.
*They're probably lucky that those other legions are typically too busy to deal with probably the least threatening of the Chaos Space Marine Legions.
*They are probably as old as you could normally count, because they don't hang around in the [[Warp]] so much. Sort of. The [[Aaron Dembski-Bowden]] Night Lords book mentions Talos remembering the defeat at Terra as being only a few decades from his perspective due to chilling in the Warp. He does mention his bestie is getting crows feet though from time outside of the warp.
*That's not to say that the Night Lords aren't pants shittingly terrifying. They know what they're good at and they stick to it.
*They've had enough common sense to survive for this long, despite having so many disadvantages compared to the other eight legions.
*Of course, this is relative, because when we talk about "sensible" in the context of Chaos, we mean "will hang you with your own intestines just for the hilarity of it", rather than "completely ignore the enemy army to attack a strategically worthless town to make sacrifices for the Dark Gods." It helps that their attacks are so low-key (except for the bombing a planet once and causing a MASSIVE psychic scream by torturing a bunch of astropaths and sending dozens of planets into psy-communicating-blank) that the Night Lords are not prioritized and actively hunted by the Imperium. Otherwise they'd likely be wiped out in short order (as mentioned above with the [[Ultramarines|guys that have a toilet seat as their insignia]] kicking their asses). DOWN WITH THE BLUE-TRDZ!(Ehem)I mean smurfs...
*Of all the Night Lords Warbands there are only three "Chaos" Lords that still lead based on their vision of The Night Haunter's Legacy:
**First there is Zso Sahaal, the "Talonmaster", former First Captain of the Legion. He was a Terran Legionnaire appointed by the Night Haunter following Sevatar's death. His flight from the rest of the Legion with the Corona Nox, which was the rightful crown of the Primarch's successor, earned him the title "The Betrayer" to some within the Legion, but he saw Curze's use of fear as focused and controlled in its use.
**Next is Krieg Acerbus, also known as the Axemaster, a Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided. He leads the largest warband of Night Lords in the galaxy and claims that Curze wished his sons to terrorize the Imperium and devour its fear. He and Sahaal battled for the Corona Nox; Sahaal kept the crown, but [[Imotekh the Stormlord|lost an arm]].
**Lastly, there is Talos Valcoran. Formerly an [[Apothecary]] during the Heresy/Great Crusade, he bore the titles "Prophet of the VIII Legion" and "Soul Hunter". He earned the title of Soul Hunter for pursuing and killing M'Shen, the Callidus assassin that killed the primarch, for vengeance and out of love for his father rather than greed (a difference in ideology that he would come to despise his brethren for, to some extent). He was also known for his prophetic powers like his gene-father, earning him the title "Prophet of the VIII Legion". Eventually he came to succeed his Company Captain/Warband Leader, Vandred Anrathi in leading the Warband of the Exalted, following the Fall of Vilamus. Under Talos' command, it was renamed to the [[Broken Aquila|Warband of the Broken Aquila]]. He later died on Tsagualsa at the hands of the Phoenix Lord Jain Zar of the Howling Banshees. He succeeded in "killing' her (though kill is a strong term when it comes to Phoenix Lords) in a spectacular display of determination and vengeance, taking her down with him. Talos believed that the Night Lords were betrayed by the Imperium, and were its truest weapon of terror when called upon before the Emperor betrayed them. Talos' gene-seed would later be inherited by Decimus (who might be the son of Octavia, who was the navigator of the ship and Septimus, another slave and a ''friend'' of Talos in the warband), who in turn assumed command of his Warband and gained his gift of foresight.
*The Night Lords' character can be pretty well summed up with this song --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XncuY4wLaA8
*Or this one --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2wzpfPFBlw
*''Ahem''; https://youtube.com/watch?v=sApYX_R4LRo
*No, your both wrong its "this" song, they play it countless imperial worlds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIPGyKGuWeA
it's proven more than effective against Imperial Guard regiments [http://media.moddb.com/cache/images/groups/1/3/2055/thumb_620x2000/2013-04-21-RegularMarine43.1.png]
*This is the one --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Dy28ef-_tA
*''cough'' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqds0B_meys
Maybe this one https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EFqjDXy9s5A
*The Night Lords actually treat their serfs pretty decently for a traitor legion. It's still not particularly pleasant, but it's better than being used as a [[Emperor's Children|sex toy]], a [[Word Bearers|sacrifice]], a [[World Eaters|punching bag]], a [[Death Guard|zombie]], or getting eaten because the last meal was improperly prepared, it does happen on occasion or being used for target practice for lolz etc.
*They actually gave the idea of the vampire imagery to the Blood Angels

==Night Lords Character==
The character of the Night Lords is a bit...complicated. On one hand, sure, they are a legion of professional sadists, murderers, and (literal) terrorists that delight in preying upon the weak and defenseless at every opportunity. That's their MO. On the other hand, the Night Lords' actual personalities and motivations are surprisingly deep, varied, and intact, more so than probably any other Traitor Legion (especially after 10,000 years). They run the full gamut between bloodthirsty savages that believe terrorizing and killing are goals in and of themselves, and embittered philosophers that believe their methods once did and should still have purpose. Hell, there can even be the occasional comedian, cracking snide (and sometimes genuinely funny) jokes to his brothers while they carve their way through the screaming masses. With all those wildly differing personalities, the Night Lords are also about as dysfunctional a brotherhood as it gets, even by Traitor standards. They are (tenuously) bound by loyalty to Legion and Primarch, and may fight and die for each other on the battlefield, but off of it they ''all'' hate each other to some extent, and are in constant and heated disagreement as to the precise nature of their Legion and Primarch, and just how they ''should'' be fighting the Long War. Given just how batshit Curze was, they’re also ''all'' both right and wrong at the same time.

The Night Lords also have a bit of a dichotomy in regards to their treatment of slaves, with non-essential personnel being free to hunt for shits and giggles, while higher level officers and artificers are usually valued and protected to the point where they can have casual conversations and banter with the Astartes. The latter is something you don't see even in a good chunk of ''Loyalist'' chapters.

This all means it’s entirely possible that there are warbands of loyalist Night Lords out there. Crazy thought for a crazy(ier) Legion.

==Nightly Rituals==
17:00 - The Night Lords awake. It takes them a while to safely get down from their caves.

17:30 - Evening Meal. The Night Lords have a light meal by drinking the blood of captured civilians.

18:00 - Evening Firing Rites. The Night Lords conduct covert firing practice on unsuspecting Imperial citizens or Chaos worshipers. The Night Lords' serfs can't tell the exact period their masters strike as they often see a skinned and maimed body the moment they look away. Unlike traditional legions: kill-shots are considered a demerit and everyone is constantly perfecting their art of making the most efficient and painful wounding shot.

19:00 - Evening Terror Tactics. The Night Lords warm up by terrorizing the planet they will be raiding later in the night. Again the serfs have no idea when or how their masters accomplish this without getting caught.

20:45 - Snack Break. The Night Lords take a fifteen miniute break for milk and cookies. Naturally enough, the contents of the cookies varies, from being made from bone meal and blood to macadamia nut. Skeleton designs drawn on in white icing are personalised, but mandatory.

21:00 - Tactical Indoctrination. The Night Lords finally assemble in the stratagem-ampitheatre and plan out how to maximize the amount of terror they can bring about hapless populace of tonight's world. Serfs are typically commanded out of the room to spare them the nightmares of whatever they hear their masters discuss inside.

01:00 - Nighttime Firing Rites. Now the Night Lords strike. Unlike raids from other legions, there is only a ten percent death rate amongst their targets. Everyone else is helplessly maimed by bolter shots to the knees and elbows.

02:00 - Nighttime Terror Tactics. Here the Night Lords test their true skill as hunters of the dark. Those who manage to survive their opening salvos are sadistically hunted down and maimed slowly.

05:00 - "Decorating". Anyone still alive is dismembered and their still-living corpse nailed to a wall inspire fear. The Night Lords then finish up by activating an enemy distress call so that their friends can appreciate their work.

08:00 - Morning Meal. A feast is prepared by the serfs. This time the Night Lords have given up on their act and sit and munch down on the food.

09:00 - Free Time. The Night Lords occupy their free time by watching and reading an antique and legendary proto-Night Lord who calls himself as 'Batman'. Night Lords are often inspired by this ancient Terran vigilante of justice and terror and often tries their best to mimic him (whilst selectively ignoring the foolish decision to avoid killing his prey). It should also be noted of popular reading is a delightful novel series set in M3 called "The Punisher" written by ancient Terran scribe Garth Ennis. The night lords find Frank Castle's hard boiled murder sprees to be a delightful romp. For comedy, the sons of Curze amuse themselves with laughter when the character "Jigsaw" shows up.

12:00 - Rest Period. The Night Lords go back to their caves, hang upside down with their legs and prepare to sleep.

==Gallery==
<center><gallery>
File:Soul Hunter cover.jpg
File:Throne of Lies cover.jpg
File:Blood Reaver cover.jpg|According to Lexicanum, a depiction of Talos Valcoran, the Soul Hunter.
File:Void Stalker cover.jpg|Definitely not in a Batman pose.
File:Bak3.jpg|I believe I can fly. I believe I can touch the sky...
File:Night Lords Champion by warp zero.jpg|'Sup, Darkclaw?
File:1174923365695wq1vj1.png|Masters of Stealth
File:Feel_that_FEAR.jpg
</gallery></center>

{{Template:Chaos-Official}}
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Chaos]][[Category:Space Marines]]

Chain Weapon

2019-09-26T12:56:05Z

2600:1006:B105:8611:D53C:B0DF:41A1:8F26: /* Chainsword */

[[File:Chainsword06.jpg|180px|right|thumb|A typically poor rendition of a chainsword - as you can see, the housing surrounds the teeth, which would interfere with penetration (but would allow it to parry). Still dangerous though.]]

{{Topquote|Problems? '''Problems?''' There is no problem I cannot solve with this...|Commander Mad Chainsaw Johnson of the [[White Scars]], [[White Dwarf|White Dwarf 93]]}}

A Chain weapon is a fuck-awesome melee weapon, heavily used by [[Imperium|Imperial]] forces, although variants are fielded by the [[Eldar]], [[Ork]]s, and [[Chaos Space Marines]].

Apparently in the 41st Millennium, chainsaws have been re-purposed for hacking down things/aliens/people instead of simply harvesting lumber. By far the most common Chain weapon is the chainsword.

As its name implies, the chainsword is a bladed weapon with a rotating chainsaw blade in-between, that's powered by a motor mounted on the hilt and activated with a trigger on the grip. Of course, the sheer manliness in this weapon makes it pretty damn heavy, so it's actually really fucking awesome. But since almost all the users of it have some combination of power armor, bionics, or natural strength to swing them around, the weight is a lot less of an issue. More likely it’s due to lightweight materials because it’s tens of millennia into the future.

Although the chainsword is issued to virtually all forces of the [[Imperium]], it is most famous with the [[Space Marines|Spehss mahreens]] who widely use the chainsword as the primary weapon of their assault troops and veteran soldiers.

The standard chainsword used to have the same rules as any other close-combat weapon. Which is dumb, considering most of the fluff describes it as cutting through armour with ease, even Terminator armour, with some additional effort. [[Derp|Because a giant chainsaw does as much damage as a combat knife.]] 8e changed it up a bit, though- while it still doesn't do more damage than a basic close combat weapon, it does grant a bonus attack. This (along with its low point cost) makes it a good choice of melee weapon when the quantity of your attacks matters more than their quality (e.g. against [[Hormagaunt]] swarms and mobs of [[Ork]] Boyz).

==Imperial Variants==
The Chainsword also has several variants that have been developed by both the Imperium of Man and Xenos. Here are some examples:

===Chainblade===
[[File:ChainBladeBolter.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Chainblade]]

The smallest known Chainweapon.

These weapons are small enough to be considered as an attachment to most rifles. As such it is a smaller Chain bayonet that is attached to a Bolter and utilized as a close-combat weapon during assaults. Although, to be honest, it seems more practical to just have a large, sharpened serrated blade than a gas-guzzling weapon that will become useless once it runs out of fuel, and seeing how small the weapon (and thus, fuel supply) is, its gonna run out of fuel relatively quickly.

Basically it was the lancer assault rifle from Gears of War before Gears of War even existed.

===Chainsword===
[[File:Imperial_Chainsword.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Chainsword]]
A chainsword is just a chainsaw with a sword grip. Most versions make use of monomolecular-edged or otherwise razor sharp teeth.

Like many examples of human invention, the chainsword’s many variants seem to have their roots in the shrouded heresies of the Dark Age of Technology. Some in /tg/ like to speculate that it was some AdMech Priest who had mistaken a weirdly designed Chainsaw for a sword, unfortunately official fluff dictates that it saw consistent use in the armored fists of techno-barbarians during the Age of Strife, and among the Emperor’s own armies during his [[Thunder Warriors]]’ conquest of Terra during the Unification Wars.

But whilst Techpriests debate on the origin of the Chainsword, a particularly amusing theory surface that states it was an [[Heresy|inspiration stolen from]] [[Eldar|an alien race,]] [[War in Heaven|in a war that may never be remembered.]] [[Troll|If this theorem ever bears fruit, it is distinctly possible that the galaxy’s first wielders of chainswords were the prissy armored warriors of the ancient Eldar,]] [[Not As Planned|not us Humans.]] Although this bears little weight as chain weapons and bolt weapons were created to combat powered and semi-powered armor common to techno-barbarians ([[Derp|which the Emperor replaced with mesh and then flak armor even though semi-powered armor at least was common enough for everyone’s wargear to revolve around fighting people wearing it]]).

There are multiple varieties of Chainsword such as the '''Ironfang Chainsword''', which is a variant of the chainsword created to allow human heretics to approximate the deadly blows of a Legion chainsword, this variant features a thick, bladed area with chained teeth nearly twice the width of an ordinary chainsword, and powered by a backpack-mounted fuel supply. Its greater tearing strength and weighted nose allow it to deal viciously violent heavy slashing blows. Needless to say, this weapon is heavy - 12 kilograms in weight, complete with power supply - and unbalanced, ie. a very heavy ''regular'' chainsaw.

<gallery>
File:PreacherChainsword.png
File:ThunderEdgeChainsword.jpg|Horus Heresy Chainsword
</gallery>

===Frost Blade===
[[File:FrostBlade.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Frost Blade]]

A unique Chainsword and possibly one of the only ones that could actually cut anything worth a damn rather than bludgeoning the enemies of man to death. The Frost Blade is yet, [[Mary Sue|another special weapon and equipment exclusive to the]] [[Space Wolves]].

Like the Frost Axe, each blade is hand-crafted by a Master [[Iron Priest]], and many incorporate the diamond-hard fangs of the Fenrisian Ice Kraken. They are highly sought after and in the skilled hands of a Space Marine they can be comparable in effect to most Power Weapons. Naturally, this means kraken hunting for teeth for the Adeptus Astartes at large will never happen. Not squandering resources is heresy. Like giving chainswords to every Marine and not just Assault and Veterans. Madness, what do you think they are, super-human?

In the legends of the chapter, the finest Frost Blades are made of ice harvested from the heart of a glacier, and then [[Wat|tempered inside a Kraken's belly.]]

===Heavy Chainblade/Chainsword===
[[File:Heavy_Chainblade_HH.JPG|200px|right|thumb|Heavy Chainsword]]
The Eviscerator's pussy brother, the Heavy Chainblade is a massive chainsword, significantly larger than one of the standard chainswords but far weaker than an actual Eviscerator, possibly because [[Heresy|it was meant more for construction than combat]]. This also made it to it's combat stats, instead of the Eviscerator's manly SX2, AP2 with Armourbane, it's a weak S+2 AP4, with no additional bonuses (and being two-handed as well, so forget using it to get another attack). About the only thing it has on the Eviscerator is that it's not so huge that it's unwieldy.

Being used mainly by the Mechanicum in the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy, it's unsurprising these seem to have mostly fallen out of favour in the 41st millennium, given how everyone seems to have swapped to the Eviscerator.

Not to be confused with the similarly named "Heavy Chainsword", used by the Legions Astartes, an even wimpier version that shares the same profile except for being AP 5 instead of AP 4. These also seem to have fallen out of favour when the Eviscerator rolled around, much to nobody's surprise.

<gallery>
Image:Twin_Handed_Chainsword_1024x1024.JPG|Another Heavy Chainsword.
</gallery>

===Eviscerator===
[[File:Evisercator.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Eviscerator]]
Chainsword but ECKS BAWKS HUEG. Used by the Ecclesiarchy's priests and by the [[Sisters Repentia]] of the [[Sisters of Battle]] (as well as Chapter Master [[Gabriel Seth|Gabriel 'IN THE BALLS' Seth]]). Most recently however, Eviscerators have found their way into the hand of 7E assault marine sergeants, because meltabombs just weren't enough.

The Eviscerator is twice the size of a regular chainsword and so heavy that a normal soldier will need to wield it using both hands. The Eviscerator might also incorporate an exterminator, a portable flame unit that will not only help it breach armor, but also scare the fuck out of any normal man upon seeing a whacked up priest/nun swinging a fucking huge flaming sword-chainsaw. The Eviscerator is also extra effective against armored units.

In some works the Eviscerator is described as having a disruptor field weaker than those of energy weapons, which still helps carving through ceramite.

<gallery>
Image:Catalogue_Eviscerator.jpg|The classic chainsaw variant
image:RepentiaEvisceratorZoomed.png|REPENT MOTHERFUCKER!
</gallery>

===Chain Spear===
[[File:Chain_Spear.PNG|200px|right|thumb|Chain Spear]]

Another long-range Chainweapon.

Similarly to the chain glaive, this weapon combines reach with lethality, mounting a chainsaw-bladed length at the end of a long haft, ensuring that jabs and thrusts can tear open flesh with the lightest touch whilst keeping the wielder out of harm's way, in contrast to the chain glaive whose curved blade and hilt aims for a more slashing and cutting motion to dismember enemies from a distance.

According to ''Tome of Blood'', some variants actually sport the [[Wat|sharpened teeth of the bearer's former victims as the cutting edges, which are enough to cause even the slightest hit to become a spray of blood and torn flesh. ]].

===Chainfist===
[[image:Chainfist.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Chainfist]]
Intended to assist Terminators' not stellar mobility when involved in boarding actions, the Chainfist is a [[Power weapon|Power Fist]] that incorporates a powerful chainsaw blade for the purposes of slicing through armored bulkheads. The weapon is commonly used by Terminators both as a CQC weapon and a convenient tool to cut themselves a way through the average [[Space Hulk]]'s too small doors/walls/ceilings/floors... during boarding actions. Of course, since it can penetrate thick metal with little trouble, it's also often used for ripping open enemy vehicles and bunkers.

The reason it's so effective is simple: the powerfist's energy field also encompasses the chainblade. That's right, the chainfist effectively marries a chainsword and power fist. Remember how a regular power sword cuts most stuff like a hot knife through butter? Now bring a chainsaw with hot knives for teeth into this butter world, ''wear it like a glove'' and that's how a chainfist feels. That's just plain scary. If anything, it's like hitting a target with a power sword at [[Fist of the North Star|40 strikes per second]], so that the powerfield weakens the target and then the teeth hack it away. The alternative is having a static piece of metal that is still cutting, but just not as efficiently.

The easiest way to use a chainfist in combat is to wield it like a Tonfa. As its mounted just under the left wrist parallel to the arm. Except for the versions with the saw coming over or out of the knuckle plate on the back of the hand. Or the ones that [[Awesome|replace the middle finger with the saw]] (not joking).

<gallery>
Image:TerminatorChainfistZoomed.png
image:SpaceMarineHeroChainfist.png|<center>Heresy-era</center>
</gallery>

===Dreadnought Chainfist===
[[File:DreadCF.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Dreadnought Chainfist]]

A Chainfist but fuckhueg.

In the Imperium, a Dreadnought Chainfist can exclusively be found attached to the Ironclad Dreadnought, although more vanilla Dreadnoughts are able to wield one if given the proper modifications. Unlike the smaller Chainfist which are used to open blastdoors, the Dreadnoughts use theirs to open tank hulls. This arm consists of a massive chainsaw shaped to fit a dreadnought power fist. This is a devastating weapon capable of tearing apart infantry and light armor.

The Forces of Chaos also makes use of Dreadnought-sized Chainfists, more specifically the force of [[Khorne]] due to its brutal blood-grinding method of destruction. It is not uncommon to see a World Eaters or other Khornate dreadnought equipped with dual Chainfists for maximum [[RIP AND TEAR]].

In 8th edition, the Dreadnought Chainfist deals 4 damage per attack but retains the high AP and loses the penalty to hit which makes it great against fighting whatever poor MEQs, GEQs, TEQs and light vehicles that gets in its way. Although against larger walkers, it starts to obviously suffer.
{{clear}}

===Reaper Chain-Cleaver===
[[File:Reaper_Chain-Cleaver.JPG|200px|right|thumb|Reaper Chain-Cleaver]]

The kid brother of the much larger Reaper Chainsword. The Reaper Chain-Cleaver is still a relatively large Chain Weapon carried by the combat walkers of the Imperial Knights, particularly the smallest class of Knights known as Knights Armiger. The Reaper Chain-cleaver is a saw-toothed weapon similar to but smaller than its much larger relative that mangles metal and gnaws flesh to ruin with each shuddering impact.

Unlike say, the Dreadnought Chainfist, the Reaper Chain-Cleaver is much better at fighting due to the more flexible joint placement of the Knight Armigers. That, and the fact that Knight Armigers are relatively slim and not as clunky, awkward and bulky; traits that usually characterize the servo-motors of Space Marine Dreadnoughts, specifically [[METAL BOXES|the more boxy design]] of the 41st Millennium.

To give credit where credit is due. The Chain-Cleaver ''actually'' looks like a proper cleaver. More specifically, it bears some resemblance to a Chinese cleaver.

On tabletop, the current Imperial Knight codex from 8th edition gives the Reaper Chain-Cleaver a weapon with two attack options: Strike and Sweep. Strike is Sx2/AP-3/3D and Sweep S-/AP-2/1D but doubles the amount of hit rolls you can make with it. So this gives the Armiger some very nice added adaptability in their close combat.

===Reaper Chainfist===
[[File:Reaper_Chainfist_of_the_Knight_Acheron.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Reaper Chainfist]]

A chainfist but really [[Rape|ECKS BAWKS HUEG]].

The Reaper Chainfist is a weapon used by the Cerastus Knight-Acheron. Usually carried on the Knight's right weapon arm, the Reaper Chainfist is employed alongside the Acheron's Acheron-Pattern Flame Cannons as a weapon of extermination used to inspire fear in the foe.

The Reaper Chainfist is actually a set of two Chain Weapons linked together, with each one spinning in opposite directions to maximize damage. The blades are capable of tearing through both armor and fortified walls with ease.

The weapon also features a built-in set of twin-linked Heavy Bolters to be used against infantry when the Knight needs to conserve fuel for its Flame Cannon, these Bolters are often used as a last resort or when the Knight really wants something dead in its tracks.

{{clear}}

===Reaper Chainsword===
[[image:ReaperChainsword2.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Reaper Chainsword]]

The standard superheavy weapon in the Chain Weaponry, the Reaper Chainsword is the main weapon of most models of [[Imperial Knight]]. Unlike most Chainweapons you see here, it was originally designed as a Logging device for feudal colonists (You know, like modern chainsaws), though only the height of three men, the Reaper's adamantine teeth are no less deadly and thus, also works incredibly well as a massive melee weapon.

The Chainsword can be swung with all the power of the Knight's servo-motors, the Reaper is capable of cleaving through practically anything, from the thick ferrocrete walls of a defensive bunker and capable of carving open a Super-Heavy Tank with a single blow.

<gallery>
image:ReaperChainswordZoomed.png
</gallery>

{{Clear}}

===Titan Chainfist===
[[File:Rtchainfist1.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Titan Chainfist]]

The big daddy-o of the Chainfist family. The Titan Chainfist takes the form of a large chainsaw attachment like the Chainfist, but on a gigantic scale. Thanks to the available power from the Titan's massive plasma reactor, Titan-grade Chainfists are also equipped with a secondary Melta Array, to soften up the target while cutting through it.

The Reaver Titan is the biggest user of these weapons.

Crunchwise, they are similiar to the Titan Power Fist, at Sx2 AP-5 10 D. However it can also cause -1 to hit. However, any to wound roll of 6 where a VEHICLE, MONSTER, or BUILDING is targeted deals 2D6 extra mortal wounds. Remember that void shields do not work against melee attacks, so against Titans and Titan-equivalents that lack melee weapons those Mortal Wounds can be a a big deal.

{{clear}}

==Chaos Variants==

Chaos use a overwhelmingly amount of chain weapons in contrast to power weapons. The majority of these users are [[Khorne|Khornate warbands]] and seeing how GW has a [[Waifu|unhealthy obsession with Khorne,]] you can see why. The majority of chain weapons of Chaos originally came from the Imperium, so it is unsurprising to see some old Imperial worlds to still incorporate these weapons in its armories. Its just that the force of Chaos has re-appropriated it for Chaos needs.

===Tzaangor Chainsword===
[[File:Tzaangor_Blades.JPG|200px|right|thumb|Tzaangor Chainswords]]
Unique Chainswords made specifically for the Tzaangors of the Thousand Sons.

These blades are warped by the sorcerous and psychic nature of their home planet of Sortiarius. With their savage nature, a Tzaangor would hack apart even power armor with sheer ferocious speed from their blades.

On tabletop, Tzaangor Chainswords are basically your typical Chainswords, its just best to stick with your Tzaangor Blades as it is just that but with an additional AP-1. No need to switch for a largely inferior weapon.

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===Chainaxe===
[[image:Chainaxe.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Chainaxe]]
Imagine doomguy but a weapon. Yes, Warhammer has chainsaw axes, as insane it sounds. The custom weapon of [[Khorne|Khornate]] champions, the Chainaxe was a fairly common weapon among Imperial troops pre-[[Horus Heresy|heresy]]. It's basically a huge axe with a powerful chainsaw as a blade. Pre-heresy it was practically standard issue among the [[World Eaters]]. The sheer weight of the axe and the fact that most Khorne Chaos Marine champions are super strong and completely fucking nuts ensures these will tear through most infantry armor.

It's wielded by non-Khornate Chaos Marines as well, due to the greater damage it inflicts, but mostly because of the showers of gore they call "wounds" - represented in 40k rules by being AP4, a straight upgrade from a regular chainsword and the woe of anyone not wearing power armour. Among Imperial forces, a chain-axe is most likely to be seen in the hands of a [[Space Wolves|Space Wolf]] or a [[Raven Guard]] - the former due to the fact that they just don't give a flying fuck that it might associate them with Chaos, and the latter due to the fact that they mostly have older equipment due to infrequent resupplies. They are also very common among [[Flesh Tearers]] because they basically [[Heresy|already are]] a Khornate cult.

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Image:KhornateChainaxeZoomed.png
Image:ReaverAxe.jpg|Great Crusade era
Image:Chain_Axe.jpg
</gallery>

===Chainscythe===
[[File:Manreaper_Chain-Power_Scythe_Hybrid.PNG|200px|right|thumb|Chainscythe]]

A even more unconventional and unwieldy weapon than the Power Scythe. But not really since a power scythe would be covered with an energy field so the shape of the weapon would be utterly irrelevant.

The Chainscythe is both a incredibly rare and extremely difficult to wield. It is telling that only one unit from oldschool [[Necromunda]] was seen carrying this thing around.
It is only seen wielded by the [[Spyrer]] Matriarchs, this variant of the chainglaive mounts the blade at a horizontal angle to the tip of the shaft.

Seriously though, how the hell do you fight with this thing? Not only does it share the same stupid profile of all chainweapons (That is the metal piece mounted on the blades are interfering with its cutting power), but it also shares the same awkward handle of a scythe. Try and hit someone with that thing, there is a reason why warscythes have their blades turned 90 degrees upwards like halberd to increase chances of it actually hitting anything.

Certain [[Death Guard]] [[Deathshroud|Deathshrouds]] are known to use a special hybrid variant of a Power Scythe with chain teeth. Similar to the Chainfist, these specially modified Manreaper Scythes combine the disruptive nature of a power weapon with the raw and savage cutting power of a chain weapon. [[Mortarion|Ol'Morty]]'s own personal Manreaper ''"Silence"'' also incorporates chain teeth, but at a lesser extant.

<gallery>
image:ChainscytheMatriarch.png|The only person insane enough to use this as a weapon
File:Chainscythe.PNG
</gallery>

===Chain Glaive===
[[image:Chain_Glaive.PNG|200px|right|thumb|Chain Glaive]]

Also known as Chain Halberds, the Chainglaive is an evolution of the Chainaxe, giving it a longer blade and haft allowing for wide, sweeping strikes capable of rending power armour without much trouble. It's used extensively by Vanguard Marines and Chaos close-combat specialists. An ancient design by modern standards, it's by no means common, and sees use primarily with the traitor legions due to this (particularly with the [[Night Lords]], who had always favored its use).

They are also used by Rough Riders as a secondary or even primary weapon due to the weapon's reach and strength. These weapons come in a startling variety based on the sundry Forge Worlds and eras in which they were manufactured, but all are extremely deadly.

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===Chain Hammer===
[[File:Chain_Hammer.PNG|200px|right|thumb|Chain Hammer]]

Another rare and obscure Chainweapon.

Chainaxe not insane enough for you? [[Black Crusade]] introduces the chain Hammer, a massive, normally two-handed weapon shaped into either a maul outfitted with multiple rows of spinning metal teeth on the club-like head, or four chainaxe heads fused into a shape of a maul which can both rip apart flesh and smash bone into pulp with the brutal impact of this insane weapon.

Chain hammers are known to be used by orks and the pit brutes of Kurse in the Screaming Vortex. Powered versions capable of splitting Power Armour were also wielded by the Accusators of the Black Judges.

It is as ridiculous as it sounds.

===Chaos Dreadnought Chainfist===
[[FIle:Chaos_DredChainfist.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Chaos Dreadnought Chainfist]]

A Chainaxe upscaled to a Dreadnought for all your Khornate needs.

The Chaos Dreadnought Chainfist is similar to the one found on Imperial Castraferrum Pattern Dreadnoughts such as the Ironclad Dreadnought. The Chaos variant is covered in dark, runic symbols of the Dark Tongue and macabre ornamentation.

These weapons are favoured by Chaos Space Marines who follow the [[Chaos God]] [[Khorne]]. Khornate Berzerker Dreadnoughts usually are armed with two Dreadnought Chainfists, one on each of its weapon arms. The weapon is outfitted with a hull-mounted twin-linked Bolter, a Combi-Bolter, a Heavy Flamer, or in the case of captured or recently turned Dreadnoughts, a Storm Bolter.

The Chaos version can be differentiated by its more pronounced cutting teeth.

The Contemptor Dreadnought also has its own variant. The weapon looks as if a standard Asatartes Chainsword has been used to replace one of the Power Fist's fingers, unlike the Dreadnought Chain Fist used by the Castraferrum Pattern Dreadnought, which takes up the entire weapon arm. Like most Contemptor Dreadnought Close Combat Weapons the Contemptor Chainfist is also armed with a Combi-Bolter slotted within its palm.

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Image:Chaos_Contempt_Chainfist.jpg|Contemptor variant
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===Chaos Dreadnought Pincer Claw===
[[File:Pincer_Claw_Dread.png|200px|right|thumb|Chaos Dreadnought Pincer Claw]]

A very oldschool weapon that shows its age.

The Chaos Dreadnought Pincer Claw is a variant of the Dreadnought Chainfist, and consists of a pincer-like double Chain Weapon. These weapons are known to be found on Chaos Dreadnoughts that are dedicated to the Chaos God [[Slaanesh]], such as Sonic Dreadnoughts.

The shape of the weapon indicates a heavy influence from Slaaneshi Daemon Weapons. Seeing how pincer weapons are as pronounced in Slaanesh as Chainaxes are the staple of Khorne, this isn't that surprising.

Thus, it could be assume that the Emperor's Children merely took inspiration to their new master and fashioned their Dreadnoughts with a weapon that makes them visually closer to the Daemons of Slaanesh. [[Grimdark|Of course, being a Dreadnought, they are incapable of feeling the emotions and pleasure whilst stuck perpetually inside a tank.]] [[Troll|So the Dreadnought ends up raging in despair...much to the amusement of Slaanesh he/her/itself.]]

The Pincer Claw is designed to grab its prey and slowly mutilate its victims, however as an actual weapon for warfare, it is relatively poor. It is unable to effectively parry other like-minded weapons and its design makes it poor as both a cutting and bludgeoning weapon.

No wonder why this thing has not seen the light of day.

===Khornate Assault Claw===
[[File:Khornate_Assault_Claw.png|200px|right|thumb|Khornate Assault Claw]]

In no way should it be confused with the [[Drop Pod#Kharybdis Assault Claw|Kharybdis Assault Claw.]]

The Chaos Dreadnought Chainfist given a even more Khornate upgrade.

The Khornate Assault Claw is a variant of the standard Contemptor Claw, and is used by Chaos Contemptor Pattern Dreadnoughts dedicated to the Chaos God of blood and war, Khorne. The Khornate Assault Claw replaces the standard Power Claw's fingers with miniature Chain Weapons, making it especially devastating against infantry.

Like most Contemptor Dreadnought Close Combat Weapons the Contemptor Chain Fist is also armed with a Combi-Bolter slotted within its palm. The weapon could also be outfitted with a twin-linked Bolter during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy-era, or in the case of recently captured or reequipped Dreadnoughts a Storm Bolter.

The Khornate Assault Claw looks like a much more up-to-date and practical weapon than the Slaaneshi Dreadnought Pincer Claw.

===Brass Scorpion Pincer Claw===
[[File:Pincer_Claws.JPG|200px|right|thumb|Brass Scorpion Pincer Claw]]

The giant Pincer Claws found on the [[Brass Scorpion]].

Each of these claws are fully capable of tearing armored vehicles into pieces and wiping out entire infantry squads in one fell sweep. The creature's claws are protected on their outer sides by large Warp-forged alloy shields.

When the beast places its claws in front of itself, these shields are able to protect its entire body from harm. The Claws also feature three large in-built Chain Weapons, allowing them to cause even more damage during combat. There also exist variants of the Brass Scorpion outfitted with massive spinning blades instead of pincers.

===Great Cleaver of Khorne===
[[File:Great_Cleaver_of_Khorne.JPG|200px|right|thumb|Great Cleaver of Khorne]]

Axe of Khorne on acid or a Chain Axe that has overfed on growth hormones.

A Great Cleaver of Khorne is a Daemon Weapon in the form of a massive Chainaxe that is wielded by the [[Lord of Skulls]] and [[Kytan]] Daemon Engine. Like the Lord of Skulls that wields it, the Great Cleaver of Khorne is festooned with the remains of its victims, their skulls forever trapped within. The weapon is large enough that the Lord of Skulls can make use of it as easily as if it was a normal-sized melee weapon, and is capable of tearing apart tanks as if they were human heads. The Great Cleaver is fully capable of cutting entire vehicles into pieces and taking out entire groups of infantry. It is a weapon forged from murder and rage -- and it delivers the very same to its victims.

When activated, the Great Cleaver will erupt with eldritch power, the teeth rotating so fast as to become a blurred edge.

This is [[RIP AND TEAR]] INCARNATE!

==Eldar Variants==

===Scorpion Chainsword===
[[image:Eldar_Scorpion_Chainsword.png|right|200px|thumb|Scorpion Chainsword]]
An Eldar variant of the Chainsword fielded by the Striking Scorpions. It's like the Imperial Chainsword but incorporates advanced equipment that increases the wielder's strength and incorporates a sleeker, less bulky design.

There's been fluff that suggests they are actually a lot more advanced than Imperial chainswords, consisting of a heavily serrated 41st millennium mono-molecular blade which doesn't whirl around most of the time. Rather, upon hitting an opponent, and the blade gets stuck in their body/armor, THAT's when it goes all chainsaw, ripping armor and people apart and ensuring that the blade doesn't ever get stuck in someone; it'll either go through them or at least rip whatever it's stuck in enough to be pulled out, while also being a lot quieter since the motor's not constantly humming.

<gallery>
image:ScorpionSwordZoomed.png
</gallery>

===Chainsabre===
[[File:Dragon's_Tooth_Chainsaber.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Chainsabre, ''Dragon's Tooth'']]
One of the Scorpion Exarch's unique variation of the Scorpion Chainsword. Chainsabres are unique weaponry used by Striking Scorpion Exarchs. These Chainswords are paired with ancient gauntlets which incorporate twin-linked [[Shuriken Catapult|Shuriken Pistols.]] Exarchs who use these weapons train to wield two of them at once, allowing them to level an unrelenting storm of attacks upon their opponent.

On the tabletop 8th edition, the Chainsabres are two one-handed chain weapons that can [[Fist_of_the_North_Star|land a truly staggering amount of blows on a target]]. In melee they function the exact same as the Scorpion Chainsword, though these will grant another melee attack and have the Shuriken Pistol profile for your ranged attacks. Considered the most versatile of the bunch.

<gallery>
Image:Striking_scorpions_exarchs_1_5.jpg|Chainsabre with Shuriken Pistol attatchment
</gallery>

===Biting Blade===
[[File:Biting_Blade.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Biting Blade]]
One of the Scorpion Exarch's unique variation of the Scorpion Chainsword. Essentially the Eldar copy of the Eviscerator. Biting Blades are large, two-handed, long-bladed Chainswords reminiscent of the massive Eviscerators used by zealots within the Imperium. However, where Imperial Eviscerators are heavy, noisy machines, Biting Blades are slender and quiet, but no less deadly for their relatively light weight. The advanced monomolecular-edged teeth of the blade tear through flesh as though it were parchment and equally shred bone and armor, easily cleaving a man-size target in two.

On the tabletop, the Biting Blade is a massive two-handed weapon whose effectiveness increases as a target is hit. Basically it is a two handed Chainsword that bumps up to S+2 (S5) AP-1 and 2 D compared to the run of the mill Scorpion Chainsword. The least expensive of the Exarch's selections, but it also costs him both his pistol and Scorpion Chainsword to use.

==Ork Variants==

===Chain Choppa===
[[image:Chainchoppa.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Chain Choppa]]
The Chain Choppa is the Ork version of the chainsword. The weapon is a handheld chainsaw (though it sometimes takes the form of a sword or axe) used for almost anything. Really, you name it. In a pinch it can stand in for anything ranging from a weapon to a household tool.

Regular garden variety [[Ork_Boy|Ork Boyz]] rarely have these weapons, while richer Orks like the [[Warboss]] or a [[Nob]] might have it because it's killy and flash. Many are simply war trophies picked up from loyalist and traitor Space Marines.

<gallery>
image:ChainChoppaZoomed.png
</gallery>

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===Big Chain Choppa===
[[File:OrkChainAxe.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Big Chain Choppa]]
The Chain Hammer of the Ork Horde.

Sometimes simply called the Ork Chainaxe. It is basically a Big Choppa with a motor system attached to it. Like the smaller Chain Choppa, certain Orks prefer this over the average Big Choppa due to the amount or carnage it can spew out.

The sheer size and relative complexity in making one means that only the biggest, strongest and wealthiest Orks could purchase one, like Nobs, Meganobs, Warbosses and Warlords. Like most Ork weapons, there are no standardization for the Big Chain Choppa.
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===Crusha===
[[File:OrkCrusha.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Crusha]]

''[[Derp|Not to be confused with the similarly named]] [[Miscellaneous Klose Kombat Weapons#Krusha|Krusha]]''

The Ork's Dreadnought Chainfist.

An oversized set of mechanical Chain Klaws which may or may not be the unholy lovechild of a Dread Klaw and a Chain Choppa.

The Crushas are basically the little brother of the Klaw of Gork/Mork and are meant to rip apart armored opponents with its pneumatic strength and powered piercing pincers. Whether they are actually Power Weapons is not known. What is known is that they feature a built-in Chain Weapon on the Klaws which can enable the Deff Dread to both capture and rip apart enemies at the same time.

Despite this, they are grouped all under the Killa Kan/Deff Dread Close Combat Weapons and thus, all share the same profile of a Dread Klaw/Kan Klaw (Depending on the walker using them). [[Derp|Which means that this non-Power Weapons share the same function as an ''actual'' Power Weapon.]] Although at the very least, the Crusha could at least be hand waved to function like the Chainfist.

===Mega-Choppa===
[[File:Mega-Choppa.PNG|200px|right|thumb|Mega-Choppa]]
The Orks saw the Imperium's Titan-sized Chainfists and proceeded to one-up them in both [[/d/|length, size and ''girth''.]]

A giant ECKSBAWKSHUEG Chainsword that are mounted only on biggest Ork walkers - from Stompas to Gargants and to see one in action is to witness a truly apocalyptic scene. These Mega-Choppas are designed to grind and rip apart enemy Titans with several swoops.

On tabletop, the Mega-Choppa is a Stompa's go-to carving weapon. It comes with 2 attack profiles. The first one is '''Smash''' which double's a Stompa's strength. Has a -5 AP. Causes 6 wounds per hit. Double S is inconsequential as there is nothing with T10. 6 wounds guaranteed are nice if you need exactly that, but more attacks are usually better. So you might want to use it for -5AP mostly.

The second attack profile is '''Slash''' which is only user-Strength, with a somehow lower AP than a Power Klaw (-2 as opposed to a klaw's -3), does D3 wounds per hit instead of the Smash's 6, BUT it lets you make 3 hit rolls for each Attack.
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== Notable Chainweapons ==

[[File:Torchlight chainswords by LaithArkham.jpg|left|thumb|300px|The mêlée weaponry of the 41st millennium offer a variety of implements for violently lacerating the opposition]]

'''Storm's Teeth''' - Take [[Berserk|Gut's]] DragonSlayer, turn it into a Chainsword, and then make it Bigger so only a [[Primarch]] can use it. Thats Storm's Teeth. Used by [[Rogal Dorn]] himself, it was said to be Dorn's favored weapon and is what he used against <s>[[Alpharius]]</s> some random Legionary. He also broke it when he found the Emperor barely alive after his duel with Horus, but that's fine since its remains would be used to create the sword used by the Black Templars High Marshal.

'''Frostfang''' - An ancient chainsword used by [[Ragnar Blackmane]]. The techniques used to make it were kept a secret by Fergus Forgrim to his deathbed so no one knows how it was made, because it's not like that could have been important or helpful later, right?

'''Gorefather and Gorechild''' - <s>THE BEST WEAPONS IN THE WHOLE OF 40K</s> {{BLAM}} {{BLAM}} {{BLAM|''DOUBLE HERESY!''}}Two chainaxes used by [[Angron]] during the [[Great Crusade]] and [[Horus Heresy]]. The teeth of these weapons came from a [[Awesome|MOTHERFUCKING MICA-DRAGON]], and are lubricated by [[Khorne|BLOOD]] (these weapons are so metal, they bring envy to the [[Iron Hands]] and [[Iron Warriors]]). Gorechild is currently being used by that [[Kharn|Swell guy]], and Gorefather <s>is nowhere to be seen, but it might show up again</s> was sadly destroyed on Armatura during the Great Crusade.

'''Teeth of Terra''' - Origin unknown, and with a tendency to show up in possession of many different chapters and disappear just as quickly, the Teeth of Terra is an ancient chainsword with obsidian teeth. It strikes hard and deep and allows the bearer to swing in huge, sweeping arcs.

'''Blood Reaver''' - An Eviscerator wielded by [[Gabriel Seth]]. Because nothing says [[rip and tear]] like a fuckheug chainsword, and the Flesh Tearers are masters of that particular craft.

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==Gallery==
<gallery>
DornStorm'sTeeth.png|<center>''Storm's Teeth''</center>
BlackmaneFrostfang.png|<center>''Frostfang''</center>
AngronGoreFatherChild.png|<center>''Gorefather & Gorechild''</center>
GoreChild.jpg|<center>''Gorechild'' (Present)</center>
GabrielSethBloodReaver.png|<center>''Blood Reaver''</center>
</gallery>

==Video Links==
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gj8pAN7Y7E DIY Chainsword, Blood Angel variant]

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[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Imperial]][[Category:Chaos]][[Category:Eldar]][[Category:Orks]]