Editing The Crusaders (section)

=History of the Crusaders=

‘The armored thunderbolt of Unification’ is how the Sixth Legion was described by a remembrancer during the Crusade, and this was a perfect moniker for their way of war after they were reunited with their Primarch. They were a fast-moving force of mechanized infantry that used Blitzkrieg tactics to swiftly defeat foes, bringing words into the Imperium as fast as possible with the least possible damage to infrastructure so those worlds would be able to feed further expansion. Devoted to the spread of humanity and the cause of the Emperor, they believed that for the crusade to succeed, any sacrifice would have to be made, and honor came from victory, not from how the victory was won. Their record was exemplary but not stainless, and they came in for some criticism about how their relentless pace did not bring many clean or smooth compliances. Still the Legion’s belief in itself and its mission was undimmed until the Heresy, where the Crusaders would be broken in the defense of Terra and left disillusioned and distraught. Gaudin would break up the Legion under pressure from [[Gaspard Lumey]] and give his sons a new purpose: to continue the work the Emperor had started and never end the Crusade started by the Emperor. So the Crusaders are now a mobile strike force spread out across the stars, endlessly fighting all who would threaten the Emperor’s domain.

==Beginnings==

When the sacred bands were united under Hektor’s command, the sixth had only recently entered service, among the last to emerge from the Emperor's gene-labs. Their gene-seed, while pure, was also slow to bond with an aspirant, meaning that they took nearly twice as long to become fully-fledged space marines. They had been drawn largely from across the planet, all from well-known martial cultures such as the Skandi and the Urallians. They became known for their use of swift-moving short-ranged rhino-mounted mobile strikes, often doing drive-byes from their Rhino transports. Several Rhinos were lost by the VI squad as they were destroyed in reckless strikes on enemy positions, and other Sacred Bands decried them for their waste of resources and their cavalier attitude. 

One of their greatest triumphs came during the '''Battle of Aedassa''', an enclave of Religious extremists guarding an ancient shrine who were bitterly opposed to the Emperor. Their elite Guard, known as the 'Canons of the Sepulcher' were armed with powerful Plasma Bladed Greatswords and fought with little regard for death. The Sacred Bands found their passage to the shrine blocked. However the VI Squad correctly deduced that with all the Canons out fighting the Sacred Band, the shrine itself was unguarded. Slipping away, the squad 'commandeered' a Land Raider and a copious amount of incendiary explosives with it drove a full day and a night around behind the shrine, slipping undetected past checkpoint after checkpoint. The rest of the Sacred Band believed the VIth had been captured or killed, and were surprised when in the third day of fighting, and finally having fought to within sight of the shrine it went up in flames before them. At that moment the Canons were seized by dread and their morale broke, with the Sacred Band cutting them down as they attempted to flee. Hektor himself investigated the shrine to find the VI squad slumped up beside the heavily damaged hulk of their Land Raider, not a single one unwounded. That Land Raider would be recovered and repaired and become the first permanent combat vehicle of the Legion, going on to see service on countless battlefields throughout the Crusade.

By the end of the Campaign they had gone through the Merica conflict with only a single casualty, the unfortunate '''Walter Blum''' and Hektor praised their courage and conviction, pressing for the squad to be quickly raised to Legion strength after the close of the Unification Wars.

=='Left-Behind’==

As the Crusade set out beyond the light of Sol, the VI Legion was now at chapter strength, and swiftly entered the line alongside their brothers. In these first glorious campaigns the X Legion did not show and particular specialties, such as the mass-warfare of the Wolves of Dawn, the armoured thrusts of the Steel Wing or the rapid assaults of the Emerald Doom. They in fact became infamous for how unremarkable they were, as if they were the perfect exemplar of the standard Legion organization as laid out by the Principa Belicosa. Infantry assaults with armoured support was the norm, their campaigns measured affairs that did not win worlds quickly or efficiently, but did not leave them smoking ruins either. They showed a certain flair for technological ability, and were in high demand by the Mechanicum to assist them in pacifying recalcitrant Forgeworlds and Knight Worlds including the pacification of Dieseleum, a Forgeworld that rejected the primacy of Mars. But the slow speed of their gene-seed bonding meant that casualties could only be slowly replaced, and the Legion because highly casualty-conscious as a result. Larger campaigns often crippled the Sixth Legion’s combat abilities for years, and their battle-roll of honours remained very small compared to their peers. This bred a sense that the Legion was an underdog, struggling against both the foe and their own brothers, who they felt looked down upon them.

One thing that became noted of the early Legion was that once oathed to a battle, they would push on regardless, determined to secure victory at any cost. This meant that some campaigns would grind on for many months and the legion would suffer unnecessary casualties in finally pressing a win. The Legion's victories were often far between and no matter what, the price was always high. The Legion became known as ‘The Emperor’s Sledgehammer’ for they were a blunt, unwieldy instrument that bashed worlds into the Imperium, slowly but surely and with a great deal of effort. The Gene-Seed issues meant the increased casualties of the growing battles began to bite, with the Legion dropping below 50,000 Marines after the First Ruavu Grun Xenocide, where that first wave of Extragalactic Invaders ravaged the northern Solar Segmentum and four Legions were diverted to destroy them. The VI Legion were far from the forefront of the Great Crusade, and while the V Legion gained the nomenclature ''Tag-along'', the VI were known as ''Left-behind''. 

The Legion might have eventually ground itself to nothing had this trend continued, but it was very timely that their Father was to be found early into the Great Crusade in the Sol Segmentum, and he would completely remake the Legion in his own image and thus save it.

==A father found, a Legion reforged==

Thomas Gaudin had come to manhood fighting battles on the polluted surface of Sturmundrang, leading mighty armies of armoured vehicles in rapid, high-speed strikes to swiftly end wars with the minimum bloodshed. He was already planning to create his own empire in the stars when the Imperium found him, and he was completely sold on the Emperor’s vision for a united Galaxy. The Legion he found however was not the rapier he desired, and so mustering his Legion he met with the survivors of the Sacred Band and told them of his vision of a Legion rebuilt to spearhead the Great Crusade, one that by its very way of warfare be spared heavy casualties and be able to swiftly bring worlds into the fold. Swayed by his words, the Sacred Band helped him spread his wish across the Legion, so when he began to remake it few voices were raised in protest, most notably Sacred Band member '''Elias Selig'''. What Gaudin did was remake the Legion to a greater extent than almost any other Primarch. Large infantry formations were broken up, Chapters made to be self-sufficient and mobile armored warfare with mechanized infantry with fast armor support the Legion’s doctrine. For nearly three years the Legion was out of the Crusade as thousands from Sturmundrang swelled the Legion’s ranks, Gaudin's own gentic material fixed the issue of slow growth of gene-seed and Gaudin retrained the Terrans to follow his vision of warfare. When the Legion departed Sturmundrang, it was a Legion transformed.

Before the Legion left, Gaudin mustered the entire Legion, over 60,000 Marines, and together they swore a mighty oath. They would be the great drivers of the Crusade, they would make up for their earlier tardiness by reclaiming more worlds than any other Legion, a tall order at the time but a challenge the Legion was willing to take. They would be the true inheritors of the Emperor’s Great Crusade, his Crusaders. Thus the legion became the Crusaders, the visual embodiment of the Emperor’s dream. Almost immediately they were pitched into the forefront of the Crusade at Keskastine, but now they excelled. Gaudin’s Mobile Warfare tactics allowed them to strike swiftly and throw their enemies off balance, cutting their armies to pieces and swiftly forcing them to surrender. Fast spearheads of Rhinos and Predators were let loose in the enemy’s rear areas, spreading panic and confusion. Carefully placed orbital bombardments and air strikes on both military and civilian targets helped to spread panic and break the enemies will to fight, though many thousands of innocent bystanders would die in these actions. Thus began a worrying trend for the Crusaders to use morally dubious actions to hasten the end of hostilities.

After the first few Campaigns, Gaudin began to divide his Legion, sending detachments off to spearhead advances in areas where the crusade had bogged down. Soon most of the Legion was spread out across the stars, operating far from their Father’s eye. Gaudin was pleased to see his sons bringing in more and more worlds for the Emperor and encouraged their autonomy, seeing his legion more as a number of separate expeditionary forces and not as a united whole. He himself along with his elite veterans moved from Crusader fleet to Crusader fleet, joining them for a hard-fought campaign only to move on to the next one. Like the Legion itself, the Primarch was restless and could never stay in one place for long.

Their relentless drive was not without cost though. The Crusaders are known to have moved swiftly on from planet to planet the moment that their enemies surrendered, leaving others to mop up any final pockets of resistance and establish garrisons on the conquered worlds. Many worlds flared up after the Crusaders had moved on, requiring others to complete their pacification. Several Primarchs complained that Gaudin’s zeal blinded him to the true needs of the Crusade, that worlds needed to be pacified and safely brought into the Imperial fold, not just conquered. But the sheer number of new worlds the Crusaders brought into the fold, among the top three Legions of the entire Crusade (The other two being the Wolves of Dawn and Winged Victory) silenced most of his critics, and the Emperor’s unwavering support of him also helped ease tensions.

The Crusaders saw service alongside many of their Brother Legions though not to the degree of other Legions mainly due to the Crusaders preferring to be pressing the boundaries wherever possible instead of being stuck in long slugging-matches. Though when they did serve as part of multi-Legion forces, their swift actions often ensured that victories could be won far in advance of campaign projections. The Legion never sought to antagonize any of their fellows by their actions, though when pressed too hard honor duels were arranged. Gaudin is known to have laughed off suggestions of tensions with the Winged Victory after they conquered a thousand sectors in a year and began to try and rival the Crusaders for number of worlds added to the Imperium. “We need a challenger to spur us onward. If all my brothers can show the drive of Lumey, this Crusade will be over quickly,” He is reported to have said, though rumours of darker sayings still linger.

Gaudin came to Ullanor to find the battle already over, much to his dismay. His own 35th Expeditionary Fleet had been in the vicinity of Desperation on the very furthest fringe of the Crusade, netting dozens of the distant and disparate worlds in that region. However at the triumph there he was honored highly by the Emperor, and asked to return to Terra along with his Legion as a ‘guard of honor’ separate from the position Alexandri had been granted as the Emperor's Praetorian. Privately he was deeply discomforted by this. His only desire was to prosecute the Crusade, and if his legion was recalled to Terra it could easily miss out on the Great Crusade. Gaudin had never considered what the future for his Legion beyond the crusade would be, and he now feared that his Legion could easily be censured and destroyed if it was stuck on Terra. However he could not speak out against his Father, and so he ordered as much of the Legion as possible to break from their campaigns and muster on Terra, the first time the entire Legion would be mustered together since they left Sturmundrang.

==Heresy and the breaking of a Legion==

Gaudin himself had only barely arrived on Terra when news of the Warmaster’s fall reached him. Shocked beyond measure, it took him a few days to process this, and when he had done so his usual jovial nature was gone and he was a mountain of anger, his booming voice rolling with thunder. He desired more than anything else to take his Legion off and strike back against the traitor, but his was the only Legion in the Solar System, and he could not leave Terra unguarded. However Mars had fallen into bitter civil war, the Fabricator General besieged in the great forge of Olympus Mons by renegade Magos loyal to Hektor. Here was a war he could fight, and so leaving two chapters on Terra as guards, he led his Legion to Mars to break the Siege and destroy the Traitor Mechanicum. For over five years the Legion ground itself down on the red deserts of Mars, fighting first the Mechanicum, and later on infiltrated Iron Rangers and Justicars. Eventually the Legion was forced to withdraw with the arrival of Hektor Himself and his mighty Warhost, ready to bring war to Terra itself.

The Legion’s scattering meant that many elements, ranging from Company to Chapter sized were unable to reach Terra and join their Primarch in the defence of Sol. Instead they linked up with whatever loyalists were in the vicinity and as per their ways took the fight to the enemy. A force of no less than eight whole Chapters under the famous '''Severin Hahn''' would come to [[Battle of Zhuko V|Zhuko V]] and take part in the tank battle there, the biggest Tank Battle in all human History. There they would face those of the Crusaders who had turned on the Emperor and sided with the Warmaster at the '''Battle of Bitter Iron'''. Other Crusader forces fought alongside the Thunder Kings, War Scribes and Steel Marshalls as they struggled valiantly against Hektor’s might. Some of these forces were destroyed and vanished from the pages of history, their stories never to be told. Others earned new Battle Honours, though not ones with the same glory as those won in the Great Crusade. For this was a New Crusade, a crusade against Hektor and the nightmares he had sided with.

==The Scouring and the birth of the new Crusaders==

The War for Mars and the Siege of Terra together left the Crusaders nearly broken. Barely a fifth of the Legion was still combat capable, and Gaudin was deeply shaken by what he had experienced, his usual bombast gone. Piece by piece the other elements of the Legion that had been scattered by the winds of War came together, until for the first time since their Primarch had reunited with them the Legion was one, though only half their strength before the Heresy. He and his legion threw themselves into the Scouring with the same vigour they once had shown to the Great Crusade but now they were grim and dour.

With the last of the traitors driven into the Eye, the scouring was over. The combined Legion now stood at just over 40,000 Marines, a shadow of what it had been before the schism. Shortly after this came Gaspard Lumey’s reforms to the Astartes, which came as a nasty shock to the Crusaders. Gaudin found himself opposed to the idea, arguing that it diluted the fighting power of the Legions to such an extent that they would be unable to properly prosecute any wars they would be required to fight, for though the traitors had been driven into the eye there were hundreds of other threats out there that had come to the fore during the Heresy, such as the Orks, Eldar, Hrud, Turtagon, Plefukur and others which were ravaging the frontiers of Imperial space.

As one by one his brothers sided with Lumey, Gaudin found himself ever-more isolated, and finally he was forced to cave in. He split his Legion into seven separate Chapters, each fleet-based for maximum mobility. The five main ones were each tied to a specific Segmentum that they would defend, while the Mechanist Warriors and Thousand Swords were free to fight wherever they chose.

Gaudin deliberately removed himself from the command structure of any chapter, with the first Chapter Master of the Crusaders themselves being Thomas Caevael or ‘Young Thomas’ as he became known. Gaudin continued as he had done before the Heresy, moving from chapter to chapter to provide support and advice, though never interfering in the command of any of them. The Chapters could go for decades without seeing him, and those of the Sacred Band noted his growing distance from his sons. It was rumoured that before he vanished, Vardhana had told Gaudin when his time would be up, and that time was approaching fast.

Gaudin’s final battle was over Xersia in the Cadian Sector. After Cadia itself fell before the Chaos tide, the combined fleets of the Crusaders and Crusaders Obscuras rallied over Xersia, only to once again come under assault. Gaudin himself ordered both fleets to withdraw as his last command, before leading the massive Gloriana Class Battleship Hohenstetchen alone against the combined traitor forces. The last sighting of him was on the command bridge, swearing profuse oaths at the traitor forces to face him man-to man. Most believe he was killed there and his ship lost, but the Crusaders believe that he survived and entered the Eye of Terror to continue the fight against his traitorous brethren and at the end he will return for a new Great Crusade.

The loss of Gaudin, while a blow for morale, did not impede the successors in any way, thanks to Gaudin’s foresight of removing himself utterly from the chain of command. The many branches of the Crusaders continued their mission to move and fight any threat to the safety and stability of the Imperium, a ‘fire brigade’ that would move from hot-spot to hot-spot and take out enemy threats before they could grow to threaten the wider Imperium.