Editing Imperial Fists (section)

==History==
[[File:Imperialfist78.jpg|450px|thumb|left|Chaos proctologists]]
The Imperial Fists were masters of siege warfare and construction, like the [[Iron Warriors]]. But while the Warriors were shoehorned into that role by their asshole [[Perturabo|dad]] and/or [[God-Emperor of Mankind|grandad]] (with [[RAGE|unfortunate]] [[Chaos Space Marines|consequences]]), the Imperial Fists were literally designed for the task. This is perhaps best demonstrated in their methods of siege. The Iron Warriors laid siege in the same way as the Death Korps of Krieg. The Imperial Fists simply used whatever was best and shooty and blew a hole in the enemy defenses. Then, they stormed in and “fisted” the enemy to death. Rinse, repeat. No grind. No PTSD. No stress. Just blam and done. A lot like their boarding tactics in naval warfare, come to think of it.

Since '''ALL''' [[First Founding]] Legions originally recruited from Terra, their first homeworld was officially Rogal Dorn's planet of [[Inwit]], which is exactly what it sounds like on the tin: a frozen planet of low-tech Inuit people, though Dorn was such an impressive dude he managed to turn the feral worlders and their ice caves into a sprawling interplanetary empire ''(beat THAT [[Roboute Guilliman|Girly-pants!]])''.

Rogal Dorn was the only Primarch ''(aside from [[Magnus the Red]])'' to actively seek out the Emperor rather than be discovered by him, so when he showed up with the ''Phalanx'', big Emps was like ''"oh Hai... erm... I wasn't expecting you yet... Dorn? was it? okay here's your Legion."'' Dorn didn't say a word as the Imperial Fists knelt and pledged their loyalty, but after he had witnessed them in battle, he met with the Space Marine who was the place-holder Primarch (Legion Master Matthias) and simply said ''"Cheers dude, you're in command of [[Inwit]] now, make me thirty more regiments of you guys, I'm off on a crusade"'' (seriously, that's pretty much how it went).

It wasn't all [[Noblebright]] crusades though; they were described as [[Black Templars|zealous]] as the [[Ultramarines]] or [[Word Bearers]] when it came to conquering worlds and drawing recruits. On one feral world they recruited EVERY SINGLE male child old enough to hold a spear, whilst on one hive world they went down into the [[Necromunda|underhives]] and walked away with half of the male population. This was perhaps not the best way to get results, and most of the potential recruits would end up dead, though one can guess that the ones that survived would be guaranteed to be the best of the crop, probably in a similar way to how the [[Space Wolves]] whittle out the weaklings from the strong or how the [[Iron Warriors]] Astartes wave attacks would mean only the best survived.

They did so well at crusading during the Great Crusade ''(go figure)'' that the Emperor lavished more honours on them than anyone else and fought alongside them more often than any other legion. One might wonder why Dorn wasn't named Warmaster, but this was probably more to do with Horus being '''a)''' already well established and crusading on his own, '''b)''' presumably a better all-round general than Dorn and '''c)''' Dorn was notably lacking in the interpersonal skills necessary to keep the other primarchs in line. Despite this, the Imperial Fists were considered by many to be the bedrock of the Imperium, and they were the legion most associated with the Emperor, thus midway through the Great Crusade when big Emps retired to his dungeons to play with warp trinkets, they got the job of guarding [[Terra]] and the surrounding solar system ''(but not guarding the [[Emperor]] himself since the [[Adeptus Custodes|Custodians]] already had that job)'', and fortifying the Imperial Palace and so they became the most publicly visible loyalist Astartes during the time of the [[Horus Heresy]]. Not only that, their Primarch, along with [[Jaghatai Khan|the Khan]] personally carried the Emperor's fucked up body all the way to the Golden Throne.

Dorn's rejection of the Codex was primarily based on his legion being '''the''' crusading legion. They defined themselves by their identity as Legionaries, and regarded Guilliman's codex as being a betrayal of the Emperor's mandate for the Space Marines. Indeed, Big E wanted the Legions to expand the Imperium aggressively and Guilliman wanted to turn them into a bunch of small High Threat Response teams, each protecting their own little corner of the Imperium. When Guilliman rolled up and asked Dorn if he was done with the codex, Dorn blew him off by saying there were Traitors to hunt down and exterminate and ran off to enact the Scouring with his sons. (And, to be fair, Guilliman and everyone else joined in the Scouring as well because it was actually a good idea.)

By the time the majority of the Traitors had been either purged with extreme prejudice or driven into the Eye of Terror, however, Guilliman came around with his Codex idea again. Again, Dorn told Guilliman to leave his Legion alone, but this time Guilliman wouldn't take no for an answer, and it became increasingly apparent that it was going to become a thing whether Dorn liked it or not. Dorn's Legion was going to be broken up. His father was dead. His [[Horus|best]] [[Sanguinius|friends]] were dead. Deep down, he felt that he'd failed the Emperor and the Great Crusade; if only he'd fortified Terra a little more or been at the Emperor's and Sanguinius' side to confront Horus, they wouldn't be mired in this [[grimdark|complete and utter clusterfuck]]. The Emperor was dead, the Great Crusade was over, and the Imperium fractured. There was no more need for an Emperor's Praetorian or an Imperial Crusader in this new galaxy where they could only cling on grimly to what they'd so laboriously managed to seize.

Luckily, in this moment of quiet despair in Dorn's life, [[Perturabo]] dropped the challenge for Dorn to come and break into his mightiest fortress. Dorn saw this as the perfect solution to his problem, rose seemingly blindingly to the obvious bait and took his sons to what he knew was a trap. He went in with no help, with no reinforcements, even without expectations or a battle plan. He'd moved on from self-injury and fury to suicidal bravery. He didn't expect to survive the Iron Cage. He went there with his sons so they could die holding up the ideals they'd believed in and that defined the Imperial Fists. When Guilliman arrived uninvited to 'save' the Imperial Fists, Dorn's legion was physically mauled, but spiritually intact once again. Dorn and his sons never exactly got over their guilt, but they were no longer defined by it. Dorn finally could accept the new reality of the Imperium, but made sure the Fists and their successors would continue to fight for the Emperor's original vision. Far from the kneeling submission of a broken man to Guilliman, this act was Dorn's way of staying true to the Imperium that had gone before without tearing apart the Imperium that was still standing.

An alternate and less [[Mary Sue|generous]] interpretation is that Dorn temporarily went fucking nuts after Dad's death and got most of his legion killed because of it. By enacting this roundabout "penance" upon [[Fail|his own legion]], he was not cleansing the sin from the hearts and loins of the Imperial Fists, but simply failing his men and failing to [[Reasonable Marines|do his job]] of winning fights to aid the Imperium. Thousands of champions, heroes, and experienced Astartes who had survived the Heresy and whose skills would be sorely needed in the Imperium's rebuilding, all killed in a near-pointless battle that happened almost entirely because of Dorn feeling guilty over not being there to aid his father. [[Fail|Great job, Dorn; really doing what your father would've wanted there!]]

This underscores his tenacity, and how a strong personality trait can sometimes be a significant disadvantage. Typical of both the Emperor and his sons. This didn't end in a total failure in the long run though, since he split his legion into the ever raging [[Black Templars]] which remains ''the'' largest and busiest Chapter to date, and the reasonable [[Crimson Fists]] who actually have brains and don't throw themselves wastefully into wars for the sake of glory or honour. That's not to say both takes are 100% mutually exclusive, but well, there you go.

''The Beast Arises'' series entry, ''I am Slaughter'' (written by [[Dan Abnett]]) revealed that, while Dorn grudgingly accepted the Codex, he still wasn't totally on board with the whole "let's divvy up our legions" thing (but then again, neither were [[Leman Russ]] and [[Lion El'Jonson]]), and so Dorn secretly created what amounted to a panic box that said "break glass in case of 2nd Siege of Terra", known as 'The Last Wall': if Terra were ever to come under direct threat again, then the Imperial Fists and their successor chapters would reunite as a full Legion in its defense, with the [[Feast of Blades]] serving to keep them sharp and prepared. This turned out to be a good idea, as the Fists got their shit completely wrecked by some Orks at the beginning of the war (as in, there was exactly one survivor from the entire chapter). This sole survivor, Captain [[Slaughter Koorland]], fortunately proved to be a complete badass and rounded up all the Fists' successor chapters to go and knock greenskin heads together, becoming Lord Commander of the Imperium and founding the [[Deathwatch]] along the way.

Sadly, he eventually got killed by the Beast himself on Ullanor, rendering the OG Fists extinct. They were covertly reconstituted by members of other Imperial Fists second founding chapters later on, though, so it's all good. Plus the OG fists had a bunch of gene-seed and who knows what, so the original Fists were probably revived anyway, though to see the details on the Chapter that constituted the majority of the refounded chapter, see the [[Fists Exemplar]]. It's also worth noting that, with the introduction of Primaris Marines, there most certainly are OG Imperial Fists again: for his material, Cawl used warriors from Terra from the days of the Great Crusade. A few of the Primaris Marines have memories of seeing Rogal Dorn himself. The link between Imperial Fists Legion and Chapter that was severed during the War of the Beast was thereby restored by the Indomitus Crusade. Additionally, Maximus Thane's background was retconned to being a 7th Legion veteran of the Heresy. Between a living Legion veteran refounding the Fists, the chapter's 'OG' gene-stocks still being intact, and IF Primaris Marines being in stasis, the Imperial Fists are as legit as ever. Through the Last Wall protocol, the Imperial Fists were "re-fortified".

The Fists spent the next nine millennia or so generally getting shit done and beating the stuffing out of anyone who tried to mess with the Imperium. Highlights include helping to take out Drakan Vangorich after [[The Beheading]], being forced to lay siege to the Imperial Palace because of [[Goge Vandire|Space Caligula]], and repeatedly trying to kill one particularly crazy Warsmith by the name of [[Shon'tu]]. They would also supplement the Codex's combat philosophy with that of the Book of the Five Spheres.

During the 13th Black Crusade, said Warsmith and Daemon Prince [[Be'lakor]] invaded the Phalanx, hoping to use it to blow up the Imperial Palace and thereby make [[Abaddon|Failbaddon]] look stupid(er) by comparison. The only Fists present to stop them were the 3rd Company, which was rebuilding after getting mangled in a recent battle, and a few 1st Company veterans. Things weren't going so well for the boys in yellow, so the [[Tor Garadon|Fists captain]] decided to send the Phalanx into the warp to prevent the Chaos forces from carrying out their plan. He also wound up using the Phalanx's guns to shoot off all the daemon-infested parts of the station, destroying a tenth of its total mass. Fortunately for them, the [[Legion of the Damned]] showed up to help them fight off the invaders, and Shon'tu finally got properly killed. With that clusterfuck over, the Phalanx set course for [[Cadia]], because if you've just won one impossible battle, you might as well go get involved in another one. They arrived just in time to nuke a chunk of the Black Fleet, along with a Blackstone Fortress, and then assist the Imperial fleet in evacuating the system after the planet finally broke. Later some of the other Fists showed up in the nick of time to back up Girlyman and his forces on Luna during their scrap with Magnus and his boys.

As of 8th edition, the Fists have gotten back to doing what they do best: crusading and killing traitors. They re-earned their title as the Defenders of Terra by helping to defeat a Khornate invasion of the planet caused by the eruption of the Cicatrix Maledictum. After that, they joined up with the Indomitus Crusade for a while, during which they earned much praise from Guilliman himself. They also at some point decided to go smash the shit out of an Iron Warriors fortress world, the creatively named Ironhold, and invited a bunch of Cadian shock troopers and some Knight houses to give them a hand. Some of them are currently fighting in the [[War of Beasts]] on Vigilus. Now that they are reinforced with Primaris, Guilliman ordered the reforming of the [[Honour Guard|Huscarls]] to help organize defense of the Imperial worlds. The Custodes decided that they didn't want to see the phalanx get taken over by more chaos worshipers, so in return for placing a permanent guard of custodes aboard the ship, they would restore some functions of the vessel with help from their stash of secret archeotech under the palace.