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Minotaurs

2021-01-30T12:54:54Z

2603:8001:6940:E846:B9BB:430F:F18C:DE7F: /* Current Events */

{{Infobox Spess Mahreen Chapter
|Name = Minotaurs
|Heraldry = [[File:Minotaurs Symbol.jpg|200px]]
|Number = N/A
|Battle Cry = That's a nice watch. (Presumably)
|Founding = [[21st Founding]] (Supposedly)
|Successors of = '''+++Classified by order of the [[High Lords]]+++''' (The original Minotaurs are unknown; the new Minotaurs are all but confirmed to use Iron Warriors geneseed. Hints that one of the two are chimeric, money's on the unstable psychopaths)
|Successor Chapters = None
|Chapter Master = [[Asterion Moloc]]
|Primarch = Unknown; Angron (yellow/red Minotaurs "probably"); Perturabo (bronze Minotaurs)
|Homeworld = Fleet Based
|Specialty = (Old) Being psychotic [[Leeroy Jenkins]]; (New) Beating the shit out of other [[Space Marines]], taking their stuff, pissing off the [[Ultramarines]], siege warfare, and being the [[High Lords]]' personal army.
|Strength = 1000 (Officially)
|Allegiance = [[High lords of terra]]
|Colours = (old) Ketchup & Mustard stripes; (new) Bronze with a little Red.
}}
''If you are looking for the bull-headed beastmen from Greek mythology, see [[Minotaur]].''

==Out with the old...==
The '''Minotaurs''' (also known as the Moomarines) are a [[Chapter]] of [[Space Marine]]s and massive dicks. They were formed in the [[21st Founding|Cursed Founding]] as psychopathic berzerkers and were possibly successors to more stab-happy legions, like the [[Blood Angels]] (looking at you [[Flesh Tearers | Sanguine Berzerkers]]) or [[World Eaters]]. They first appeared in [[White Dwarf]] as one of the playable Chapters for the Chapter Approved Cursed founding article where they were also mentioned to have beaten the shit out of the [[Lamenters]] during the [[Badab War]], because the Lamenters chose the wrong side and the Minotaurs wanted an excuse to [[RIP AND TEAR]]. Then they disappeared. (to everyone's relief). Their color scheme was also fucking atrocious.

==...and in with the new==
[[File:Minotaurs Tact. Marine.jpg|250px|thumb|left|The Minotaurs have many suits of MKVIII "errant" pattern Power Armor.]]
The Minotaurs later popped up in [[Imperial Armour#Volume Ten - The Badab War - Part Two|Imperial Armour Volume 10]] and had their lore (and thankfully colour scheme) overhauled. They're still massive dicks though. Now the psycho-Minotaurs apparently disappeared thousands of years before the [[Badab War]], instead its these cunts who stomp stomp the poor Lamenters (and also take their stuff). They now dress like [[Iron Warriors|ancient Greeks]] and their Chapter Master, one [[Asterion Moloc]], appears to have pilfered the prop department from 300 for his outfit. They no longer maintain the "psychopathic berzerkers' flavour; instead (while still liking melee combat) they make and execute detailed battle plans focusing on siege and attrition warfare, being brooding, paranoid about security protocols, and very pragmatic. Example of that last trait being in [[Imperial Armour Volume 12]] here they let a good chunk of the [[Imperial Navy]] fight and die before they stepped in to give themselves a better chance against the Necrons (what assholes). They are essentially Greek-ier [[Iron Warriors]], who steal shit like the [[Blood Ravens]] (but instead of hijacking your stuff when you aren't looking, they will just mug you and take it). This better explains why they stole the Lamenters' stuff like the school bully shaking down the class nerd for his lunch money, once the old fight between the Lamenters and Minotaurs was retconned to have happened with these Minotaurs instead.

They now have vast stores of incredibly rare wargear, which includes: shittons of Arkonak and Tartaros-pattern [[Terminator]] armour, Mk8 [[power armor]], loads of [[Dreadnoughts]] (including rare Contemptor-pattern), [[Storm Eagle#Roc Pattern|their very own Storm Eagle variant]], and at least one [[AWESOME|power spear/lascannon combo]] that might have been <s>jacked</s> gifted from the [[Adeptus Custodes]]). With their [[High Lords of Terra|sugar daddies on Terra]] and taking the good wargear from Chapters they beat down, they have no shortage of the best toys available to the Astartes.

They also act as the [[High Lords of Terra|High Lords']] attack dogs now, only acting on orders from the High Lords themselves, telling anyone in their way to piss off. Oh, and the [[Administratum]] records are sealed (under direct order of the [[High Lords]]), so that not even [[inquisitor|Inquisitors]] can easily (if at all) access them. Which implies something about them (gee, wonder what?) has at least some Inquisitors worried.

To be fair, with the Emperor, Malcador, and the Primarchs gone and the Captain-General of the Custodes not doing his job as next in line to lead the Imperium, the High Lords are legitimately in charge so...

One of their [[Brother-Captain]]s insulted [[Marneus Calgar]] right in front of the [[Genesis Chapter]] (a 2nd founding [[Ultramarines]] descendant), basically telling them to stop sucking Calgar off 24/7; and the chapter later tore the [[Inceptors]] chapter (another Ultramarines successor) apart and stole all their stuff, formally pissing off the [[Ultramarines]] and all of their successors. The Ultramarines got so salty they perma-banned the Minotaurs from Ultramar (as if the Minotaurs care much). The Minotaurs also may or may not have shot down a [[Grey Knights|Grey Knight]] strike cruiser for trying to swoop in and steal all the glory for taking down a renegade chapter the Minotaurs had been hunting and fighting for awhile. Essentially they've told both of [[Matt Ward]]'s special snowflakes to go raw dog a plasma gun.

Needless to say, [[/tg/]] thinks they're pretty cool (and they are still massive dicks).

==Current Events==
During later M41 - early M42, the [[Death Guard]] directly besieged their space-borne [[Fortress-Monastery]] and poisoned their gene stocks beyond repair, forcing the Minotaurs to race towards [[Terra]] to restock their gene-vaults.

At least, that was the ''official'' reason, and as noted by [[Valerian]] in ''The Regent's Shadow'', no one was fooled by this, especially since the Daedalos Krata was ''right there''. The real reason for their return would be made clear very soon, however.

Once at Terra, the Chapter were tasked to work along side the Imperial Fists, Sisters of Silence, and Adeptus Custodes in quelling a rebellion growing on Terra itself. During the course of the investigations, they had to teach the Imperial Fists what they think of someone trying to steal their glory. i.e. the Imperial Fists tried to investigate a cultist kill-site cleared by the Minotaurs, aka the Imperial Fists were trying to steal the Minotaur's intel and get to the cultists first, and in response the Minotaurs killed the two Imperial Fists sent to investigate (after the Minotaurs warned them, and were promptly ignored by the Imperial Fists). An Imperial Fist got salty at this and tried to bow up at a Minotaur back at HQ. Said Imperial Fist got the shit beaten out of him by the Minotaur.

Eventually the HQ of the cultists was discovered, and the Minotaurs were the first ones there. Launching a '''SIEGE''' of the enemy's HQ while the Imperial Fists and Custodes were just then managing to figure out where it was. It turns out the rebellions were caused by the former members of the High Lords who had since been exiled by the now revived Guilliman. At first, it seemed that, the Minotaurs sided with the rebellious former High Lords. With Moloc standing by the former Master of the Administatium: Haemotalion. However, with the actual leaders of the rebellion sniffed out, assassins from the Vindicare Temple killed them all except for the Grandmaster of the Assassorium (who wasnt actually a traitor, instead having infiltrated the traitors as part of the plan to find/kill them) and Moloc (who had "conveniently" left the room just before the kill order was given). In very short order, all hell broke loose. With no one being aware of who was on whose side, the Minotaurs came into direct combat with a small contingent of Custodes and Sisters of Silence. They killed a few Sisters of Silence, and even one of the Custodes, but suffered far greater losses themselves (as if they cared). Eventually though, more Minotaurs showed up and started surrounding the survivors, who were circling to protect the Grandmaster of the Assasorium (as the Minotaurs weren't told he wasnt actually one of the traitors). Moloc himself was about to 1v1 Custodes Shield-Captain Valerian (with Moloc making the Custodes feel as close to afraid as a Custodes could possibly be. Sort of. As in, Valerian admitted he saw no flaw in Moloc's battle form, armour, or anything to exploit, and thus had 0 idea how to beat him before combat was begun. ]]), before the new Master of the Administratum (Violeta Roskavler), teleported in and (whispering to Moloc) ordered the Minotaurs to stand down. Apparently this whole mess, for the most part, was [[Just As Planned]], as the Minotaurs later departed for Guilliman's Indomitus Crusade without any form of issues.

During the Indomitus Crusade, the Minotaurs put on their good ass-stomping boots to deal with some Thousand Sons who had taken over a space station.

==Chapter History and Geneseed Confusion==
There is a significant amount of [[DERP]] surrounding who their daddy is, how long they've been around, or if these are even all the same group of dicks. Like the [[Fire Angels]], the Minotaurs are an example of two chapters sharing the same name, even the sourcebooks point out that the [[Cursed Founding]] Minotaurs and the bronzy Minotaurs are so different that it's a possibility there are multiple chapters who have the same name. There isn't much of a question around only "a" Minotaurs chapter being made during the [[Cursed Founding]] in M36, the same books leaves it ambiguous by alluding to there having been different Minotaurs chapters (essentially keeping the ketchup-mustard-psycho Minotaurs canon alongside the "new" Minotaurs). Pulling things like having records of the "Minotaurs" being around as far back as back in M32 (tag teaming a bunch of Chaos-spark rebellions with some other Chapters, and noticably not just wiping their asses with the battle plans before bolting hell-for-leather into melee range), even tho psycho "Minotaurs" chapter is listed as M36 [[Cursed Founding]]; pointing out that "chimeric" geneseed Astartes (especially from the [[Cursed Founding]]) tend to be mentally/physically unstable, but the "new" Minotaurs are about as stable as you can get (the "old" Minotaurs tho....yeah); and highlighting the difference in behavior, look, and combat doctrines of the bronze colored Minotaurs compared to records of the yellow/red Minotaurs.

Given the yellow/red Minotaurs tendencies to absolutely annihilate whatever is in their way, completely forgo any sort of intel gathering or battle plans, and a [[Rip and tear|psychotic need to just rage rush the enemy to get their stabby-stab on]], it's certainly possible for them be successors to one (or more) of the more bloodthirsty legions such as the [[Blood Angels]] or [[World Eaters]]. A chimeric blend with another gene-line would certainly make sense with their [[Cursed Founding]] origins and batshit insanity.

The bronze Minotaurs being the chimeric ones makes markedly less sense, since they are pretty much free of any mutations and have in fact one of the highest [[gene-seed]] acceptance rates of any Chapter (a classic Iron Warriors trait). Given their "brooding, maligned, paranoid, and pragmantic" behaviors; obsessive and meticulous data-analysis; noted mastery of siege and attrition warfare (with a secondary preference for close range combat); and heavy ancient Greek theme, they are a near 1-1 match of the [[Iron Warriors]]. Their 5th/6th/7th edition chapter tactics are even the same as the 30k Iron Warriors Legiones Astartes rules. This makes sense, given their depiction in the [[Imperial Armour]] books basically being [[Iron Warriors]] with a bronze color scheme.

If the bronzy Minotaurs are [[Iron Warriors]] successors, it would go a long way in explaining why the [[High Lords]] keep their records well and far away from the [[Ordo Hereticus]].

According to Eadwin Brown, one of the developers of the Badab War: The current incarnation of the Minotaurs was formed by a garrison of [[Iron Warriors]] who were allowed to rejoin the Imperium (but put on a short leash by the High Lords) back during the [[Great Scouring]]. The reason for their lack of/confusing history (including a different chapter getting the same name) being a mix of deliberate actions of the [[High Lords]] not wanting to lose their personal pet Astartes and the difficulty of the Administratium's already shitty record keeping. Or maybe the Cursed Founding World Eater chimera Minotaurs were explicitly set up to fail in a deniable fashion that allowed the High Lords to get the Iron Warrior Minotaurs quietly formalised. If this is true, this raises all sorts of questions as to whether the Cursed Founding was deliberate to cover this up. It also means that there are probably many other Chapters like the Minotaurs from traitor legions. The Chapters that seem free of High Lord control but blatantly from traitor legions likely descend from those badass loyalists among the traitor legions. The Chapters held on a short leash by the High Lords are probably descended from traitor legion stock whose founders were of questionable loyalty, such as a surrendering garrison. Evidence of this might even be the excellent equipment they posses. After all, wouldn’t it be exactly like those dumb fucks to heavily equip possible traitors instead of loyal Chapters just so they can pretend to actually control them?

==Other Information==
[[File:Minotaurs Tartaros.jpg|250px|thumb|right|The Chapter has many Tartaros pattern suits and other relics.]]While the Minotaurs are strict followers of the [[Codex Astartes]], they're almost never seen as small groups or even individual companies. Every time they're deployed its always been at full Chapter strength. Their incredible effectiveness just goes to prove the Codex is awesome at a Chapter level and above. It isn’t like Guilliman didn’t study his brothers’ tactics, too. They fight in only one war zone at a time with the entire chapter fighting together. This makes them essentially a massive fucking beatstick that the High Lords call upon when shit hits the fan. They also have an unusual preference for killing other Space Marines, which made them feel right at home during the Badab War. Given their fancy new gear, their borderline omnicidal tendencies, and always operating as a full chapter, it would seem that the job of the "Emperor's Executioners" no longer falls upon the [[Space Wolves]]. They were probably created for fighting Chaos and renegade Marines and just sorta turned out pretty handy for forcing idiot [[Chapter]]s into line.

To the High Lord’s credit, the Minotaurs seem to not be an abuse of power. The Chapters they beat up are let go if they flee or surrender early instead of digging in. Those that keep fighting are curbstomped, but not exterminated. And when they beat on Marines, it’s hard to argue that the receivers of said beating didn’t deserve it (save in [[Lamenters|very specific instances]]).

Unlike most Chapters, the Minotaurs appear to be able to replenish their numbers at an accelerated rate, to the point that they could recover from losses in a fraction of the time it would take other Chapters a century or two to fully recover from. This allows them to quickly rebuild their force to full Chapter strength, even after suffering what would normally be unsustainable causalities. Imperial observers during the Antigonis campaign theorized that this may have something to do with the heavy use of hypnotherapy and neuro-cerebral therapy used in the training of neophytes and frequently "refreshed" with the help of Apothecaries in the Chapter. This has proven to have some unpleasant side-effects- the Minotaurs are highly xenophobic and paranoid, even by the high standards of the Imperium. These are bonus perks in a galaxy in which not being sufficiently xenophobic and paranoid gets you or your soul eaten.

There's also a good chance that they recruit from [[Terra]] itself thanks to their connections with the High Lords, giving them a massive recruit pool, as the Imperial Fists are also able to replenish losses equally fast thanks to having billions of potential candidates. This is mostly due to the Imperial Fists building recruitment posts on every world they rescue from invasion. Even then they request permission first as Dorn said he "...want recruits, not vassals". The Black Templars also do this and benefit greatly from this method. And since the Minotaurs gene-seed tithes are locked away nice and tight, no one is sure who their progenitors are.

Aside from the hideous old ketchup-and-mustard motherfuckers and the Greek muggers, there are also a pair of Chapters called the [[Brazen Minotaurs]] (looks like the Minotaurs wearing the [[Taurans]]' chapter badge) and [[White Minotaurs]] (looks like the Minotaurs but with a white Tauran bullhead badge). There isn't much fluff on them, being two of those Chapters with a name and a color design and nothing else.

==(In)famous Campaigns==
*'''[[Solar Rebellion]]''' - The Chapter is listed among the Imperial Forces tasked with bulldozing a Chaos-sparked rebellion within the Segmentium Solar. The interesting part is, [[Time of Rebirth|this was in M32...]] the [[Cursed Founding]] was in M36...
*'''[[Macharian Heresy]]''' - The Chapter is called to deal with the petty star empires created by the former generals of [[Lord Solar Macharius]]. They crush one after the other, following all of the High Lord's orders without question, and causing a lot of collateral damage in the process.
*'''Euxine Incident''' - ''The'' action that earned the Chapter their reputation. Still during the [[Macharian Heresy]], the [[Inceptors]] Chapter got involved in a fight with the Doom Warriors. They were supposedly drinking buddies before-hand but their friendship was broken over [[Lawful Stupid|matters of "honor"]]. The Imperium, not wanting ''more bullshit'', sent in the Minotaurs to beat some sense into them. The Chapter, in it's [[rape|usual style]], hit both chapters at once. The Doom Warriors, having some sense gained from this initial strike, left the Euxine system. The Inceptors did not leave. Instead they dug in and fought the Minotaurs like men. They lost, and the 100 surviving Inceptors were forced to surrender at barrel point. After they surrendered, [[That Guy|the Minotaurs robbed their relics, jacked Battle-Barge, and left.]] The [[Ultramarines]], seeing at how one of their own [[second founding]] successors got treated like shit, declared that the Minotaurs were permabanned from [[Ultramar]]. Nothing like punishing a loyalist Chapter for beating up civil war mongering renegades to prove your own loyalty.
*'''Defense of Hermetica''' - The heavily-fortified capital of a sector located in the [[Segmentum]] Solar finds itself overwhelmed when the [[Word Bearers]] suddenly dropped from a warp rift in a motherfucking [[Space Hulk]] filled to the brim with [[Mutant]]s. The Minotaurs are the first imperial force to respond: they track the [[Dark Apostle]] into the main cathedral, and decide to blast their way in with orbital bombardement and tanks regardless of civilian casualties. [[Asterion Moloc]] and his [[Terminator]]s slaugther their way into the catacombs, but the Dark Apostle escapes before he can be dealt the killing blow.
*'''[[Badab War]]''' - You know this one: [[Lugft Huron]] declares independance from the [[High Lords of Terra]], and a fuckton of chapters are sent his way to remind him why that is not a thing. The Minotaurs gained several important victories during this time, but would be more infamously remembered for the shit they did to the poor [[Lamenters]]. (The same thing they did to the [[Inceptors]]) Suffice to say, if anyone had any doubts on their behavior before, those doubts were quickly dispelled after that.
*'''Battle of Rynn's World''' - The Minotaurs saw action on Rynn's World during the attempt to reclaim the [[Crimson Fists]]' homeworld from the [[Orks]]. Shockingly, they didn't attempt anything like scavenging the ruins of the Crimson Fists [[Fortress-Monastery]]. Maybe it has something to do with [[Alexis Polux|who founded the Crimson Fists]]....and a certain friendship he had with [[Barabas Dantioch|a particular loyal Iron Warrior]].
*'''Harrowing of the Night Reapers''' The aforementionned [[Chapter]] had been sent on penitent crusade to the a dengerous backwater nebula as punishment for abandoning a Shrine World to the forces of Chaos. They went radio silent after a while, and steadly started to deviate from [[Codex]] doctrine, tactics, and equipment. Six years after last contact and many suspicious raids in the area, irrefutable proof of their attack on a [[Rogue Trader]] vessel earned them an ''Excommunicate Traitoris''. Four companies of the [[Avenging Sons]] went after them, but that chapter can't do anything right and got ambushed by the Night Reapers, who captured one of their [[Space Marine Strike Cruiser|Star Cruisers]] and mauled another. They blamed their humilliating defeat on "Warp flame weapons" that bypassed [[Void shields]], so the High Lords had to send someone who could actually [[get shit done]]: The Minotaurs and the [[Red Hunters]]. (now we're talking) The two Chapters fought the Night Reapers and their heretekal Xeno-tech across a dozen star systems until they cornered them at a pre-human space wreck so massive it had it's own athmosphere and ecosystem. The Night Reapers were searching for a weapon that they beleived would allow them to defeat the Imperials, when a [[Grey Knights]] ship showed up demanding all Imperial forces to pull back. The Minotaurs, naturally, didn't give a fuck and kept fighting. The Knights of Titan had to launch their teleport assault in the midst of the battle. Shortly after, something happened that caused everyone to get BTFO to kingdom come: Minotaurs, Night Reapers, and Grey Knights alike. The Grey Knight's strike cruise was somehow damaged by the blast....and it somehow killed everyone onboard. [[Asterion Moloc]] was [[Phoenix Lord|the only survivor]].
*'''[[Orphean War]]''' - Karma finally starts catching up to the Chapter's douchebaggery when they have to face the Necrons of the [[Maynarkh Dynasty]]. They lose their stolen ships in the desperate assault against the necron fleet over Amarah Prime, and take many casualties that would be sorely felt later in their race back to [[Terra]]. Moloc <s>dies</s> [[Phoenix Lord|almost dies]] again, this time by achieving a mutual KO against the Maynarkh [[Necron Overlord|Overlord]] Makthlan Kutlakh the World Killer.

==Daily Rituals==

:04:00 Wake Up: The Minotaurs arise from their beds (each Minotaur has their own king-sized bed with luxury mattress and comforter). They make sure to beat up a dummy space marine before leaving.
:05:00 Morning Prayer: The Minotaurs gather in the chapel to praise the Emperor. They also praise the High Lords of Terra. Any battle brother who prays to not have to kill other space marines is put in the "patience chamber".
:06:00 Morning Firing Rituals: The Minotaurs pull live space marines from the "patience chamber" to practice firing upon. Any battle brother whose shot kills the space marine instantly is put into the "patience chamber".
:08:00 Morning Battle Practice: The Minotaurs release captured prisoners within the "patience chamber." Imprisoned members include failed Minotaurs, rebellious Ultramarines (and successors), Marines Malevolent, Fallen, The <s>victims</s> participants are then forced to fight the entire chapter with substandard equipment.
:10:00 Morning Tactical Indoctrination: The Minotaurs finish off the last of their prisoners and gather together in the Great Hall to discuss strategy. Common tactics involve marching right through enemy fire, throwing allied units into enemy fire THEN marching through whats left, missile strikes on engaged melee units, and techniques to kill other space marines. Any battle brother who points out the faults in these tactics is put in the "patience chamber" (any actual faults are noted for later tactical refinement).
:11:00 Afternoon Prayer: The Minotaurs give thanks to the High Lords of Terra for allowing them to be such dicks. In a sacred ritual, each battle brother is required to kiss the butt of golden statues honoring the High Lords Of Terra. Any battle brother who claims this is gay is sent to the "patience chamber".
:12:00 Afternoon Meal: The Minotaurs gather to feast upon fine meats and food provided by their besties: the High Lords. Serfs rush quickly to ensure that each marine is fed to his heart's content. Those who don't clean their plates are sent to the "patience chamber".
:13:00 Afternoon Battle Practice: The Minotaurs descend to any number of worlds in order to hone their space marine killing skills. The Lamenters are the most frequent target, but Baal and Ultramar are also popular destinations. A number of the the targeted space marines are captured and put in the "patience chamber". The food stocks of enemy forces are taken for Evening Meal.
:15:00 Afternoon Firing Rites: The Minotaurs practice shooting at cutouts for once. These cutouts are usually painted [[Ultramarines|blue]], [[Lamenters|yellow]], or [[Grey Knights|grey]].
:16:00 Enhanced Tactical Indoctrine: The Minotaurs learn how to most effectively teamkill each army in the Imperium. During this time, they also will use artillery and vehicle simulators in order to practice causing the most possible destruction upon space marines fortifications such as: driving tanks straight through walls and orbital strikes on Astartes medical station.
:17:00 Recruitment: <s>Slaves</s> Fresh recruits arrive from Terra. These are force to either serve as serfs for the chapter, or begin the Minotaurs' <s>forced reprogramming</s> training process. Imperial Officials are ordered to turn a blind eye to this process, causing the Salamanders to [[RAGE]].
:18:00 Evening Meal: The Minotaurs feast once again, devouring the food stocks taken during Afternoon Battle Practice, infront of the survivors of who they took it from. Any brother who feels guilty about this is sent to the "patience chamber".
:20:00 Propaganda: Minotaurs gather in the Great Hall [[Bullshit|to listen to the brilliant, enlightened, sophisticated, and productive conversations that the High Lords partake in.]] Any battle brother who dozes off or claims the High Lords are full of shit is sent to the "patience chamber".
:22:00 Free time: The Minotaurs are granted free time. This mostly involves reading the excessive number of manuals on how to kill space marines, beating each other up as practice, and repainting wargear taken from other Chapters.
:23:00 Bed Time: The Minotaurs retire to their quarters for the evening. Before falling asleep, they beat up the space marine dummy again.

==Tabletop==

===Chapter Approved===
When the first Minotaurs were introduced as one of the Cursed Founding chapters, for +10 points per model, or +20 per dreadnought (on top of the regular costs) you could give your entire army Fearless and +1 Attack though they had to move towards and assault the nearest enemy they could (even if they had no chance of hurting it) and had to sweep advance, but nobody did it because painting them WAS A FUCKING NIGHTMARE. Both because they had the most annoying colour scheme (worse than the quarter ones like the [[Howling Griffons]]) and because their colours made them look fucking ugly.

===6th Edition===
With the updates they got their own Chapter Tactics. Minotaurs Chapter Tactics models don't take morale checks from shooting attacks, and can re-roll failed pinning tests. In addition they have crusader USR, and +1 to charge distance when in the enemy deployment zone. Overall one of the [[fail|worst]] Chapter Tactics. Crusader certainly is nice to have, but ATSKNF makes re-rolling pinning and no morale checks from shooting pretty redundant. If you're gonna play Minotaurs you're gonna have to bring Moloc, who is a fucking monster in CC while gaining a VP per character executed in a challenge ''and'' giving your guys Prefered Enemy (Space Marines). So if you didn't get the memo, Minotaurs are meant to be run with Moloc as your Warlord against other Space Marine armies. If a friend of yours is running a really annoying Space Marine army, especially if he has Smashfucker, sic these guys on him and watch him cry.

===8th Edition===
How 8th Edition treated Forge World chapters is an issue of [[skub|intense debate]]. Sure, you can choose whatever tactic you want, but it still feels like an afterthought on the part of Games Workshop. That aside, Moloc and Aiakos came out of the update relatively unscathed, still being hard nuts to crack and very lethal overall, but with loss of initiative, and Moloc has lost the main thing he was taken for - the godsent army-wide Preferred enemy: Space Marines. Instead he can "do the wulfen" now. Ivanus, however, has lost all of his utility and is just an overpriced Chaplain with attacks and wounds of a captain, and no longer gains an extra attack from having two specialist weapons. Hecaton fell into category of Characters too fat to use Character rule and costs a little shy of a goddamn GALLANT KNIGHT but with Hero of the Chapter strategem can be a pain in the ass on a city map. Kraatos also no longer exists as of the FAQ, with Forge World telling you to just [[fail|use him as a regular devastator marine]]. ROC pattern Storm Eagle still rocks though.

===9th Edition===
As of the Imperial Armour Compendium, they play up the Minotaurs siege warfare specialization. Suggesting they be played using the Imperial Fist codex, with the Stalwart and Duelist traits.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Minotaurs_Original_Scheme.jpg|[[Fail|Their original scheme]], just try and paint an entire Chapter of them.
File:Veteran_Brother_Isskar.PNG|Stylized red markings are used to identify [[Veteran Squad]]s...
File:Sternguard_Veteran_Thoul.PNG|...And sergeants
</gallery>

{{Marines-Official}}

Sisters of Silence

2021-01-29T11:06:59Z

2603:8001:6940:E846:B9BB:430F:F18C:DE7F: /* History */

[[image:Sisters of Silence art.jpg|right|250px|thumb|They're as bitchin' as they look.]]
{{Topquote|That's their function... Aside from the fact that they fight like bastards. Got the pariah gene in 'em.|[[Leman Russ]], [[Primarch]] of the [[Space Wolves]], on the Sisters of Silence}}

The '''Sisters of Silence''' were an elite all-female order created by the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emperor of Mankind]] to man the [[Black Ships]] and round up a planet's renegade [[psyker]]s.

==History==
[[image:Sisters of silence.jpeg|right|250px|thumb|The Sisters of Silence. NOT ELDAR! It's like reverse eldar, anti psykers that have the near same outfits...]]
Near the onset of the [[Great Crusade]], the Emperor formed them as a counter-measure against untrained psykers, whose numbers had increased at the start of the [[Age of Strife]]. To do this, the Emperor ensured that they were all [[Blank|pariah]]s, human beings with no presence in the [[Warp]]; one has to wonder though whether they had to compete with the [[Officio Assassinorum]] for recruits (probably not, seeing as the Culexus Assassins are primarily males). As such, a psyker's abilities would have no effect on them, being cancelled out when they got close enough to the Sisters. In one of his stranger decisions, the Emperor explicitly had the Sisters take literal vows of silence upon becoming full Sisters. They could communicate via several sign languages (including [[Space Marines|Astartes]] battle-sign) but would not speak a word upon completion of their training. To ensure communication between other branches of the [[Imperium of Man]], Sisters-in-training would serve as communicators.

Given recent revelations about the nature of the Emperor, this [[skub|may or may not]] have been to stop them blabbing [[Neckbeard|what they saw]] under his glamours. It's implied that what a Sister sees when she looks at a warp entity is not the same as what a regular being will see; Tannau Aleya describes Bloodthirsters as being horrific ''looking'' creatures but that's it. Speaking of daemons, recent fluff from the Horus Heresy/Siege Of Terra novels, as well as the more "current" Dark Imperium entries have really expanded on just how much the neverborn fear these ladies. Among others, Drach'nyen and Ku'Gath, considerably powerful daemons both, have both outright stated that to be struck down by one of the Sisters will result not in merely getting banished back to the warp, but in a '' true death''.

The Sisters of Silence are also consummate warriors. Actually, that's something of an understatemen; don't make the mistake of assuming they're comparable to the Sisters of Battle, who occupy a space somewhere between Guardsman and Astartes. They are not. The Sisters of Silence operate alongside The Custodes, which probably says more about their prowess than anything else could. The Silent Sisterhood are trained to at least the same levels as the Space Marine Legions and using similar wargear, such as [[bolter]]s and [[power weapon]]s, as well as being covered in gold, SoB-like power armour; theirs lacks an armored helmet or other head protection aside from the bevor that hides their mouths, which leads to a lot of deaths from headshots during the burning of [[Prospero]]. As a military force, they are formidable; during the Burning of Prospero, they were deployed to augment the [[Space Wolves]] and the [[Adeptus Custodes]]. While this was more because the pariah gene would neutralize the [[Thousand Sons]]' psyker abilities, they were more than capable of fighting against the Astartes. They would also in turn augment the Custodes, the [[Imperial Fists]], the [[Blood Angels]], and the [[White Scars]] during the [[Siege of Terra]], where the pariah gene became a boon fighting the [[Daemon]]s unleashed by the traitors.

===After the Horus Heresy===
For the longest time, the fate of the Sisters of Silence following the [[Horus Heresy]] had been an object of much speculation in the fandom. It is only recently that what they've been doing has been brought to light, and while some of the theories have been surprisingly spot on (that many Sisters were absorbed into the Inquisition to man their Black Ships), others... didn't quite hit the mark. Thanks to their own mini-codex, as well as the [[War of the Beast]] series and ''Watchers of the Throne'' and ''Dark Imperium'', a somewhat clearer picture of ''what'' happened to the Sisters can be reconstructed.

It turns out that the Sisters were never "officially" disbanded by the [[Administratum]]. However in the wake of the Emperor's internment within the Golden Throne, the surviving Sisters suddenly found themselves without direct support from the Imperial Bureaucracy. This made a lot of the surviving Sisters bitter obviously, but a number of them shrugged, and decided to continue with their Emperor-given mandate anyway... just with less resources than they're used to. In all honesty this is downright unbelievable beyond 40K’s standards. This is the Emperor’s personal witch-hunters and responsible for collecting the Imperium’s psykers as well as part of his revered talons. It’s just as ridiculous and downright IMPOSSIBLE for them to be cut off as it is the freaking CUSTODES. Just ignore this as it is...well it’s genuinely impossible (but perhaps them being the blanks - the creatures who's presence is extremely uncomfortable - is the big factor of it).

As previously mentioned, some Sisters were absorbed into the [[Adeptus Astra Telepathica]] to crew its [[Black Ships]], or served as retinues to important [[Inquisitor]] Lords. Many others, however dispersed, back into the general populace, settling down to have normal lives, and in doing so passed down the Pariah gene down to their descendants. Lastly, some quietly found secret Convents in out-of-way worlds, far from view of the average Imperial citizen. It is one of these Convents that [[Slaughter Koorland]] approached and convinced to aid the Imperium in the [[War of the Beast]].

By M32, the Sisters of Silence refused to recognize the Imperium in its political form, seeing it as a corrupted simulacrum of what the Emperor actually intended, but they still acknowledge the Emperor as the focus of their loyalty. Thus, when their services are required again, they accept the calling and return to Terra, where they are granted an audience with the Emperor in his sanctum, a privilege that not even the High Lords are afforded. [[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device|Just how exactly that would've worked is a mystery, given how the Emperor can presumably only communicate psychically at this point, which probably wouldn't work at all on a group of nulls.]] Of course, blanks/nulls/whatever have been overpowered by strong psykers before, so it wouldn’t take the Emperor any real effort. Or he sent Astropaths to deliver messages via secretaries or something.

Although that particular Convent was wiped out slaying the Beast, many more survived through the millennia, and by the end of the 41st Millennium, the number of Sisters had swelled into the tens of thousands. And it was just as well too, as the Imperium would need their aid really REALLY soon.

===Returning to the Fray: The Rise of the Primarch===
[[image:Sister-of-silence.jpg|right|250px|thumb|You, Psyker. Yeah You. Fuck You.]]

Shortly after the reappearance of [[Magnus the Red]] during the [[Fenris]] campaign, the High Lords of Terra issued a writ that would summon the Sisterhood back to Terra, where they would be used once again. It transpired that [[Trajann Valoris]], Captain-General of the [[Adeptus Custodes]] had pre-empted this decree and had quietly been collecting disparate Sisters to Terra in advance, knowing that the time may come when they were needed again; the knee-jerk response of the High Lords to Terra simply rendered it legal.

Some of the exiled Sisters resented this greatly, having been ignored for millennia. In the novel ''Watchers of the Throne'', one particular sister, Tannau Aleya, spends most of the book (quietly) raging about how her convent was left without support for so long, especially how the Custodes seemed to be "pampered" by comparison, despite being stuck on Terra for nearly ten millennia. Aleya also "talks" a fair bit about the mentality of the Silent Sisters, stating that the Sisters ironically crave human fellowship, as it temporarily fills the void they feel inside due to their nature as blanks. This also leads to extremely strong bonds between the Sisters described as a fierce almost desperate love, due to sharing such a unique bond and having been reviled and hated by most of the people they'd ever come across. The sisters also seem to grow close to the Custodes they fought with during the Great Crusade, to the extent Custodes could tell what a sister was trying to convey without her even having to sign it to him, something that later made one sister immediately realize Drach'nyen was impersonating a Custodes. They also never entirely get used to the reaction they cause in others, with every twitch and every appalled expression twisting the knife every time they see that reaction.

Overall they come across as somewhat tragic, as they spend their lives protecting a species that can't even stand to be in the same room as them, and hates them without even being able to articulate why.

The Sisters' first "official" action was to deploy with the Custodes on Luna to save a recently resurrected Lord Guilliman from being used by Magnus to mop the floor, and they later helped fight back against a [[Khorne]] daemon invasion of Terra directly. When Guilliman returned from his audience with the Emperor, he dissolved the standing order that restricted the Custodians to Terra, and he ordered the Sisterhood to coordinate with them and join the front lines.

Still, no matter how hurt or angry they are, they still answered the call to defend humanity from Chaos again.

==Emperor Worship==

By the 41st Millennium it turns out that some Sisters had converted to the worship of the Emperor, even describing the Emperor as "holy" right in front of Lord Commander [[Roboute Guilliman]], while considering the Primarch to be his divine messenger and demigod son. Though this is not entirely new information, as even during the Horus Heresy, there were some Sisters who had already started to consider the Emperor as a god, and were willing to break their vows of tranquility. Some had even "read the book" ''(the Lectitio Divinitatus)'' according to [[Knights-Errant|Kyril Sinderman]], and allowed the faithful to escape custody from the Somnus Citadel on Luna so that they could continue to spread the word.

Since most of ''Dark Imperium'' was about Guilliman trying to come to terms with what humanity had become since the Heresy, it was all Guilliman could do to not [[Blam|eat his own bolter]] then and there. However, giving the appearance of converting to the faith is the easiest way to integrate themselves with the Imperium without getting grief from the other branches. This is definitely true for at least one convent; Aleya's was said to have had "sham" shrines and it's implied that those Sisters feigned their faith to avoid being persecuted as heretics. There is also a difference between those sisters that manned the [[Black Ships]] versus those that were outside of the Imperium's control, with those that were aboard the black ships having closer ties and a lot more loyalty towards the [[High Lords of Terra|Imperium's leadership]], to the extent that Aleya didn't trust them to do what was needed without waiting for permission. It's possible the Emperor-worshiping Sisters are those that were recruited and controlled by the Imperium for the black ships, while those outside of Imperial control and influence managed to keep their old ways.

==Notable Sisters==
* '''Jenetia Krole:''' AKA the "Soulless Queen of the Imperium" was the Knight Commander of the Sisters of silence and the single most terrifying woman in the entire human race. No, Really. She could be placed in a staring contest with an entire Convent of [[Sisters of Battle]], [[Inquisitor Greyfax]], A warband of [[Night Lords]] and a FUCKING Dark Eldar [[Haemonculus]] and she would stare them all down until they ran away with their tails between their legs. Her Pariah aura was so strong and distracting she caused members of the [[Adeptus Custodes]] to avert their eyes because it pained them to look at Her. To most beings, her anti-soul aura was so strong that they simply couldn't see her. When Big E needed the [[Thousand Sons]] "disciplined" she challenged the legions most powerful sorcerers to duels and Killed them, and then she Killed a Daemon just for good measure. She then fought in the Webway and survived the retreat to the Imperial Palace losing 3 fingers on the way, not really seeming to care about her lost digits. She used a Zwei-hander sword dubbed "Veracity" that was used by [[The Emperor]] during the unification wars, so yeah, that's cool too. She finally dies while fighting [[Khârn]] during the Siege of Terra, right after she took out a fuckton of named World Eaters.

*'''Amendera Kendel''' - A former Sister of Silence turned ''[[Knights-Errant|Agentia Tercius]]'' to Malcador. She is still a Pariah of course, but she gave up her vow of silence 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.

* '''Tannau Aleya:''' One of the (previously mentioned) POV characters for ''Watchers of the Throne''. A Sister from the convent located on Araissa, she becomes its sole survivor when it is attacked by the [[Black Legion]] while she was away hunting down cultists on another world. Hot-headed and very opinionated, Aleya spends most of the book bitter at the Imperium for ignoring the Sisters for so long, and infuriated that [[Shield-Captain]] Valerian (the ''other'' POV character of the book) seems impossible to goad into anger, but takes her duties as a Sister very seriously, and was willing to lay down her life at even a chance to cave in some Black Legion heads. Started out using a heavy flamer to do her work, before turning it in for a greatsword once she got picked up by Navradaan on the way to Terra. She is also an absolute badass, winning a firefight that was 5-1 and taking on a Chaos Marine in close quarters alone and WINNING, then removing his helmet and spitting in his face for killing her sisters. The updated rules for the Talons of The Emperor make her not just in fluff but also in-game a battle couple with Valerian, another proof tsunderism and animu is slowly infecting 40k's updated setting.

==Mini-Codex and Moving Forward==

A common rumor is that they will be added into some upcoming [[Sisters of Battle]] relaunch. If so, that would be an interesting revision; on the one hand, the Sisters of Battle, despite being designated witch-hunters, are lacking in the anti-psyker department. On the other hand, the Sisters of Silence, much like the Space Marines, are big believers in the Great Crusade era of the Imperium, and likely won't mesh well with the [[Ecclesiarchy]]. On the other hand, Dark Imperium implies they fully converted to the Imperial Cult over time so their ideology would likely mesh together well. So, in conclusion, the most probable thing that GW can do with the SoS is to say that the Adepta Sororitas in its current form can trace its origins to the M36 '''Daughters of the Emperor''' as well as offshoots of the original [[Sisters of Silence]] and find some way to reconcile them both.

As of 2018, any news on them has been slow and via the Horus Heresy Team at Forge World. They stated that there would at least be some 8th edition rules for Talons (which includes Grey Knights apparently) coming eventually while they're not working on all these other Horus Heresy, Titanicus, Necromunda, and Blood Bowl projects. So far nothing on Sisters but Custodians at least got a handful of new kit.

Why they weren't simply added to the Custodes codex, only GW knows.

As of 2020, during Nurgle's Pandemic, it's been all but confirmed by GW that Sisters of Silence and Custodes will be merged together in the second-to-last chapter of the Psychic Awakening, "War of the Spider", as the Talons of the Emperor. Coupled with the new Black Library models that feature a Shield Captain and SoS in a single unit with that as a faction keyword, there is a lot of evidence that supports this.

==See Also==
*[[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Talons_of_the_Emperor_(30k)|Sisters of Silence (AKA Talons of the Emperor) Horus Heresy Tactics]]
*[[Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Talons of the Emperor (9E)|Sisters of Silence (AKA Talons of the Emperor) 40k Tactics]]

==Gallery==
<center>
<gallery>
SoS vs. TS Dred.jpg|Being in a Dreadnought does not make you safe from these chicks.
SoS vs. EC Noise Marines.jpg|Even ''these'' bastards are having a hard time dealing with them.
Sister_of_silence_by_n924.jpg|As scary as they are, they can still be the cutest sweethearts of the Emprah.
Jenetia Krole.jpg|Jenetia Krole, She's not staring into your soul, she's staring through it.
</gallery>
</center>

{{Template:Sisters-of-Silence}}

{{Imperium}}

Sisters of Silence

2021-01-29T10:48:34Z

2603:8001:6940:E846:B9BB:430F:F18C:DE7F: /* History */

[[image:Sisters of Silence art.jpg|right|250px|thumb|They're as bitchin' as they look.]]
{{Topquote|That's their function... Aside from the fact that they fight like bastards. Got the pariah gene in 'em.|[[Leman Russ]], [[Primarch]] of the [[Space Wolves]], on the Sisters of Silence}}

The '''Sisters of Silence''' were an elite all-female order created by the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emperor of Mankind]] to man the [[Black Ships]] and round up a planet's renegade [[psyker]]s.

==History==
[[image:Sisters of silence.jpeg|right|250px|thumb|The Sisters of Silence. NOT ELDAR! It's like reverse eldar, anti psykers that have the near same outfits...]]
Near the onset of the [[Great Crusade]], the Emperor formed them as a counter-measure against untrained psykers, whose numbers had increased at the start of the [[Age of Strife]]. To do this, the Emperor ensured that they were all [[Blank|pariah]]s, human beings with no presence in the [[Warp]]; one has to wonder though whether they had to compete with the [[Officio Assassinorum]] for recruits (probably not, seeing as the Culexus Assassins are primarily males). As such, a psyker's abilities would have no effect on them, being cancelled out when they got close enough to the Sisters. In one of his stranger decisions, the Emperor explicitly had the Sisters take literal vows of silence upon becoming full Sisters. They could communicate via several sign languages (including [[Space Marines|Astartes]] battle-sign) but would not speak a word upon completion of their training. To ensure communication between other branches of the [[Imperium of Man]], Sisters-in-training would serve as communicators.

Given recent revelations about the nature of the Emperor, this [[skub|may or may not]] have been to stop them blabbing [[Neckbeard|what they saw]] under his glamours. It's implied that what a Sister sees when she looks at a warp entity is not the same as what a regular being will see; Tannau Aleya describes Bloodthirsters as being horrific ''looking'' creatures but that's it. Speaking of daemons, recent fluff from the Horus Heresy/Siege Of Terra novels, as well as the more "current" Dark Imperium entries have really expanded on just how much the neverborn fear these ladies. Among others, Drach'nyen and Ku'Gath, considerably powerful daemons both, have both outright stated that to be struck down by one of the Sisters will result not in merely getting banished back to the warp, but in a true death.

The Sisters of Silence are also consummate warriors. Actually, that's something of an understatemen; don't make the mistake of assuming they're comparable to the Sisters of Battle, who occupy a space somewhere between Guardsman and Astartes. They are not. The Sisters of Silence operate alongside The Custodes, which probably says more about their prowess than anything else could. The Sisters are trained to at least the same levels as the Space Marine Legions and using similar wargear, such as [[bolter]]s and [[power weapon]]s, as well as being covered in SoB-like power armour; theirs lacks an armored helmet or other head protection aside from the bevor that hides their mouths, which leads to a lot of deaths from headshots during the burning of [[Prospero]]. As a military force, they are formidable; during the Burning of Prospero, they were deployed to augment the [[Space Wolves]] and the [[Adeptus Custodes]]. While this was more because the pariah gene would neutralize the [[Thousand Sons]]' psyker abilities, they were more than capable of fighting against the Astartes. They would also in turn augment the Custodes, the [[Imperial Fists]], the [[Blood Angels]], and the [[White Scars]] during the [[Siege of Terra]], where the pariah gene became a boon fighting the [[Daemon]]s unleashed by the traitors.

===After the Horus Heresy===
For the longest time, the fate of the Sisters of Silence following the [[Horus Heresy]] had been an object of much speculation in the fandom. It is only recently that what they've been doing has been brought to light, and while some of the theories have been surprisingly spot on (that many Sisters were absorbed into the Inquisition to man their Black Ships), others... didn't quite hit the mark. Thanks to their own mini-codex, as well as the [[War of the Beast]] series and ''Watchers of the Throne'' and ''Dark Imperium'', a somewhat clearer picture of ''what'' happened to the Sisters can be reconstructed.

It turns out that the Sisters were never "officially" disbanded by the [[Administratum]]. However in the wake of the Emperor's internment within the Golden Throne, the surviving Sisters suddenly found themselves without direct support from the Imperial Bureaucracy. This made a lot of the surviving Sisters bitter obviously, but a number of them shrugged, and decided to continue with their Emperor-given mandate anyway... just with less resources than they're used to. In all honesty this is downright unbelievable beyond 40K’s standards. This is the Emperor’s personal witch-hunters and responsible for collecting the Imperium’s psykers as well as part of his revered talons. It’s just as ridiculous and downright IMPOSSIBLE for them to be cut off as it is the freaking CUSTODES. Just ignore this as it is...well it’s genuinely impossible (but perhaps them being the blanks - the creatures who's presence is extremely uncomfortable - is the big factor of it).

As previously mentioned, some Sisters were absorbed into the [[Adeptus Astra Telepathica]] to crew its [[Black Ships]], or served as retinues to important [[Inquisitor]] Lords. Many others, however dispersed, back into the general populace, settling down to have normal lives, and in doing so passed down the Pariah gene down to their descendants. Lastly, some quietly found secret Convents in out-of-way worlds, far from view of the average Imperial citizen. It is one of these Convents that [[Slaughter Koorland]] approached and convinced to aid the Imperium in the [[War of the Beast]].

By M32, the Sisters of Silence refused to recognize the Imperium in its political form, seeing it as a corrupted simulacrum of what the Emperor actually intended, but they still acknowledge the Emperor as the focus of their loyalty. Thus, when their services are required again, they accept the calling and return to Terra, where they are granted an audience with the Emperor in his sanctum, a privilege that not even the High Lords are afforded. [[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device|Just how exactly that would've worked is a mystery, given how the Emperor can presumably only communicate psychically at this point, which probably wouldn't work at all on a group of nulls.]] Of course, blanks/nulls/whatever have been overpowered by strong psykers before, so it wouldn’t take the Emperor any real effort. Or he sent Astropaths to deliver messages via secretaries or something.

Although that particular Convent was wiped out slaying the Beast, many more survived through the millennia, and by the end of the 41st Millennium, the number of Sisters had swelled into the tens of thousands. And it was just as well too, as the Imperium would need their aid really REALLY soon.

===Returning to the Fray: The Rise of the Primarch===
[[image:Sister-of-silence.jpg|right|250px|thumb|You, Psyker. Yeah You. Fuck You.]]

Shortly after the reappearance of [[Magnus the Red]] during the [[Fenris]] campaign, the High Lords of Terra issued a writ that would summon the Sisterhood back to Terra, where they would be used once again. It transpired that [[Trajann Valoris]], Captain-General of the [[Adeptus Custodes]] had pre-empted this decree and had quietly been collecting disparate Sisters to Terra in advance, knowing that the time may come when they were needed again; the knee-jerk response of the High Lords to Terra simply rendered it legal.

Some of the exiled Sisters resented this greatly, having been ignored for millennia. In the novel ''Watchers of the Throne'', one particular sister, Tannau Aleya, spends most of the book (quietly) raging about how her convent was left without support for so long, especially how the Custodes seemed to be "pampered" by comparison, despite being stuck on Terra for nearly ten millennia. Aleya also "talks" a fair bit about the mentality of the Silent Sisters, stating that the Sisters ironically crave human fellowship, as it temporarily fills the void they feel inside due to their nature as blanks. This also leads to extremely strong bonds between the Sisters described as a fierce almost desperate love, due to sharing such a unique bond and having been reviled and hated by most of the people they'd ever come across. The sisters also seem to grow close to the Custodes they fought with during the Great Crusade, to the extent Custodes could tell what a sister was trying to convey without her even having to sign it to him, something that later made one sister immediately realize Drach'nyen was impersonating a Custodes. They also never entirely get used to the reaction they cause in others, with every twitch and every appalled expression twisting the knife every time they see that reaction.

Overall they come across as somewhat tragic, as they spend their lives protecting a species that can't even stand to be in the same room as them, and hates them without even being able to articulate why.

The Sisters' first "official" action was to deploy with the Custodes on Luna to save a recently resurrected Lord Guilliman from being used by Magnus to mop the floor, and they later helped fight back against a [[Khorne]] daemon invasion of Terra directly. When Guilliman returned from his audience with the Emperor, he dissolved the standing order that restricted the Custodians to Terra, and he ordered the Sisterhood to coordinate with them and join the front lines.

Still, no matter how hurt or angry they are, they still answered the call to defend humanity from Chaos again.

==Emperor Worship==

By the 41st Millennium it turns out that some Sisters had converted to the worship of the Emperor, even describing the Emperor as "holy" right in front of Lord Commander [[Roboute Guilliman]], while considering the Primarch to be his divine messenger and demigod son. Though this is not entirely new information, as even during the Horus Heresy, there were some Sisters who had already started to consider the Emperor as a god, and were willing to break their vows of tranquility. Some had even "read the book" ''(the Lectitio Divinitatus)'' according to [[Knights-Errant|Kyril Sinderman]], and allowed the faithful to escape custody from the Somnus Citadel on Luna so that they could continue to spread the word.

Since most of ''Dark Imperium'' was about Guilliman trying to come to terms with what humanity had become since the Heresy, it was all Guilliman could do to not [[Blam|eat his own bolter]] then and there. However, giving the appearance of converting to the faith is the easiest way to integrate themselves with the Imperium without getting grief from the other branches. This is definitely true for at least one convent; Aleya's was said to have had "sham" shrines and it's implied that those Sisters feigned their faith to avoid being persecuted as heretics. There is also a difference between those sisters that manned the [[Black Ships]] versus those that were outside of the Imperium's control, with those that were aboard the black ships having closer ties and a lot more loyalty towards the [[High Lords of Terra|Imperium's leadership]], to the extent that Aleya didn't trust them to do what was needed without waiting for permission. It's possible the Emperor-worshiping Sisters are those that were recruited and controlled by the Imperium for the black ships, while those outside of Imperial control and influence managed to keep their old ways.

==Notable Sisters==
* '''Jenetia Krole:''' AKA the "Soulless Queen of the Imperium" was the Knight Commander of the Sisters of silence and the single most terrifying woman in the entire human race. No, Really. She could be placed in a staring contest with an entire Convent of [[Sisters of Battle]], [[Inquisitor Greyfax]], A warband of [[Night Lords]] and a FUCKING Dark Eldar [[Haemonculus]] and she would stare them all down until they ran away with their tails between their legs. Her Pariah aura was so strong and distracting she caused members of the [[Adeptus Custodes]] to avert their eyes because it pained them to look at Her. To most beings, her anti-soul aura was so strong that they simply couldn't see her. When Big E needed the [[Thousand Sons]] "disciplined" she challenged the legions most powerful sorcerers to duels and Killed them, and then she Killed a Daemon just for good measure. She then fought in the Webway and survived the retreat to the Imperial Palace losing 3 fingers on the way, not really seeming to care about her lost digits. She used a Zwei-hander sword dubbed "Veracity" that was used by [[The Emperor]] during the unification wars, so yeah, that's cool too. She finally dies while fighting [[Khârn]] during the Siege of Terra, right after she took out a fuckton of named World Eaters.

*'''Amendera Kendel''' - A former Sister of Silence turned ''[[Knights-Errant|Agentia Tercius]]'' to Malcador. She is still a Pariah of course, but she gave up her vow of silence 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.

* '''Tannau Aleya:''' One of the (previously mentioned) POV characters for ''Watchers of the Throne''. A Sister from the convent located on Araissa, she becomes its sole survivor when it is attacked by the [[Black Legion]] while she was away hunting down cultists on another world. Hot-headed and very opinionated, Aleya spends most of the book bitter at the Imperium for ignoring the Sisters for so long, and infuriated that [[Shield-Captain]] Valerian (the ''other'' POV character of the book) seems impossible to goad into anger, but takes her duties as a Sister very seriously, and was willing to lay down her life at even a chance to cave in some Black Legion heads. Started out using a heavy flamer to do her work, before turning it in for a greatsword once she got picked up by Navradaan on the way to Terra. She is also an absolute badass, winning a firefight that was 5-1 and taking on a Chaos Marine in close quarters alone and WINNING, then removing his helmet and spitting in his face for killing her sisters. The updated rules for the Talons of The Emperor make her not just in fluff but also in-game a battle couple with Valerian, another proof tsunderism and animu is slowly infecting 40k's updated setting.

==Mini-Codex and Moving Forward==

A common rumor is that they will be added into some upcoming [[Sisters of Battle]] relaunch. If so, that would be an interesting revision; on the one hand, the Sisters of Battle, despite being designated witch-hunters, are lacking in the anti-psyker department. On the other hand, the Sisters of Silence, much like the Space Marines, are big believers in the Great Crusade era of the Imperium, and likely won't mesh well with the [[Ecclesiarchy]]. On the other hand, Dark Imperium implies they fully converted to the Imperial Cult over time so their ideology would likely mesh together well. So, in conclusion, the most probable thing that GW can do with the SoS is to say that the Adepta Sororitas in its current form can trace its origins to the M36 '''Daughters of the Emperor''' as well as offshoots of the original [[Sisters of Silence]] and find some way to reconcile them both.

As of 2018, any news on them has been slow and via the Horus Heresy Team at Forge World. They stated that there would at least be some 8th edition rules for Talons (which includes Grey Knights apparently) coming eventually while they're not working on all these other Horus Heresy, Titanicus, Necromunda, and Blood Bowl projects. So far nothing on Sisters but Custodians at least got a handful of new kit.

Why they weren't simply added to the Custodes codex, only GW knows.

As of 2020, during Nurgle's Pandemic, it's been all but confirmed by GW that Sisters of Silence and Custodes will be merged together in the second-to-last chapter of the Psychic Awakening, "War of the Spider", as the Talons of the Emperor. Coupled with the new Black Library models that feature a Shield Captain and SoS in a single unit with that as a faction keyword, there is a lot of evidence that supports this.

==See Also==
*[[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Talons_of_the_Emperor_(30k)|Sisters of Silence (AKA Talons of the Emperor) Horus Heresy Tactics]]
*[[Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Talons of the Emperor (9E)|Sisters of Silence (AKA Talons of the Emperor) 40k Tactics]]

==Gallery==
<center>
<gallery>
SoS vs. TS Dred.jpg|Being in a Dreadnought does not make you safe from these chicks.
SoS vs. EC Noise Marines.jpg|Even ''these'' bastards are having a hard time dealing with them.
Sister_of_silence_by_n924.jpg|As scary as they are, they can still be the cutest sweethearts of the Emprah.
Jenetia Krole.jpg|Jenetia Krole, She's not staring into your soul, she's staring through it.
</gallery>
</center>

{{Template:Sisters-of-Silence}}

{{Imperium}}

Sisters of Silence

2021-01-29T10:18:42Z

2603:8001:6940:E846:B9BB:430F:F18C:DE7F: /* After the Horus Heresy */

[[image:Sisters of Silence art.jpg|right|250px|thumb|They're as bitchin' as they look.]]
{{Topquote|That's their function... Aside from the fact that they fight like bastards. Got the pariah gene in 'em.|[[Leman Russ]], [[Primarch]] of the [[Space Wolves]], on the Sisters of Silence}}

The '''Sisters of Silence''' were an elite all-female order created by the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emperor of Mankind]] to man the [[Black Ships]] and round up a planet's renegade [[psyker]]s.

==History==
[[image:Sisters of silence.jpeg|right|250px|thumb|The Sisters of Silence. NOT ELDAR! It's like reverse eldar, anti psykers that have the near same outfits...]]
Near the onset of the [[Great Crusade]], the Emperor formed them as a counter-measure against untrained psykers, whose numbers had increased at the start of the [[Age of Strife]]. To do this, the Emperor ensured that they were all [[Blank|pariah]]s, human beings with no presence in the [[Warp]]; one has to wonder though whether they had to compete with the [[Officio Assassinorum]] for recruits (probably not, seeing as the Culexus Assassins are primarily males). As such, a psyker's abilities would have no effect on them, being cancelled out when they got close enough to the Sisters. In one of his stranger decisions, the Emperor explicitly had the Sisters take literal vows of silence upon becoming full Sisters. They could communicate via several sign languages (including [[Space Marines|Astartes]] battle-sign) but would not speak a word upon completion of their training. To ensure communication between other branches of the [[Imperium of Man]], Sisters-in-training would serve as communicators.

Given recent revelations about the nature of the Emperor, this [[skub|may or may not]] have been to stop them blabbing [[Neckbeard|what they saw]] under his glamours. It's implied that what a Sister sees when she looks at a warp entity is not the same as what a regular being will see; Tannau Aleya describes Bloodthirsters as being horrific ''looking'' creatures but that's it.

The Sisters of Silence are also consummate warriors. Actually, that's something of an understatemen; don't make the mistake of assuming they're comparable to the Sisters of Battle, who occupy a space somewhere between Guardsman and Astartes. They are not. The Sisters of Silence operate alongside The Custodes, which probably says more about their prowess than anything else could. The Sisters are trained to at least the same levels as the Space Marine Legions and using similar wargear, such as [[bolter]]s and [[power weapon]]s, as well as being covered in SoB-like power armour; theirs lacks an armored helmet or other head protection aside from the bevor that hides their mouths, which leads to a lot of deaths from headshots during the burning of [[Prospero]]. As a military force, they are formidable; during the Burning of Prospero, they were deployed to augment the [[Space Wolves]] and the [[Adeptus Custodes]]. While this was more because the pariah gene would neutralize the [[Thousand Sons]]' psyker abilities, they were more than capable of fighting against the Astartes. They would also in turn augment the Custodes, the [[Imperial Fists]], the [[Blood Angels]], and the [[White Scars]] during the [[Siege of Terra]], where the pariah gene became a boon fighting the [[Daemon]]s unleashed by the traitors.

===After the Horus Heresy===
For the longest time, the fate of the Sisters of Silence following the [[Horus Heresy]] had been an object of much speculation in the fandom. It is only recently that what they've been doing has been brought to light, and while some of the theories have been surprisingly spot on (that many Sisters were absorbed into the Inquisition to man their Black Ships), others... didn't quite hit the mark. Thanks to their own mini-codex, as well as the [[War of the Beast]] series and ''Watchers of the Throne'' and ''Dark Imperium'', a somewhat clearer picture of ''what'' happened to the Sisters can be reconstructed.

It turns out that the Sisters were never "officially" disbanded by the [[Administratum]]. However in the wake of the Emperor's internment within the Golden Throne, the surviving Sisters suddenly found themselves without direct support from the Imperial Bureaucracy. This made a lot of the surviving Sisters bitter obviously, but a number of them shrugged, and decided to continue with their Emperor-given mandate anyway... just with less resources than they're used to. In all honesty this is downright unbelievable beyond 40K’s standards. This is the Emperor’s personal witch-hunters and responsible for collecting the Imperium’s psykers as well as part of his revered talons. It’s just as ridiculous and downright IMPOSSIBLE for them to be cut off as it is the freaking CUSTODES. Just ignore this as it is...well it’s genuinely impossible (but perhaps them being the blanks - the creatures who's presence is extremely uncomfortable - is the big factor of it).

As previously mentioned, some Sisters were absorbed into the [[Adeptus Astra Telepathica]] to crew its [[Black Ships]], or served as retinues to important [[Inquisitor]] Lords. Many others, however dispersed, back into the general populace, settling down to have normal lives, and in doing so passed down the Pariah gene down to their descendants. Lastly, some quietly found secret Convents in out-of-way worlds, far from view of the average Imperial citizen. It is one of these Convents that [[Slaughter Koorland]] approached and convinced to aid the Imperium in the [[War of the Beast]].

By M32, the Sisters of Silence refused to recognize the Imperium in its political form, seeing it as a corrupted simulacrum of what the Emperor actually intended, but they still acknowledge the Emperor as the focus of their loyalty. Thus, when their services are required again, they accept the calling and return to Terra, where they are granted an audience with the Emperor in his sanctum, a privilege that not even the High Lords are afforded. [[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device|Just how exactly that would've worked is a mystery, given how the Emperor can presumably only communicate psychically at this point, which probably wouldn't work at all on a group of nulls.]] Of course, blanks/nulls/whatever have been overpowered by strong psykers before, so it wouldn’t take the Emperor any real effort. Or he sent Astropaths to deliver messages via secretaries or something.

Although that particular Convent was wiped out slaying the Beast, many more survived through the millennia, and by the end of the 41st Millennium, the number of Sisters had swelled into the tens of thousands. And it was just as well too, as the Imperium would need their aid really REALLY soon.

===Returning to the Fray: The Rise of the Primarch===
[[image:Sister-of-silence.jpg|right|250px|thumb|You, Psyker. Yeah You. Fuck You.]]

Shortly after the reappearance of [[Magnus the Red]] during the [[Fenris]] campaign, the High Lords of Terra issued a writ that would summon the Sisterhood back to Terra, where they would be used once again. It transpired that [[Trajann Valoris]], Captain-General of the [[Adeptus Custodes]] had pre-empted this decree and had quietly been collecting disparate Sisters to Terra in advance, knowing that the time may come when they were needed again; the knee-jerk response of the High Lords to Terra simply rendered it legal.

Some of the exiled Sisters resented this greatly, having been ignored for millennia. In the novel ''Watchers of the Throne'', one particular sister, Tannau Aleya, spends most of the book (quietly) raging about how her convent was left without support for so long, especially how the Custodes seemed to be "pampered" by comparison, despite being stuck on Terra for nearly ten millennia. Aleya also "talks" a fair bit about the mentality of the Silent Sisters, stating that the Sisters ironically crave human fellowship, as it temporarily fills the void they feel inside due to their nature as blanks. This also leads to extremely strong bonds between the Sisters described as a fierce almost desperate love, due to sharing such a unique bond and having been reviled and hated by most of the people they'd ever come across. The sisters also seem to grow close to the Custodes they fought with during the Great Crusade, to the extent Custodes could tell what a sister was trying to convey without her even having to sign it to him, something that later made one sister immediately realize Drach'nyen was impersonating a Custodes. They also never entirely get used to the reaction they cause in others, with every twitch and every appalled expression twisting the knife every time they see that reaction.

Overall they come across as somewhat tragic, as they spend their lives protecting a species that can't even stand to be in the same room as them, and hates them without even being able to articulate why.

The Sisters' first "official" action was to deploy with the Custodes on Luna to save a recently resurrected Lord Guilliman from being used by Magnus to mop the floor, and they later helped fight back against a [[Khorne]] daemon invasion of Terra directly. When Guilliman returned from his audience with the Emperor, he dissolved the standing order that restricted the Custodians to Terra, and he ordered the Sisterhood to coordinate with them and join the front lines.

Still, no matter how hurt or angry they are, they still answered the call to defend humanity from Chaos again.

==Emperor Worship==

By the 41st Millennium it turns out that some Sisters had converted to the worship of the Emperor, even describing the Emperor as "holy" right in front of Lord Commander [[Roboute Guilliman]], while considering the Primarch to be his divine messenger and demigod son. Though this is not entirely new information, as even during the Horus Heresy, there were some Sisters who had already started to consider the Emperor as a god, and were willing to break their vows of tranquility. Some had even "read the book" ''(the Lectitio Divinitatus)'' according to [[Knights-Errant|Kyril Sinderman]], and allowed the faithful to escape custody from the Somnus Citadel on Luna so that they could continue to spread the word.

Since most of ''Dark Imperium'' was about Guilliman trying to come to terms with what humanity had become since the Heresy, it was all Guilliman could do to not [[Blam|eat his own bolter]] then and there. However, giving the appearance of converting to the faith is the easiest way to integrate themselves with the Imperium without getting grief from the other branches. This is definitely true for at least one convent; Aleya's was said to have had "sham" shrines and it's implied that those Sisters feigned their faith to avoid being persecuted as heretics. There is also a difference between those sisters that manned the [[Black Ships]] versus those that were outside of the Imperium's control, with those that were aboard the black ships having closer ties and a lot more loyalty towards the [[High Lords of Terra|Imperium's leadership]], to the extent that Aleya didn't trust them to do what was needed without waiting for permission. It's possible the Emperor-worshiping Sisters are those that were recruited and controlled by the Imperium for the black ships, while those outside of Imperial control and influence managed to keep their old ways.

==Notable Sisters==
* '''Jenetia Krole:''' AKA the "Soulless Queen of the Imperium" was the Knight Commander of the Sisters of silence and the single most terrifying woman in the entire human race. No, Really. She could be placed in a staring contest with an entire Convent of [[Sisters of Battle]], [[Inquisitor Greyfax]], A warband of [[Night Lords]] and a FUCKING Dark Eldar [[Haemonculus]] and she would stare them all down until they ran away with their tails between their legs. Her Pariah aura was so strong and distracting she caused members of the [[Adeptus Custodes]] to avert their eyes because it pained them to look at Her. To most beings, her anti-soul aura was so strong that they simply couldn't see her. When Big E needed the [[Thousand Sons]] "disciplined" she challenged the legions most powerful sorcerers to duels and Killed them, and then she Killed a Daemon just for good measure. She then fought in the Webway and survived the retreat to the Imperial Palace losing 3 fingers on the way, not really seeming to care about her lost digits. She used a Zwei-hander sword dubbed "Veracity" that was used by [[The Emperor]] during the unification wars, so yeah, that's cool too. She finally dies while fighting [[Khârn]] during the Siege of Terra, right after she took out a fuckton of named World Eaters.

*'''Amendera Kendel''' - A former Sister of Silence turned ''[[Knights-Errant|Agentia Tercius]]'' to Malcador. She is still a Pariah of course, but she gave up her vow of silence 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.

* '''Tannau Aleya:''' One of the (previously mentioned) POV characters for ''Watchers of the Throne''. A Sister from the convent located on Araissa, she becomes its sole survivor when it is attacked by the [[Black Legion]] while she was away hunting down cultists on another world. Hot-headed and very opinionated, Aleya spends most of the book bitter at the Imperium for ignoring the Sisters for so long, and infuriated that [[Shield-Captain]] Valerian (the ''other'' POV character of the book) seems impossible to goad into anger, but takes her duties as a Sister very seriously, and was willing to lay down her life at even a chance to cave in some Black Legion heads. Started out using a heavy flamer to do her work, before turning it in for a greatsword once she got picked up by Navradaan on the way to Terra. She is also an absolute badass, winning a firefight that was 5-1 and taking on a Chaos Marine in close quarters alone and WINNING, then removing his helmet and spitting in his face for killing her sisters. The updated rules for the Talons of The Emperor make her not just in fluff but also in-game a battle couple with Valerian, another proof tsunderism and animu is slowly infecting 40k's updated setting.

==Mini-Codex and Moving Forward==

A common rumor is that they will be added into some upcoming [[Sisters of Battle]] relaunch. If so, that would be an interesting revision; on the one hand, the Sisters of Battle, despite being designated witch-hunters, are lacking in the anti-psyker department. On the other hand, the Sisters of Silence, much like the Space Marines, are big believers in the Great Crusade era of the Imperium, and likely won't mesh well with the [[Ecclesiarchy]]. On the other hand, Dark Imperium implies they fully converted to the Imperial Cult over time so their ideology would likely mesh together well. So, in conclusion, the most probable thing that GW can do with the SoS is to say that the Adepta Sororitas in its current form can trace its origins to the M36 '''Daughters of the Emperor''' as well as offshoots of the original [[Sisters of Silence]] and find some way to reconcile them both.

As of 2018, any news on them has been slow and via the Horus Heresy Team at Forge World. They stated that there would at least be some 8th edition rules for Talons (which includes Grey Knights apparently) coming eventually while they're not working on all these other Horus Heresy, Titanicus, Necromunda, and Blood Bowl projects. So far nothing on Sisters but Custodians at least got a handful of new kit.

Why they weren't simply added to the Custodes codex, only GW knows.

As of 2020, during Nurgle's Pandemic, it's been all but confirmed by GW that Sisters of Silence and Custodes will be merged together in the second-to-last chapter of the Psychic Awakening, "War of the Spider", as the Talons of the Emperor. Coupled with the new Black Library models that feature a Shield Captain and SoS in a single unit with that as a faction keyword, there is a lot of evidence that supports this.

==See Also==
*[[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Talons_of_the_Emperor_(30k)|Sisters of Silence (AKA Talons of the Emperor) Horus Heresy Tactics]]
*[[Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Talons of the Emperor (9E)|Sisters of Silence (AKA Talons of the Emperor) 40k Tactics]]

==Gallery==
<center>
<gallery>
SoS vs. TS Dred.jpg|Being in a Dreadnought does not make you safe from these chicks.
SoS vs. EC Noise Marines.jpg|Even ''these'' bastards are having a hard time dealing with them.
Sister_of_silence_by_n924.jpg|As scary as they are, they can still be the cutest sweethearts of the Emprah.
Jenetia Krole.jpg|Jenetia Krole, She's not staring into your soul, she's staring through it.
</gallery>
</center>

{{Template:Sisters-of-Silence}}

{{Imperium}}

Sisters of Silence

2021-01-29T10:14:20Z

2603:8001:6940:E846:B9BB:430F:F18C:DE7F: /* History */

[[image:Sisters of Silence art.jpg|right|250px|thumb|They're as bitchin' as they look.]]
{{Topquote|That's their function... Aside from the fact that they fight like bastards. Got the pariah gene in 'em.|[[Leman Russ]], [[Primarch]] of the [[Space Wolves]], on the Sisters of Silence}}

The '''Sisters of Silence''' were an elite all-female order created by the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emperor of Mankind]] to man the [[Black Ships]] and round up a planet's renegade [[psyker]]s.

==History==
[[image:Sisters of silence.jpeg|right|250px|thumb|The Sisters of Silence. NOT ELDAR! It's like reverse eldar, anti psykers that have the near same outfits...]]
Near the onset of the [[Great Crusade]], the Emperor formed them as a counter-measure against untrained psykers, whose numbers had increased at the start of the [[Age of Strife]]. To do this, the Emperor ensured that they were all [[Blank|pariah]]s, human beings with no presence in the [[Warp]]; one has to wonder though whether they had to compete with the [[Officio Assassinorum]] for recruits (probably not, seeing as the Culexus Assassins are primarily males). As such, a psyker's abilities would have no effect on them, being cancelled out when they got close enough to the Sisters. In one of his stranger decisions, the Emperor explicitly had the Sisters take literal vows of silence upon becoming full Sisters. They could communicate via several sign languages (including [[Space Marines|Astartes]] battle-sign) but would not speak a word upon completion of their training. To ensure communication between other branches of the [[Imperium of Man]], Sisters-in-training would serve as communicators.

Given recent revelations about the nature of the Emperor, this [[skub|may or may not]] have been to stop them blabbing [[Neckbeard|what they saw]] under his glamours. It's implied that what a Sister sees when she looks at a warp entity is not the same as what a regular being will see; Tannau Aleya describes Bloodthirsters as being horrific ''looking'' creatures but that's it.

The Sisters of Silence are also consummate warriors. Actually, that's something of an understatemen; don't make the mistake of assuming they're comparable to the Sisters of Battle, who occupy a space somewhere between Guardsman and Astartes. They are not. The Sisters of Silence operate alongside The Custodes, which probably says more about their prowess than anything else could. The Sisters are trained to at least the same levels as the Space Marine Legions and using similar wargear, such as [[bolter]]s and [[power weapon]]s, as well as being covered in SoB-like power armour; theirs lacks an armored helmet or other head protection aside from the bevor that hides their mouths, which leads to a lot of deaths from headshots during the burning of [[Prospero]]. As a military force, they are formidable; during the Burning of Prospero, they were deployed to augment the [[Space Wolves]] and the [[Adeptus Custodes]]. While this was more because the pariah gene would neutralize the [[Thousand Sons]]' psyker abilities, they were more than capable of fighting against the Astartes. They would also in turn augment the Custodes, the [[Imperial Fists]], the [[Blood Angels]], and the [[White Scars]] during the [[Siege of Terra]], where the pariah gene became a boon fighting the [[Daemon]]s unleashed by the traitors.

===After the Horus Heresy===
For the longest time, the fate of the Sisters of Silence following the [[Horus Heresy]] had been an object of much speculation in the fandom. It is only recently that what they've been doing has been brought to light, and while some of the theories have been surprisingly spot on (that many Sisters were absorbed into the Inquisition to man their Black Ships), others... didn't quite hit the mark. Thanks to their own mini-codex, as well as the [[War of the Beast]] series and ''Watchers of the Throne'' and ''Dark Imperium'', a somewhat clearer picture of ''what'' happened to the Sisters can be reconstructed.

It turns out that the Sisters were never "officially" disbanded by the [[Administratum]]. However in the wake of the Emperor's internment within the Golden Throne, the surviving Sisters suddenly found themselves without direct support from the Imperial Bureaucracy. This made a lot of the surviving Sisters bitter obviously, but a number of them shrugged, and decided to continue with their Emperor-given mandate anyway... just with less resources than they're used to. In all honesty this is downright unbelievable beyond 40K’s standards. This is the Emperor’s personal witch-hunters and responsible for collecting the Imperium’s psykers as well as part of his revered talons. It’s just as ridiculous and downright IMPOSSIBLE for them to be cut off as it is the freaking CUSTODES. Just ignore this as it is...well it’s genuinely impossible (but perhaps them being the blanks - the creatures who's presence is extremely uncomfortable - is the big factor of it).

As previously mentioned, some Sisters were absorbed into the [[Adeptus Astra Telepathica]] to crew its [[Black Ships]], or served as retinues to important [[Inquisitor]] Lords. Many others, however dispersed, back into the general populace, settling down to have normal lives, and in doing so passed down the Pariah gene down to their descendants. Lastly, some quietly found secret Convents in out-of-way worlds, far from view of the average Imperial citizen. It is one of these Convents that [[Slaughter Koorland]] approached and convinced to aid the Imperium in the [[War of the Beast]].

By M32, the Sisters of Silence refused to recognize the Imperium in its political form, seeing it as a corrupted simulacrum of what the Emperor actually intended, but they still acknowledge the Emperor as the focus of their loyalty. Thus, when their services are required again, they accept the calling and return to Terra, where they are granted an audience with the Emperor in his sanctum, a privilege that not even the High Lords are afforded. [[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device|Just how exactly that would've worked is a mystery, given how the Emperor can presumably only communicate psychically at this point, which probably wouldn't work at all on a group of nulls.]] Of course, blanks/nulls/whatever have been overpowered by strong psykers before, so it wouldn’t take the Emperor any real effort. Or he sent Astropaths to deliver messages via secretaries or something.

Although that particular Convent was wiped out slaying the Beast, many more survived through the millennia, and by the end of the 41st Millennium, the number of Sisters had swelled into the tens of thousands. And it was just as well too, as the Imperium would need their aid really REALLY soon.

===Returning to the Fray: The Rise of the Primarch===
[[image:Sister-of-silence.jpg|right|250px|thumb|You, Psyker. Yeah You. Fuck You.]]

Shortly after the reappearance of [[Magnus the Red]] during the [[Fenris]] campaign, the High Lords of Terra issued a writ that would summon the Sisterhood back to Terra, where they would be used once again. It transpired that [[Trajann Valoris]], Captain-General of the [[Adeptus Custodes]] had pre-empted this decree and had quietly been collecting disparate Sisters to Terra in advance, knowing that the time may come when they were needed again; the knee-jerk response of the High Lords to Terra simply rendered it legal.

Some of the exiled Sisters resented this greatly, having been ignored for millennia. In the novel ''Watchers of the Throne'', one particular sister, Tannau Aleya, spends most of the book (quietly) raging about how her convent was left without support for so long, especially how the Custodes seemed to be "pampered" by comparison, despite being stuck on Terra for nearly ten millennia. Aleya also "talks" a fair bit about the mentality of the Silent Sisters, stating that the Sisters ironically crave human fellowship, as it temporarily fills the void they feel inside due to their nature as blanks. This also leads to extremely strong bonds between the Sisters described as a fierce almost desperate love, due to sharing such a unique bond and having been reviled and hated by most of the people they'd ever come across. The sisters also seem to grow close to the Custodes they fought with during the Great Crusade, to the extent Custodes could tell what a sister was trying to convey without her even having to sign it to him, something that later made one sister immediately realize Drach'nyen was impersonating a Custodes. They also never entirely get used to the reaction they cause in others, with every twitch and every appalled expression twisting the knife every time they see that reaction.

Overall they come across as somewhat tragic, as they spend their lives protecting a species that can't even stand to be in the same room as them, and hates them without even being able to articulate why.

The Sisters' first "official" action was to deploy with the Custodes on Luna to save a recently resurrected Lord Guilliman from being used by Magnus to mop the floor, and they later helped fight back against a [[Khorne]] daemon invasion of Terra directly. When Guilliman returned from his audience with the Emperor, he dissolved the standing order that restricted the Custodians to Terra, and he ordered the Sisterhood to coordinate with them and join the front lines.

Still, no matter how hurt or angry they are, they still answered the call to defend humanity from Chaos again.

==Emperor Worship==

By the 41st Millennium it turns out that some Sisters had converted to the worship of the Emperor, even describing the Emperor as "holy" right in front of Lord Commander [[Roboute Guilliman]], while considering the Primarch to be his divine messenger and demigod son. Though this is not entirely new information, as even during the Horus Heresy, there were some Sisters who had already started to consider the Emperor as a god, and were willing to break their vows of tranquility. Some had even "read the book" ''(the Lectitio Divinitatus)'' according to [[Knights-Errant|Kyril Sinderman]], and allowed the faithful to escape custody from the Somnus Citadel on Luna so that they could continue to spread the word.

Since most of ''Dark Imperium'' was about Guilliman trying to come to terms with what humanity had become since the Heresy, it was all Guilliman could do to not [[Blam|eat his own bolter]] then and there. However, giving the appearance of converting to the faith is the easiest way to integrate themselves with the Imperium without getting grief from the other branches. This is definitely true for at least one convent; Aleya's was said to have had "sham" shrines and it's implied that those Sisters feigned their faith to avoid being persecuted as heretics. There is also a difference between those sisters that manned the [[Black Ships]] versus those that were outside of the Imperium's control, with those that were aboard the black ships having closer ties and a lot more loyalty towards the [[High Lords of Terra|Imperium's leadership]], to the extent that Aleya didn't trust them to do what was needed without waiting for permission. It's possible the Emperor-worshiping Sisters are those that were recruited and controlled by the Imperium for the black ships, while those outside of Imperial control and influence managed to keep their old ways.

==Notable Sisters==
* '''Jenetia Krole:''' AKA the "Soulless Queen of the Imperium" was the Knight Commander of the Sisters of silence and the single most terrifying woman in the entire human race. No, Really. She could be placed in a staring contest with an entire Convent of [[Sisters of Battle]], [[Inquisitor Greyfax]], A warband of [[Night Lords]] and a FUCKING Dark Eldar [[Haemonculus]] and she would stare them all down until they ran away with their tails between their legs. Her Pariah aura was so strong and distracting she caused members of the [[Adeptus Custodes]] to avert their eyes because it pained them to look at Her. To most beings, her anti-soul aura was so strong that they simply couldn't see her. When Big E needed the [[Thousand Sons]] "disciplined" she challenged the legions most powerful sorcerers to duels and Killed them, and then she Killed a Daemon just for good measure. She then fought in the Webway and survived the retreat to the Imperial Palace losing 3 fingers on the way, not really seeming to care about her lost digits. She used a Zwei-hander sword dubbed "Veracity" that was used by [[The Emperor]] during the unification wars, so yeah, that's cool too. She finally dies while fighting [[Khârn]] during the Siege of Terra, right after she took out a fuckton of named World Eaters.

*'''Amendera Kendel''' - A former Sister of Silence turned ''[[Knights-Errant|Agentia Tercius]]'' to Malcador. She is still a Pariah of course, but she gave up her vow of silence 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.

* '''Tannau Aleya:''' One of the (previously mentioned) POV characters for ''Watchers of the Throne''. A Sister from the convent located on Araissa, she becomes its sole survivor when it is attacked by the [[Black Legion]] while she was away hunting down cultists on another world. Hot-headed and very opinionated, Aleya spends most of the book bitter at the Imperium for ignoring the Sisters for so long, and infuriated that [[Shield-Captain]] Valerian (the ''other'' POV character of the book) seems impossible to goad into anger, but takes her duties as a Sister very seriously, and was willing to lay down her life at even a chance to cave in some Black Legion heads. Started out using a heavy flamer to do her work, before turning it in for a greatsword once she got picked up by Navradaan on the way to Terra. She is also an absolute badass, winning a firefight that was 5-1 and taking on a Chaos Marine in close quarters alone and WINNING, then removing his helmet and spitting in his face for killing her sisters. The updated rules for the Talons of The Emperor make her not just in fluff but also in-game a battle couple with Valerian, another proof tsunderism and animu is slowly infecting 40k's updated setting.

==Mini-Codex and Moving Forward==

A common rumor is that they will be added into some upcoming [[Sisters of Battle]] relaunch. If so, that would be an interesting revision; on the one hand, the Sisters of Battle, despite being designated witch-hunters, are lacking in the anti-psyker department. On the other hand, the Sisters of Silence, much like the Space Marines, are big believers in the Great Crusade era of the Imperium, and likely won't mesh well with the [[Ecclesiarchy]]. On the other hand, Dark Imperium implies they fully converted to the Imperial Cult over time so their ideology would likely mesh together well. So, in conclusion, the most probable thing that GW can do with the SoS is to say that the Adepta Sororitas in its current form can trace its origins to the M36 '''Daughters of the Emperor''' as well as offshoots of the original [[Sisters of Silence]] and find some way to reconcile them both.

As of 2018, any news on them has been slow and via the Horus Heresy Team at Forge World. They stated that there would at least be some 8th edition rules for Talons (which includes Grey Knights apparently) coming eventually while they're not working on all these other Horus Heresy, Titanicus, Necromunda, and Blood Bowl projects. So far nothing on Sisters but Custodians at least got a handful of new kit.

Why they weren't simply added to the Custodes codex, only GW knows.

As of 2020, during Nurgle's Pandemic, it's been all but confirmed by GW that Sisters of Silence and Custodes will be merged together in the second-to-last chapter of the Psychic Awakening, "War of the Spider", as the Talons of the Emperor. Coupled with the new Black Library models that feature a Shield Captain and SoS in a single unit with that as a faction keyword, there is a lot of evidence that supports this.

==See Also==
*[[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Talons_of_the_Emperor_(30k)|Sisters of Silence (AKA Talons of the Emperor) Horus Heresy Tactics]]
*[[Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Talons of the Emperor (9E)|Sisters of Silence (AKA Talons of the Emperor) 40k Tactics]]

==Gallery==
<center>
<gallery>
SoS vs. TS Dred.jpg|Being in a Dreadnought does not make you safe from these chicks.
SoS vs. EC Noise Marines.jpg|Even ''these'' bastards are having a hard time dealing with them.
Sister_of_silence_by_n924.jpg|As scary as they are, they can still be the cutest sweethearts of the Emprah.
Jenetia Krole.jpg|Jenetia Krole, She's not staring into your soul, she's staring through it.
</gallery>
</center>

{{Template:Sisters-of-Silence}}

{{Imperium}}

Minotaurs

2021-01-28T11:01:05Z

2603:8001:6940:E846:B9BB:430F:F18C:DE7F: /* Current Events */

{{Infobox Spess Mahreen Chapter
|Name = Minotaurs
|Heraldry = [[File:Minotaurs Symbol.jpg|200px]]
|Number = N/A
|Battle Cry = That's a nice watch. (Presumably)
|Founding = [[21st Founding]] (Supposedly)
|Successors of = '''+++Classified by order of the [[High Lords]]+++''' (The original Minotaurs are unknown; the new Minotaurs are all but confirmed to use Iron Warriors geneseed. Hints that one of the two are chimeric, money's on the unstable psychopaths)
|Successor Chapters = None
|Chapter Master = [[Asterion Moloc]]
|Primarch = Unknown; Angron (yellow/red Minotaurs "probably"); Perturabo (bronze Minotaurs)
|Homeworld = Fleet Based
|Specialty = (Old) Being psychotic [[Leeroy Jenkins]]; (New) Beating the shit out of other [[Space Marines]], taking their stuff, pissing off the [[Ultramarines]], siege warfare, and being the [[High Lords]]' personal army.
|Strength = 1000 (Officially)
|Allegiance = [[High lords of terra]]
|Colours = (old) Ketchup & Mustard stripes; (new) Bronze with a little Red.
}}
''If you are looking for the bull-headed beastmen from Greek mythology, see [[Minotaur]].''

==Out with the old...==
The '''Minotaurs''' (also known as the Moomarines) are a [[Chapter]] of [[Space Marine]]s and massive dicks. They were formed in the [[21st Founding|Cursed Founding]] as psychopathic berzerkers and were possibly successors to more stab-happy legions, like the [[Blood Angels]] (looking at you [[Flesh Tearers | Sanguine Berzerkers]]) or [[World Eaters]]. They first appeared in [[White Dwarf]] as one of the playable Chapters for the Chapter Approved Cursed founding article where they were also mentioned to have beaten the shit out of the [[Lamenters]] during the [[Badab War]], because the Lamenters chose the wrong side and the Minotaurs wanted an excuse to [[RIP AND TEAR]]. Then they disappeared. (to everyone's relief). Their color scheme was also fucking atrocious.

==...and in with the new==
[[File:Minotaurs Tact. Marine.jpg|250px|thumb|left|The Minotaurs have many suits of MKVIII "errant" pattern Power Armor.]]
The Minotaurs later popped up in [[Imperial Armour#Volume Ten - The Badab War - Part Two|Imperial Armour Volume 10]] and had their lore (and thankfully colour scheme) overhauled. They're still massive dicks though. Now the psycho-Minotaurs apparently disappeared thousands of years before the [[Badab War]], instead its these cunts who stomp stomp the poor Lamenters (and also take their stuff). They now dress like [[Iron Warriors|ancient Greeks]] and their Chapter Master, one [[Asterion Moloc]], appears to have pilfered the prop department from 300 for his outfit. They no longer maintain the "psychopathic berzerkers' flavour; instead (while still liking melee combat) they make and execute detailed battle plans focusing on siege and attrition warfare, being brooding, paranoid about security protocols, and very pragmatic. Example of that last trait being in [[Imperial Armour Volume 12]] here they let a good chunk of the [[Imperial Navy]] fight and die before they stepped in to give themselves a better chance against the Necrons (what assholes). They are essentially Greek-ier [[Iron Warriors]], who steal shit like the [[Blood Ravens]] (but instead of hijacking your stuff when you aren't looking, they will just mug you and take it). This better explains why they stole the Lamenters' stuff like the school bully shaking down the class nerd for his lunch money, once the old fight between the Lamenters and Minotaurs was retconned to have happened with these Minotaurs instead.

They now have vast stores of incredibly rare wargear, which includes: shittons of Arkonak and Tartaros-pattern [[Terminator]] armour, Mk8 [[power armor]], loads of [[Dreadnoughts]] (including rare Contemptor-pattern), [[Storm Eagle#Roc Pattern|their very own Storm Eagle variant]], and at least one [[AWESOME|power spear/lascannon combo]] that might have been <s>jacked</s> gifted from the [[Adeptus Custodes]]). With their [[High Lords of Terra|sugar daddies on Terra]] and taking the good wargear from Chapters they beat down, they have no shortage of the best toys available to the Astartes.

They also act as the [[High Lords of Terra|High Lords']] attack dogs now, only acting on orders from the High Lords themselves, telling anyone in their way to piss off. Oh, and the [[Administratum]] records are sealed (under direct order of the [[High Lords]]), so that not even [[inquisitor|Inquisitors]] can easily (if at all) access them. Which implies something about them (gee, wonder what?) has at least some Inquisitors worried.

To be fair, with the Emperor, Malcador, and the Primarchs gone and the Captain-General of the Custodes not doing his job as next in line to lead the Imperium, the High Lords are legitimately in charge so...

One of their [[Brother-Captain]]s insulted [[Marneus Calgar]] right in front of the [[Genesis Chapter]] (a 2nd founding [[Ultramarines]] descendant), basically telling them to stop sucking Calgar off 24/7; and the chapter later tore the [[Inceptors]] chapter (another Ultramarines successor) apart and stole all their stuff, formally pissing off the [[Ultramarines]] and all of their successors. The Ultramarines got so salty they perma-banned the Minotaurs from Ultramar (as if the Minotaurs care much). The Minotaurs also may or may not have shot down a [[Grey Knights|Grey Knight]] strike cruiser for trying to swoop in and steal all the glory for taking down a renegade chapter the Minotaurs had been hunting and fighting for awhile. Essentially they've told both of [[Matt Ward]]'s special snowflakes to go raw dog a plasma gun.

Needless to say, [[/tg/]] thinks they're pretty cool (and they are still massive dicks).

==Current Events==
During later M41 - early M42, the [[Death Guard]] directly besieged their space-borne [[Fortress-Monastery]] and poisoned their gene stocks beyond repair, forcing the Minotaurs to race towards [[Terra]] to restock their gene-vaults.

At least, that was the ''official'' reason, and as noted by [[Valerian]] in ''The Regent's Shadow'', no one was fooled by this, especially since the Daedalos Krata was ''right there''. The real reason for their return would be made clear very soon, however.

Once at Terra, the Chapter were tasked to work along side the Imperial Fists, Sisters of Silence, and Adeptus Custodes in quelling a rebellion growing on Terra itself. During the course of the investigations, they had to teach the Imperial Fists what they think of someone trying to steal their glory. i.e. the Imperial Fists tried to investigate a cultist kill-site cleared by the Minotaurs, aka the Imperial Fists were trying to steal the Minotaur's intel and get to the cultists first, and in response the Minotaurs killed the two Imperial Fists sent to investigate (after the Minotaurs warned them, and were promptly ignored by the Imperial Fists). An Imperial Fist got salty at this and tried to bow up at a Minotaur back at HQ. Said Imperial Fist got the shit beaten out of him by the Minotaur.

Eventually the HQ of the cultists was discovered, and the Minotaurs were the first ones there. Launching a '''SIEGE''' of the enemy's HQ while the Imperial Fists and Custodes were just then managing to figure out where it was. It turns out the rebellions were caused by the former members of the High Lords who had since been exiled by the now revived Guilliman. At first, it seemed that, the Minotaurs sided with the rebellious former High Lords. With Moloc standing by the former Master of the Administatium: Haemotalion. However, with the actual leaders of the rebellion sniffed out, assassins from the Vindicare Temple killed them all except for the Grandmaster of the Assassorium (who wasnt actually a traitor, instead having infiltrated the traitors as part of the plan to find/kill them) and Moloc (who had "conveniently" left the room just before the kill order was given). With this, all hell broke loose. With no one being aware of who was on whose side, the Minotaurs came into direct combat with the Sisters of Silence and Custodes. The Minotaurs killed a few Sisters of Silence, and one of the Custodes, but in return suffered far greater losses themselves (as if they cared), before surrounding the survivors, who were circling to protect the Grandmaster of the Assasorium (as the Minotaurs weren't told he wasnt actually one of the traitors). Moloc himself was about to 1v1 Custodes Shield-Captain Valerian (with Moloc making the Custodes feel as close to afraid as a Custodes could possibly be. Sort of. As in, Valerian admitted he saw no flaw in Moloc's battle form, armour, or anything to exploit, and thus had 0 idea how to beat him before combat was begun ]]), before the new Master of the Administratum (Violeta Roskavler), teleported in and (whispering to Moloc) ordered the Minotaurs to stand down. Apparently this whole mess, for the most part, was [[Just As Planned]], as the Minotaurs later departed for Guilliman's Indomitus Crusade without any form of issues.

During the Indomitus Crusade, the Minotaurs put on their good ass-stomping boots to deal with some Thousand Sons who had taken over a space station.

==Chapter History and Geneseed Confusion==
There is a significant amount of [[DERP]] surrounding who their daddy is, how long they've been around, or if these are even all the same group of dicks. Like the [[Fire Angels]], the Minotaurs are an example of two chapters sharing the same name, even the sourcebooks point out that the [[Cursed Founding]] Minotaurs and the bronzy Minotaurs are so different that it's a possibility there are multiple chapters who have the same name. There isn't much of a question around only "a" Minotaurs chapter being made during the [[Cursed Founding]] in M36, the same books leaves it ambiguous by alluding to there having been different Minotaurs chapters (essentially keeping the ketchup-mustard-psycho Minotaurs canon alongside the "new" Minotaurs). Pulling things like having records of the "Minotaurs" being around as far back as back in M32 (tag teaming a bunch of Chaos-spark rebellions with some other Chapters, and noticably not just wiping their asses with the battle plans before bolting hell-for-leather into melee range), even tho psycho "Minotaurs" chapter is listed as M36 [[Cursed Founding]]; pointing out that "chimeric" geneseed Astartes (especially from the [[Cursed Founding]]) tend to be mentally/physically unstable, but the "new" Minotaurs are about as stable as you can get (the "old" Minotaurs tho....yeah); and highlighting the difference in behavior, look, and combat doctrines of the bronze colored Minotaurs compared to records of the yellow/red Minotaurs.

Given the yellow/red Minotaurs tendencies to absolutely annihilate whatever is in their way, completely forgo any sort of intel gathering or battle plans, and a [[Rip and tear|psychotic need to just rage rush the enemy to get their stabby-stab on]], it's certainly possible for them be successors to one (or more) of the more bloodthirsty legions such as the [[Blood Angels]] or [[World Eaters]]. A chimeric blend with another gene-line would certainly make sense with their [[Cursed Founding]] origins and batshit insanity.

The bronze Minotaurs being the chimeric ones makes markedly less sense, since they are pretty much free of any mutations and have in fact one of the highest [[gene-seed]] acceptance rates of any Chapter (a classic Iron Warriors trait). Given their "brooding, maligned, paranoid, and pragmantic" behaviors; obsessive and meticulous data-analysis; noted mastery of siege and attrition warfare (with a secondary preference for close range combat); and heavy ancient Greek theme, they are a near 1-1 match of the [[Iron Warriors]]. Their 5th/6th/7th edition chapter tactics are even the same as the 30k Iron Warriors Legiones Astartes rules. This makes sense, given their depiction in the [[Imperial Armour]] books basically being [[Iron Warriors]] with a bronze color scheme.

If the bronzy Minotaurs are [[Iron Warriors]] successors, it would go a long way in explaining why the [[High Lords]] keep their records well and far away from the [[Ordo Hereticus]].

According to Eadwin Brown, one of the developers of the Badab War: The current incarnation of the Minotaurs was formed by a garrison of [[Iron Warriors]] who were allowed to rejoin the Imperium (but put on a short leash by the High Lords) back during the [[Great Scouring]]. The reason for their lack of/confusing history (including a different chapter getting the same name) being a mix of deliberate actions of the [[High Lords]] not wanting to lose their personal pet Astartes and the difficulty of the Administratium's already shitty record keeping. Or maybe the Cursed Founding World Eater chimera Minotaurs were explicitly set up to fail in a deniable fashion that allowed the High Lords to get the Iron Warrior Minotaurs quietly formalised. If this is true, this raises all sorts of questions as to whether the Cursed Founding was deliberate to cover this up. It also means that there are probably many other Chapters like the Minotaurs from traitor legions. The Chapters that seem free of High Lord control but blatantly from traitor legions likely descend from those badass loyalists among the traitor legions. The Chapters held on a short leash by the High Lords are probably descended from traitor legion stock whose founders were of questionable loyalty, such as a surrendering garrison. Evidence of this might even be the excellent equipment they posses. After all, wouldn’t it be exactly like those dumb fucks to heavily equip possible traitors instead of loyal Chapters just so they can pretend to actually control them?

==Other Information==
[[File:Minotaurs Tartaros.jpg|250px|thumb|right|The Chapter has many Tartaros pattern suits and other relics.]]While the Minotaurs are strict followers of the [[Codex Astartes]], they're almost never seen as small groups or even individual companies. Every time they're deployed its always been at full Chapter strength. Their incredible effectiveness just goes to prove the Codex is awesome at a Chapter level and above. It isn’t like Guilliman didn’t study his brothers’ tactics, too. They fight in only one war zone at a time with the entire chapter fighting together. This makes them essentially a massive fucking beatstick that the High Lords call upon when shit hits the fan. They also have an unusual preference for killing other Space Marines, which made them feel right at home during the Badab War. Given their fancy new gear, their borderline omnicidal tendencies, and always operating as a full chapter, it would seem that the job of the "Emperor's Executioners" no longer falls upon the [[Space Wolves]]. They were probably created for fighting Chaos and renegade Marines and just sorta turned out pretty handy for forcing idiot [[Chapter]]s into line.

To the High Lord’s credit, the Minotaurs seem to not be an abuse of power. The Chapters they beat up are let go if they flee or surrender early instead of digging in. Those that keep fighting are curbstomped, but not exterminated. And when they beat on Marines, it’s hard to argue that the receivers of said beating didn’t deserve it (save in [[Lamenters|very specific instances]]).

Unlike most Chapters, the Minotaurs appear to be able to replenish their numbers at an accelerated rate, to the point that they could recover from losses in a fraction of the time it would take other Chapters a century or two to fully recover from. This allows them to quickly rebuild their force to full Chapter strength, even after suffering what would normally be unsustainable causalities. Imperial observers during the Antigonis campaign theorized that this may have something to do with the heavy use of hypnotherapy and neuro-cerebral therapy used in the training of neophytes and frequently "refreshed" with the help of Apothecaries in the Chapter. This has proven to have some unpleasant side-effects- the Minotaurs are highly xenophobic and paranoid, even by the high standards of the Imperium. These are bonus perks in a galaxy in which not being sufficiently xenophobic and paranoid gets you or your soul eaten.

There's also a good chance that they recruit from [[Terra]] itself thanks to their connections with the High Lords, giving them a massive recruit pool, as the Imperial Fists are also able to replenish losses equally fast thanks to having billions of potential candidates. This is mostly due to the Imperial Fists building recruitment posts on every world they rescue from invasion. Even then they request permission first as Dorn said he "...want recruits, not vassals". The Black Templars also do this and benefit greatly from this method. And since the Minotaurs gene-seed tithes are locked away nice and tight, no one is sure who their progenitors are.

Aside from the hideous old ketchup-and-mustard motherfuckers and the Greek muggers, there are also a pair of Chapters called the [[Brazen Minotaurs]] (looks like the Minotaurs wearing the [[Taurans]]' chapter badge) and [[White Minotaurs]] (looks like the Minotaurs but with a white Tauran bullhead badge). There isn't much fluff on them, being two of those Chapters with a name and a color design and nothing else.

==(In)famous Campaigns==
*'''[[Solar Rebellion]]''' - The Chapter is listed among the Imperial Forces tasked with bulldozing a Chaos-sparked rebellion within the Segmentium Solar. The interesting part is, [[Time of Rebirth|this was in M32...]] the [[Cursed Founding]] was in M36...
*'''[[Macharian Heresy]]''' - The Chapter is called to deal with the petty star empires created by the former generals of [[Lord Solar Macharius]]. They crush one after the other, following all of the High Lord's orders without question, and causing a lot of collateral damage in the process.
*'''Euxine Incident''' - ''The'' action that earned the Chapter their reputation. Still during the [[Macharian Heresy]], the [[Inceptors]] Chapter got involved in a fight with the Doom Warriors. They were supposedly drinking buddies before-hand but their friendship was broken over [[Lawful Stupid|matters of "honor"]]. The Imperium, not wanting ''more bullshit'', sent in the Minotaurs to beat some sense into them. The Chapter, in it's [[rape|usual style]], hit both chapters at once. The Doom Warriors, having some sense gained from this initial strike, left the Euxine system. The Inceptors did not leave. Instead they dug in and fought the Minotaurs like men. They lost, and the 100 surviving Inceptors were forced to surrender at barrel point. After they surrendered, [[That Guy|the Minotaurs robbed their relics, jacked Battle-Barge, and left.]] The [[Ultramarines]], seeing at how one of their own [[second founding]] successors got treated like shit, declared that the Minotaurs were permabanned from [[Ultramar]]. Nothing like punishing a loyalist Chapter for beating up civil war mongering renegades to prove your own loyalty.
*'''Defense of Hermetica''' - The heavily-fortified capital of a sector located in the [[Segmentum]] Solar finds itself overwhelmed when the [[Word Bearers]] suddenly dropped from a warp rift in a motherfucking [[Space Hulk]] filled to the brim with [[Mutant]]s. The Minotaurs are the first imperial force to respond: they track the [[Dark Apostle]] into the main cathedral, and decide to blast their way in with orbital bombardement and tanks regardless of civilian casualties. [[Asterion Moloc]] and his [[Terminator]]s slaugther their way into the catacombs, but the Dark Apostle escapes before he can be dealt the killing blow.
*'''[[Badab War]]''' - You know this one: [[Lugft Huron]] declares independance from the [[High Lords of Terra]], and a fuckton of chapters are sent his way to remind him why that is not a thing. The Minotaurs gained several important victories during this time, but would be more infamously remembered for the shit they did to the poor [[Lamenters]]. (The same thing they did to the [[Inceptors]]) Suffice to say, if anyone had any doubts on their behavior before, those doubts were quickly dispelled after that.
*'''Battle of Rynn's World''' - The Minotaurs saw action on Rynn's World during the attempt to reclaim the [[Crimson Fists]]' homeworld from the [[Orks]]. Shockingly, they didn't attempt anything like scavenging the ruins of the Crimson Fists [[Fortress-Monastery]]. Maybe it has something to do with [[Alexis Polux|who founded the Crimson Fists]]....and a certain friendship he had with [[Barabas Dantioch|a particular loyal Iron Warrior]].
*'''Harrowing of the Night Reapers''' The aforementionned [[Chapter]] had been sent on penitent crusade to the a dengerous backwater nebula as punishment for abandoning a Shrine World to the forces of Chaos. They went radio silent after a while, and steadly started to deviate from [[Codex]] doctrine, tactics, and equipment. Six years after last contact and many suspicious raids in the area, irrefutable proof of their attack on a [[Rogue Trader]] vessel earned them an ''Excommunicate Traitoris''. Four companies of the [[Avenging Sons]] went after them, but that chapter can't do anything right and got ambushed by the Night Reapers, who captured one of their [[Space Marine Strike Cruiser|Star Cruisers]] and mauled another. They blamed their humilliating defeat on "Warp flame weapons" that bypassed [[Void shields]], so the High Lords had to send someone who could actually [[get shit done]]: The Minotaurs and the [[Red Hunters]]. (now we're talking) The two Chapters fought the Night Reapers and their heretekal Xeno-tech across a dozen star systems until they cornered them at a pre-human space wreck so massive it had it's own athmosphere and ecosystem. The Night Reapers were searching for a weapon that they beleived would allow them to defeat the Imperials, when a [[Grey Knights]] ship showed up demanding all Imperial forces to pull back. The Minotaurs, naturally, didn't give a fuck and kept fighting. The Knights of Titan had to launch their teleport assault in the midst of the battle. Shortly after, something happened that caused everyone to get BTFO to kingdom come: Minotaurs, Night Reapers, and Grey Knights alike. The Grey Knight's strike cruise was somehow damaged by the blast....and it somehow killed everyone onboard. [[Asterion Moloc]] was [[Phoenix Lord|the only survivor]].
*'''[[Orphean War]]''' - Karma finally starts catching up to the Chapter's douchebaggery when they have to face the Necrons of the [[Maynarkh Dynasty]]. They lose their stolen ships in the desperate assault against the necron fleet over Amarah Prime, and take many casualties that would be sorely felt later in their race back to [[Terra]]. Moloc <s>dies</s> [[Phoenix Lord|almost dies]] again, this time by achieving a mutual KO against the Maynarkh [[Necron Overlord|Overlord]] Makthlan Kutlakh the World Killer.

==Daily Rituals==

:04:00 Wake Up: The Minotaurs arise from their beds (each Minotaur has their own king-sized bed with luxury mattress and comforter). They make sure to beat up a dummy space marine before leaving.
:05:00 Morning Prayer: The Minotaurs gather in the chapel to praise the Emperor. They also praise the High Lords of Terra. Any battle brother who prays to not have to kill other space marines is put in the "patience chamber".
:06:00 Morning Firing Rituals: The Minotaurs pull live space marines from the "patience chamber" to practice firing upon. Any battle brother whose shot kills the space marine instantly is put into the "patience chamber".
:08:00 Morning Battle Practice: The Minotaurs release captured prisoners within the "patience chamber." Imprisoned members include failed Minotaurs, rebellious Ultramarines (and successors), Marines Malevolent, Fallen, The <s>victims</s> participants are then forced to fight the entire chapter with substandard equipment.
:10:00 Morning Tactical Indoctrination: The Minotaurs finish off the last of their prisoners and gather together in the Great Hall to discuss strategy. Common tactics involve marching right through enemy fire, throwing allied units into enemy fire THEN marching through whats left, missile strikes on engaged melee units, and techniques to kill other space marines. Any battle brother who points out the faults in these tactics is put in the "patience chamber" (any actual faults are noted for later tactical refinement).
:11:00 Afternoon Prayer: The Minotaurs give thanks to the High Lords of Terra for allowing them to be such dicks. In a sacred ritual, each battle brother is required to kiss the butt of golden statues honoring the High Lords Of Terra. Any battle brother who claims this is gay is sent to the "patience chamber".
:12:00 Afternoon Meal: The Minotaurs gather to feast upon fine meats and food provided by their besties: the High Lords. Serfs rush quickly to ensure that each marine is fed to his heart's content. Those who don't clean their plates are sent to the "patience chamber".
:13:00 Afternoon Battle Practice: The Minotaurs descend to any number of worlds in order to hone their space marine killing skills. The Lamenters are the most frequent target, but Baal and Ultramar are also popular destinations. A number of the the targeted space marines are captured and put in the "patience chamber". The food stocks of enemy forces are taken for Evening Meal.
:15:00 Afternoon Firing Rites: The Minotaurs practice shooting at cutouts for once. These cutouts are usually painted [[Ultramarines|blue]], [[Lamenters|yellow]], or [[Grey Knights|grey]].
:16:00 Enhanced Tactical Indoctrine: The Minotaurs learn how to most effectively teamkill each army in the Imperium. During this time, they also will use artillery and vehicle simulators in order to practice causing the most possible destruction upon space marines fortifications such as: driving tanks straight through walls and orbital strikes on Astartes medical station.
:17:00 Recruitment: <s>Slaves</s> Fresh recruits arrive from Terra. These are force to either serve as serfs for the chapter, or begin the Minotaurs' <s>forced reprogramming</s> training process. Imperial Officials are ordered to turn a blind eye to this process, causing the Salamanders to [[RAGE]].
:18:00 Evening Meal: The Minotaurs feast once again, devouring the food stocks taken during Afternoon Battle Practice, infront of the survivors of who they took it from. Any brother who feels guilty about this is sent to the "patience chamber".
:20:00 Propaganda: Minotaurs gather in the Great Hall [[Bullshit|to listen to the brilliant, enlightened, sophisticated, and productive conversations that the High Lords partake in.]] Any battle brother who dozes off or claims the High Lords are full of shit is sent to the "patience chamber".
:22:00 Free time: The Minotaurs are granted free time. This mostly involves reading the excessive number of manuals on how to kill space marines, beating each other up as practice, and repainting wargear taken from other Chapters.
:23:00 Bed Time: The Minotaurs retire to their quarters for the evening. Before falling asleep, they beat up the space marine dummy again.

==Tabletop==

===Chapter Approved===
When the first Minotaurs were introduced as one of the Cursed Founding chapters, for +10 points per model, or +20 per dreadnought (on top of the regular costs) you could give your entire army Fearless and +1 Attack though they had to move towards and assault the nearest enemy they could (even if they had no chance of hurting it) and had to sweep advance, but nobody did it because painting them WAS A FUCKING NIGHTMARE. Both because they had the most annoying colour scheme (worse than the quarter ones like the [[Howling Griffons]]) and because their colours made them look fucking ugly.

===6th Edition===
With the updates they got their own Chapter Tactics. Minotaurs Chapter Tactics models don't take morale checks from shooting attacks, and can re-roll failed pinning tests. In addition they have crusader USR, and +1 to charge distance when in the enemy deployment zone. Overall one of the [[fail|worst]] Chapter Tactics. Crusader certainly is nice to have, but ATSKNF makes re-rolling pinning and no morale checks from shooting pretty redundant. If you're gonna play Minotaurs you're gonna have to bring Moloc, who is a fucking monster in CC while gaining a VP per character executed in a challenge ''and'' giving your guys Prefered Enemy (Space Marines). So if you didn't get the memo, Minotaurs are meant to be run with Moloc as your Warlord against other Space Marine armies. If a friend of yours is running a really annoying Space Marine army, especially if he has Smashfucker, sic these guys on him and watch him cry.

===8th Edition===
How 8th Edition treated Forge World chapters is an issue of [[skub|intense debate]]. Sure, you can choose whatever tactic you want, but it still feels like an afterthought on the part of Games Workshop. That aside, Moloc and Aiakos came out of the update relatively unscathed, still being hard nuts to crack and very lethal overall, but with loss of initiative, and Moloc has lost the main thing he was taken for - the godsent army-wide Preferred enemy: Space Marines. Instead he can "do the wulfen" now. Ivanus, however, has lost all of his utility and is just an overpriced Chaplain with attacks and wounds of a captain, and no longer gains an extra attack from having two specialist weapons. Hecaton fell into category of Characters too fat to use Character rule and costs a little shy of a goddamn GALLANT KNIGHT but with Hero of the Chapter strategem can be a pain in the ass on a city map. Kraatos also no longer exists as of the FAQ, with Forge World telling you to just [[fail|use him as a regular devastator marine]]. ROC pattern Storm Eagle still rocks though.

===9th Edition===
As of the Imperial Armour Compendium, they play up the Minotaurs siege warfare specialization. Suggesting they be played using the Imperial Fist codex, with the Stalwart and Duelist traits.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Minotaurs_Original_Scheme.jpg|[[Fail|Their original scheme]], just try and paint an entire Chapter of them.
File:Veteran_Brother_Isskar.PNG|Stylized red markings are used to identify [[Veteran Squad]]s...
File:Sternguard_Veteran_Thoul.PNG|...And sergeants
</gallery>

{{Marines-Official}}