Editing The Crusaders (section)

==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.