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{{Infobox Spess Mahreen Chapter |Name = Blue Daggers |Battle Cry = "For Septiim and Terra!" |Number = 0983 |Founding = Special Circumstances Unnumbered Founding |Successors of = [[Ultramarines]] |Successor Chapters = None |Chapter Master = [[Setting:Cloudburst/People|Ranult Arden]] |Primarch = [[Roboute Guilliman]] |Homeworld = Deep Void platform ''Gargantuan'' ([[Setting:Cloudburst/Septiim|Septiim system]]) |Specialty = Mass infantry repulsion, urban defense, enormous Honour Guard |Strength = Thirteen Companies (post-Great Rift) |Allegiance = [[Imperium of Man]] |Colours = Dark blue and pale blue }} ==History and Composition== The [[Setting:Tri/Sector|Cloudburst Sector]] has stood resolute against the [[Setting:Cloudburst/Glasians|Glasian]] menace thanks largely to the presence of its own Space Marine Chapter: the Blue Daggers. They are a Loyalist Chapter, founded in an unnamed Special Circumstances Founding in M41.525 from [[Novamarines]] and [[Angels of Fury]] mixed stock. Their Chapter Number is 0983. The Chapter is largely [[Codex Astartes|Codex]]-compliant in general modus operandi and formation, save for their anomalous 9th and 10th companies. The Daggers own 63 [[Terminator]] suits, divided between [[Apothecary|Apothecaries]], [[Chaplain|Chaplains]], First Company Veterans, [[Techmarines]], and [[Librarians]]. Their advanced equipment supplier is the Castle of the Forges on [[Setting:Cloudburst/Cognomen|Cognomen]], and they have only three non-Indomitus Tactical Dreadnought suits. Building more is presently beyond the capability of Cognomen and Solstice. Their Honor Guards are, per unit, of average size and gear, though they have neither psykers nor Terminators. The nineteen Dreadnoughts housed five occupants, two of them Angels of Fury, prior to the Seventh Glasian Migration. Company Captains never have an Honor Guard, and instead integrate their command teams directly into their Squads. For the 2nd through 8th companies, this consists of the Company Captain, the Venerated Senior Sergeant who seconds him in turn and distributes orders to each Sergeant, the Company Champion, the Company Standard Bearer, and six troops equipped with whatever combination of combi-weapons and blades they desire. Each of these could easily have been a Sergeant in their own right in another squad. Members of the Council of Masters do have Honor Guards. No Master’s Honor Guard, however, is larger than six Brothers plus the man they protect, to ensure that the Chapter is not too large to maintain Codex compliance. In practice, this is meaningless, since the Chapter is already far larger than the Codex dictates. Furthermore, the Chapter actually had the rank of Brother-Lieutenant prior to the post-13th Black Crusade reforms. Captains and Lieutenants serve as members of normally-sized squads instead of serving as single officers to attach to squads as needed, except for the Captain and one Lieutenant of the Veteran Company, who serve alone since it can be fairly assumed that their squads can look after themselves. The Scout Company Captain serves as part of the five-marine Command Scout squad that directs the entire oversized Company. The Devastator Captain serves in the same way, since he has so many more troops to direct than most. Each pair of Lieutenants outside the First Veteran Company is simply an elevated Squad Sergeant who is in the running to be the next Company Captain, and has extra leadership responsibilities. The First Lieutenant position is the most prestigious, since their command is larger. The Second Lieutenant commands the four squads left in the upper half of the Company after the Captain’s squad is discounted, while the First Lieutenant commands the other Demi-company. When a Captain dies, the First Lieutenant succeeds them. When the call comes from the greater Imperium to aid them in battle, the decision about which force to send, how many Marines should accompany it, and how many ships should ferry them is made by the relevant members of the Council of Masters. As a call becomes broader in scope, the forces that respond become more complex, and so a wider variety of Masters are required to weigh in. A simple request for aid to defend a planet from raiders or common rebels might merit a single squad and an Escort, while the Glasian Migrations require the mobilization of the entire Chapter. For missions in-between, any dispatch of forces is traditionally led by the Lord Gwinnet Eiger, Master of the Ships, whose task is to command the space fleet while the Marines are led by one or another of lesser Masters or a Company Captain. Among the Daggers, there are protocols that are universal, and some that are constrained to the practice of a single Company or even Squad. The Daggers, for instance, may not, collect trophy weapons from fallen foes for their use. The Blue Daggers practice a strict and unyielding habit of never collecting trophies in battle, under any circumstances. Partially installed to prevent competitions between brothers, this also cuts down on the risk of a brother being tainted by Chaos. This is also for the mollification of the Adeptus Mechanicus, without whom the Daggers would be all but helpless after a costly battle. The Daggers lack several of the traditional Master roles of the more Codex-dependent Chapters, such as a Master of Signal, Lord Victualer, and Master of the Watch. They delegate these tasks instead to Company Captains or to their unique Masters. The Chapter also selectively ignores the prohibitions against use of Land Raiders by non-Veteran Marines, as the Blood Angels do. The most obvious unusual interaction between the Chapter and their home system is the tithe. Despite being theoretically exempt from the Imperial Tithe as a Space Marine Chapter Home, the Zone still pays it. This was resolved by a tense but decisive vote by the Planetary and System Governors and Overlords after the Chapter’s foundation. The region is in chaos and its defenses are straining, and the Septiim system did not want to accidentally contribute to that downslide of standards by withholding resources from the rest of the Sector. More practically, the Chapter can also glean some benefits from the fact that they pay the tithe when they don’t need to, like some preferential treatment from the Adepta Mechanicus and Administratum. There are also some precedents for the tithe being paid despite exemption, such as the homeworld of the Salamanders, Nocturne. They pay so that the Mechanicus will continue to maintain the massive Void Shields that protect each Sanctuary City, even though they are exempt. Septiim has a similar arrangement. They pay the Imperial Tithe, and the Mechanicus built Solstice. This mutually beneficial arrangement also aids the Mechanicus, who got a Forge Moon out of the deal, and allows them to more easily dispose of Glasian wreckage after Migrations. For the Daggers’ part, they don’t especially care either way, since so little of their actual equipment comes from the human population of the system, but they see the arrangement as useful and outside their ultimate concern, so they have registered no comment upon it. The Angels of Fury and the Novamarines both hold the Codex Astartes as nigh-religious dogma. The Blue Daggers do not, although this is a byproduct of later circumstance. Neither of their predecessor Chapters could have handled the responsibility that now faces the Chapter with their limited numbers. ===Origins=== Historically, the Blue Daggers are the byproduct of a unique Founding circumstance, one over which they had precious little control. In M41.400, a force of technologically-powerful aliens attacked the Cloudburst Sector, known only by the common phrase found in their cogitators: Glasians. The aliens savaged three systems in the Sector without mercy, hesitation, or clear objectives. Although a combined force of Novamarines, Red Templars, Angels of Fury, Carcharadons, Celestial Knights, and Imperial Navy forces successfully drove off the monsters and blew up their massive flagships, they left Cloudburst reeling. The presence of this race of dangerous aliens had no precedent, and worse yet, Chaos tainted every single alien somehow, without exception, plus most of their technology. The Inquisition held an emergency conclave of the Ordos Malleus and Xenos on the mighty Watch Fortress Pykman. After much deliberation, multiple consultations of the Tarot, and extensive testimony from the Adeptus Mechanicus, an agreement coalesced. A force of one hundred twenty Novamarines and Angels of Fury from nearby Sectors would remain in the Cloudburst Sector to defend it from further incursion. Led by brilliant Novamarine tactician Brother-Lieutenant Augustus Alderoster, this force of Primogenitors would withdraw in one hundred years if no sign of more Glasians emerged. The detachment was officially dubbed Exigent Task Unit Cloudburst, and settled into the Septiim system under strict Inquisitorial observation. The Task Unit formally began their mission in M41.425. The force of Space Marines worked tirelessly to fortify a base on an abandoned Mechanicus asteroid mine, and dug in. Periodically, members of the detachment joined the Deathwatch to hone their skills, and the Brothers harvested their own gene-seed as all Marines do. After seventy-five years of total inaction by either the Glasians or their dark patron in the Sector, the Inquisition was growing impatient. Though the Task Unit had stayed flawlessly loyal and vigilant, and had collected their own gene-seeds with commendable punctuality (actually sending some back to Honorium when the Chapter needed it to replace the missing company), the Task Unit had effectively nothing to do. The Inquisition’s Ordo Xenos was debating with the Ordo Malleus in the Conclave Cloudburst about shortening their mission when the panicked Astropathic signals arrived. Four systems were under siege this time, by more Glasians than before. The Inquisition scrambled its assets, aided by the Basilikon Astra and Navy. During this invasion, to their horror, they faced three huge colony ships, and one even larger one that seemed to command the others. The larger colony ship attacked the Daggers’ asteroid base directly, destroying it and killing ten Marines. The aliens besieged Septiim for almost a year, while the Agri-world of Chlorit was destroyed by the activation of a Glasian FTL drive. When the aliens finally lost at a staggering cost to the Cloudburst Sector, the stark truth came clear: the invasion had occurred precisely one hundred years after the first, and had been ten percent larger than the previous. Their forces had been more widely spread, but the sequential increase was impossible to miss. Consultations of the Tarot and careful psy-autopsies of Glasian leaders pointed to the same result: Tzeentch was using the sector as a test bed for something. The Ordo Malleus and Ordo Xenos debated for years. Barely-civil arguments over jurisdiction, policy, and Imperial survival raged for months in the subterranean audience halls of the Cloudburst Palace at Maskos. Finally, in M41.429, they reached a tentative decision. The Lord Inquisitor Cloudburst at the time, a nearly five-hundred-year-old psychic of the Ordo Hereticus, signed and manhandled the other Ordos into signing a binding Conclave Assent to treat the alien incursions as the jurisdiction of the Ordo Xenos. He added a caveat that jurisdiction over repelling the beasts would default to the Ordo Malleus if anything changed in the circumstances of the invasions, formally titled the Glasian Migrations. Meanwhile, a new problem confronted the Novamarines and Angels of Fury. While a great, bloody victory over millions of evil aliens was, obviously, a triumph for the ancient Chapters, the Marines could hardly be expected to hold an indefinite depletion of one tenth of their ranks. Furthermore, Cloudburst was not secure by any means, they pointed out to their Inquisitorial allies. Honorium was not in Cloudburst; the Novamarines Chapter had no formal ties there. Moreover, Rogue Traders and Explorators were constantly finding new threats, treasures, and colony opportunities in the Cloudburst Circuit – who was to say that only the Glasians and Orks would threaten Cloudburst in the future? When the Lord Inquisitor Cloudburst heard these arguments, inspiration struck. After some more consultation with the Novamarines and Angels of Fury, he declared that the detachment of Successors in Cloudburst would establish themselves as the core of a completely new Chapter. This Special Circumstances Founding, one with no number, would formally establish the Exigent Task Unit Cloudburst as a true, equal Chapter of Space Marines. Officially, they would be counted as formal Successors to no other Chapter. They would build their headquarters in the only system the Glasians had hit twice: Septiim. Surprised by the generosity and prestige of this pronouncement, but delighted at the chance, the Novamarines and Angels of Fury accepted at once, and began the logistical processes of giving a tenth of their fleet and equipment to their kin. The newly minted Blue Daggers settled in another, far larger asteroid base, one with room for thousands of Marines and thousands more support personnel and serfs. Declaring the pre-Apostasy Battle Barge ''Sharp Edge'' their new command ship, and formally elevating Alderoster to Chapter Master, the Blue Daggers took back the hundreds of gene-seeds they had sent the Novamarines and Angels of Fury and began rapidly expanding their ranks. Due to this circumstance, the Novamarines can honestly continue to claim they have never had the chance to create a Successor Chapter, since the Angels of Fury donated the majority of the geneseed. Since then, there have been new invasions of Glasians in M41.600, 700, 800, and 900. Each is a cumulative 10% larger than the previous, and each time, the Daggers have smote them into the ground, alongside their allies in other branches of the Imperium. Had things continued to improve for the rest of the galaxy, the Daggers may well have outlasted the Glasians. Things have not improved for the rest of the galaxy. Between the arrival of the Tyranids, the Necron Reawakening, the start of hundreds of catastrophic Waaagh!, heresies and rebellions unnumbered, Hrud migrations, and the explosive expansion of the Dark Eldar, the Imperium strains so much that barely any help can be spared for Cloudburst. Thousands of other Crusades and Wars of Faith or Reclamation drain the Imperium’s coffers and garrisons. The stirrings of Abaddon the Despoiler in the depths of the Eye are not helping, nor is the shrinking area of the Astronomican. The Daggers do not yet stand alone, but that may change. The Age of Ending is upon mankind. ==Recruitment== The Blue Dagger recruitment protocols are tightly kept secrets within the Chapter. Because of the multi-Chapter nature of their original Founding, the Dagger leaders chose to create an entirely new recruiting protocol instead of copying the Angels of Fury or Novamarine ones. Those who aspire to become Blue Daggers must be no older than twelve years old, and are thus usually nominated by their parents or their educators. Aspirants are taken in at the three massive spaceports that connect the Septiim garden worlds: Stellar Gateway Spaceport on Primus, Astia Grand Ports on Secundus, and Monarch Processional on Tertius. Those who dwell in the outer platforms or moonbases must fly to one of those first, as do those from the rest of the Zone’s sparse colonies. Aspirants are taken by their instructors in shuttles to the ''Gargantuan''. Because of its enormous size, the ''Gargantuan'' has much internal space it does not need for combat or life support. The Daggers use these chambers as training grounds. The individual chambers have a variety of air pressures, gravities, internal atmospheric compositions, and light levels, to simulate the worlds of the Cloudburst Sector. The Aspirants are forced to live in these and similar chambers for several years, and undergo a barrage of complex tests. These include psychological and psychic screenings, memory recall tests, athletic and academic exams, and various combat drills. However, the Blue Daggers also insist that Aspirants undergo extensive instruction in the history and complexity of the Imperium, both to instill a sense of respect for how things work and to ensure the Daggers are able to perform their role of liaising with the rest of the Sector’s institutions. After these several years go by, the Tenth Company Captain and the Master of Recruiters then separate those boys who have failed in their testing in some way. Those with a certain tendency towards heresy or severe genetic defect are quietly executed, while all others are given a choice. Those who wish to press on and become Blue Daggers are given the chance to try, while those who are functional but genetically unable to progress, or have chosen another path, are shunted sideways into the Serf training programs to learn a trade. There is no stigma attached to this, at least not among the actual Marines. The size of the ''Gargantuan'', the many bases the Daggers have throughout the system, and the fleet the Chapter fields demand a larger population of serfs than most non-First Founding Chapters require. Furthermore, those serfs stationed off the ''Gargantuan'' proper are encouraged to start families and have children, providing the Daggers with a pool of pre-indoctrinated boys to recruit. Other serfs train in combat and become the human component of the Blue Daggers’ forces, crewing the vehicles and vessels that the Daggers don’t do themselves. The Daggers may have more Marines than most Chapters outside the Black Templars, but they are not so flush with troops that they can spare them to crew every one of the hundred-plus gunships of the fleet, for instance. Serfs are expected to wear uniforms on duty, and robes that cover all but the face and hands when off duty. On-duty serfs may wear their robes over their uniforms on-duty, but few do. Bondsmen, who make up the vast majority of the ship and station crew of the Chapter, are not under this stricture. Serf uniforms are religiously-themed, with tunics, cowls, pantaloons, and boots embossed with the icons of their Chapter allegiance. Bondsmen uniforms are designed upon the template of the Septiim Conservator regimental Guard, and aside from different patches and distinct dress berets, could be mistaken for Astra Militarum uniforms. Serfs automatically outrank bondsmen, thanks to their many years of indoctrination. Neither body accepts resignations. Blue Dagger Aspirants who press on to become true Marines are taken away to a separate series of chambers in the ''Gargantuan'' and subjected to further testing. The Tenth Company officers subject the young men to teamwork and leadership tests, as well as a final screening for psychic awakening. Finally, as the boys near seventeen years of age, the first stage of organ implantation begins, overseen by the Apothecarion and the Librarius. Those who survive are given the Black Carapace and entry into the Scouts. Those who fail usually die, but some simply reject the organs and are sent off to the Fourth Company to serve in the Fleet as crew for the ''Sharp Edge''. These senor serfs are usually entrusted with the vital task of overseeing the gun crews of the massive ship, thanks to their familiarity with Blue Dagger technology and officers. Survivors who accept all of the organs (the Dagger gene regimen has no missing organs) enter the final stage of their training, to compete for the position of Fireteam Scout Leader and gain command of the five-person Fireteams that make up the Scouts. In addition, each Squad of two Fireteams may have a Scout Sergeant who is among the most experienced Marines in the Chapter, to lead the Scouts through the battles that forge them into true Battle Brothers. Because there are thirty-three of these Fireteam Scout Leaders and only three commissioned officer positions among them, the competition is not fierce, and there is no penalty for simply choosing not to try to become the leader of each Fireteam. The Company Command Squad of the Tenth is a five-Marine squad and consists of those Scouts who have completed all training, physical metamorphoses, and spiritual developments expected to become Devastators, but have not yet had the chance to do so. The squad of the Brother Lieutenant who commands the second half of the Company is a standard five-Scout Fireteam, and the Lieutenant himself is the most experienced person in the Company after the Captain. They are usually drawn from the Command Squad. The squad of the Brother Lieutenants who command the halves of the Company is a standard five-Scout Fireteam, and the Lieutenants themselves are the most experienced person in the Company after the Captain. They are usually drawn from the Command Squad. Scouts rise to the Devastators after they have either served a length of time defined by the circumstances of their service, or after meritorious service under the discretion of their Captain. Once in the Devastators, the progress of the Marines is defined by the same methods as other Codex Astartes Chapters. The only notable exception is that Blue Daggers can abandon their Company to enter the Chaplaincy, Techmarine Brotherhood, Apothecarion, or vehicle crewers at any time they wish. The Chapter’s battlecry of “For Septiim and Terra!” has rung from the walls of Subsector Capitals, from the steel and glass façades of office towers in the port hubs of Septiim Secundus, and from the very hearts of dying Glasian Cylinders for hundreds of years. ==Council of Masters== This roster of Space Marines constitutes the pre-Great Rift composition of the Blue Daggers' senior leadership. Senior Members: (N) designates Novamarine membership Chapter Master – Lord Ranult Arden (N): The Council of Masters chose this ancient Veteran of the Novamarines to lead the Blue Daggers after the death of inaugural Chapter Master Alderoster because of his exceptional defensive combat and diplomatic skills. Never have those skills been more favored by the Space Marines than in the protection of the Imperium in this decaying era. His (usually) even temper and exceptional marksmanship have served the Imperium well. He regards the human soldiers of Septiim as a useful asset, given their numbers, but he holds them in no special place in his view of the Imperium, and he is more likely to trust his brothers than mere mortals. Perhaps unusually, he has never attempted to gain Terminator honors. He long ago served in the Deathwatch for a total of twelve years. Wargear: Combi-conflagrator/slug pistol, power bastard, krak grenade belt, combat knife, combat shield, artificer mark four armor. Chapter Champion – Cesper Clerc: Clerc is the oldest Marine in the Chapter outside the Dreadnoughts who was not a member of the Novamarines. Inducted in the first batch of the Daggers, and having served with distinction ever since, Clerc is an unrivaled master of the glaive and other polearms, which he uses with terrifying speed. He is prone to being rather silent and moody, but in battle, this serves as a source of fear for his enemies and relief for his allies, who know that it represents his absolute focus. Wargear: Reach of Terra, two bolt pistols, chainsword, monomolecular stiletto, smoke grenade, artificer armor, medkit. Master of the Armory – Lord Techmarine Doreth: Doreth was inducted in the ‘class’ after Clerc, and is one of his few friends. The ancient Techmarine is a warrior of some great skill, but he earned his place among the Masters through exceptional and profound connection with the Machine God. His irrefutable bond with machines and respect for the institutions of the Mechanicus and Munitorum alike make him an ideal representative of the Armory, since the artifacts within include some technotheological items the Mechanicus would quite openly like to possess. Doreth is the single most experienced ship-boarder in the entire Sector, without question. He has personally destroyed a Glasian Control Cylinder and a lesser Cylinder, in the Sixth and Fifth Migrations respectively. Wargear: Master-crafted multimelta, six frag grenades, flare gun, combat knife, chainfist, servo-harness, master-crafted bolt pistol, Teleport Homer, Cataphractii Terminator Armor, artificer armor. Master of Sanctity – Lord Chaplain Etienne Dunvraith: Dunvraith is a cold and frightening speaker of the God-Emperor’s word and a specter of retribution and pain for his enemies. He has not even a moment’s concern for his appearance, which indirectly makes him even more terrifying. He leaves his armor painted space-black at all times, save for the marks of the Chaplaincy on his pauldrons. He uses an unusual weapon, as befits his Chapter’s Novamarine heritage: a two-handed Power Stave, which has a Crozius Arcanum’s force field built in. In an emergency, it can connect to his Mark 8 armor’s backpack generator for an extra surge of power, which makes it powerful enough to resist even graviton and radioactive weapons. He does carry a bolt pistol, which he never uses except for simple target practice, or to dispatch snipers. Wargear: Power Stave Arcanum, bolt pistol, Rosarius field device, mark eight armor, skull mask. Master of Veterans – Venerated Senior Sergeant Porter Chandline: The role of the Master of Veterans is an odd one. Appointed by the Company Captain of the First Company, this is the highest-ranked member of the Battle Brothers, Vehicle Crews, and Recruiters who is not actually a commissioned officer. Invariably given Terminator Honors and usually drawn from the Command Squad of the 1st, the role is that of an advisor to the Chapter Master, and serves as one of those authorized to declare martial law for the system if the Glasians are sighted. Chandline is the second to serve in the post, and has a spotless record of service in the Imperium. His skills with a Stalker Bolter are such that, after a glorious century of service in the 6th, he served briefly as the second-in-command of the 10th company before being promoted directly to the 1st. He is staid, calm, pleasant, and surprisingly pious for a Marine. Wargear: Storm Bolter, Stalker bolter, bolt pistol, power sword, combat knife, three frag grenades, Combat shield, Tartaros Terminator armor, mark eight armor. Master of the Ships – Lord Gwinnet Eiger: Gwinnet Eiger is a cold-blooded bastard, with a cruel side that the Navy does not appreciate. His ability to picture object movement in three dimensions redeems the acerbic and hard-willed old warrior. Eiger is sharp and focused, and demands the highest possible level of discipline from his crews. Eiger is technically the third in command of the Blue Daggers, and has been present for every campaign the Daggers have ever waged at Company level or higher, thus making him the most experienced member of the Chapter by total combat hours. Wargear: Chain of Albrinter, Kraken-loaded bolter, bolt pistol, combat knife, mark seven armor. Master of the Ancients – Percival Langhard: Another unique position in the Daggers’ hierarchy, the Master of Ancients is responsible for the maintenance and care of the Dreadnoughts and their occupants, but is also the unofficial liaison between the Daggers and the rest of the Munitorum if the Chapter Master himself isn’t present to perform the function personally. Langhard is a sharp fellow, and he carries himself with a dignity and poise that lends itself well to his somber duty. Wargear: Heavy bolter, twin combat knives, five frag grenades, plasma pistol, mark four armor. Master of the Librarius – Lord Tolleair Covum (N): The only other living member of the Chapter outside the Dreadnoughts who was a member of the Novamarines before joining the Daggers, Covum is a psyker of horrifying power. His extensive service in the Deathwatch – more than any member of the Chapter save the Second Company Captain, at present – has made him quite self-reliant, and given the relative lack of Librarians in the Septiim system, he spends much of his time in meditation, divining the Emperor’s will and preparing his own psychic powers. He is a friend and confidant of the other Novamarine Dagger, Arden, and he is always keeping an eye out for any promising psykers in the Schola Progenum in the system. His Psychic Hood is a non-replicable wonder of the Dark Age, far eclipsing even those of the Grey Knights. Wargear: Dark Age of Technology-era Psychic Hood, plasma pistol, two frag grenades, force stave, power fist, artificer armor. Master of the Tech Brotherhood – Peter Alling-Durant: Officially, all Techmarines, including the Armory and Vault leaders, serve Alling-Durant. In practice, he only rarely feels the need to exert his influence over the outlier branches of his Brotherhood. Thanks to the Daggers’ (and Novamarines’) tight relations with the Mechanicus, his brothers are well trained and well equipped, though not to the scale of the First Founding Chapters. His large and loyal Brotherhood is always ready to expand and improve the might of the Septiimi orbital stations. He is so heavily automated that there is barely any flesh left in him; so little, in fact, that he does not have enough flesh to inter in a Dreadnought should the unfortunate need arise. He has also been unable to convince the Martians to either give him the plans to make Iron Halos or simply start producing them for the Chapter, which irritates him somewhat. Wargear: Artificer armor, servo-harness, conversion beamer, auspex, combat shield, two frag grenades, two krak grenades, two smoke grenades, master-crafted melta, combat blade. Master of the Scouts – Lionel Dwerhardt: This gifted sharpshooter and logistician is tasked with controlling, training, and evaluating the huge Scout Company. The Daggers have extra scouts because the simple size of the sector with which they are tasked in protection would otherwise tax their resources beyond any hope of balance when the Glasians arrive. This, coupled with the Chapter’s sadly high casualty rate during the alien attacks, requires a larger pool of potential Brothers than the average Chapter needs. Dwerhardt, whose name means ‘stout courage’ in Archaeoterran, fits the role to a tee, with the combination of stealth combat skill, logistical talent, and keen people senses that he needs to keep the youths of his Chapter alive and well-supplied. He is not the Tenth Company Captain, but rather oversees all Scout efforts including that of the Captain, and decides which fireteams will be sent to which Glasian incursion zones during their Migrations. Wargear – Stalker bolter with custom scope, recoil suppressor, and anti-armor bolts, plasma pistol, bolt pistol, master-crafted power axe, and seven krak grenades, custom carapace armor for infiltrations, mark seven armor for other duties. Master of Arms – Gallus Forrent: This intimidating slab of muscle and scar tissue is the unrivaled hand-to-hand combat master of the Blue Daggers, and even Arden would hesitate to fight him at that range. He is loud, raucous, violent, and shockingly strong, but no less deadly for it. He had served in the 3rd for decades before his promotion. Under those circumstances when a Company Captain is unavailable to recommend specific weapons to specific units for a task, all ears turn to Forrent. Forrent served in the Deathwatch for one Vigil of six months, hunting Genestealers, before returning to his Chapter. Wargear – Mark six Corvus armor, power sword, gladius, combat knife, molecular stiletto, punch shield, two frag grenades, plasma pistol. Master of the Reserves – Moand: This stoic, pious, and placid old soldier is tasked with the thankless and disheartening role of sending the unusually-constituted reserve companies of the Daggers wherever they are needed to combat the alien. His companies are less than perfectly Codex-compliant simply because the Glasians do not always disperse their forces to the most strategically advantageous locations for either side, and thus are unpredictable in their tactics. The reserves need to function as an entire army, without the specialization that most Chapters employ. Moand is one of the rare Astartes whose memory of their life before induction into the Marines left him completely; his earliest remaining memory is looking up at an Apothecary after receiving a bone ossifying injection. Oddly, his speaking skills are completely intact, and his favorite means of spending what tiny amounts of spare time he has is working in the forges with the Tech brothers, tinkering with his impressive personal weapons; an act that is as much prayer to the Emperor and Machine God as it is pragmatic preparation. This is a relic of his time in the Deathwatch, during which he served under a Salamander Fire Drake Sergeant who did the same thing. Wargear: Artificer armor, storm bolter, bolt pistol, eight frag grenades, liquid nitrogen grenade, master-crafted chainsword. Master of the Devastators – Norman Carache: The Master of the Devastators serves a similar role as the Masters of the Scouts and other specialized assets in the Chapter. Norman Carache dispatches his men in groups of twenty, and his extra-sized company serves as emergency reinforcements for any world in the sector that the Navy doesn’t manage to protect from the xenos. The final twenty-five men in the company serve as the armored fist of the Daggers, striking from the Techmarine Brotherhood’s pool of transports under Whirlwind artillery cover, using their massive weapons to destroy the heavy equipment at Glasian landing sites. Carache was an immigrant from Terra itself as a child, and his throneworld heritage has been nothing but an impediment to his position in the Chapter. The neophytes and initiates expect him to walk on water, while the older Marines regard him as something of a nepotist, though of course neither charge is true. He is simply haughty, an in-born trait that all the hypnoconditioning and training in the galaxy can’t erase. He is as accurate with his heavy bolter as some of his men are with Stalkers and Ultimas, which is some consolation to those who serve under him. Wargear: Mark four armor, heavy bolter, combat shield, combat knife, chainsword, four frag grenades. Master of the Apothecarion – Embri Koell: Koell is a master battle chirurgeon, charged with maintaining the Chapter’s gene-seed stocks and the organs to be implanted in the warriors they induct. In battle, he is a terrifying force of military might, clad in the Apothecarion’s single Terminator suit, with his Reductor and other Apothecary equipment stored behind an Adamantium shield on his left arm, and carrying enough painkillers and liquid nitrogen to care for an entire company in tanks on his back. His personality is similar; clinical and cold, with abundant hate for the aliens who dare to harm his charges, and a hidden core of warmth that only the other Masters and senior Apothecaries ever get to see. Wargear: Indomitus Terminator armor, mark seven armor, combat shield, master-crafted melta, bolt pistol, chainsword, Reductor kit, Narthecium (Hagen variant), one melta bomb. Master of the Forges – Kell Trebein: The Master of the Forges is also a Techmarine, traditionally the third in command of the Brotherhood, and Kell is no exception. Heavily augmented because of rather severely losing a fight against an Eldar wych some two hundred years past, he embraced the Machine, and now serves the priesthood as well as the Daggers. The Daggers have extensive manufacturing facilities, but lack most of the Imperium’s blueprints, unlike their Novamarine progenitors, and must make do with those they possess. However, they are on good terms with both the Inquisition and the Mechanicus, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that more advanced designs will find their way into the Daggers’ arsenals. Kell is the most monastic in personal nature of all the Techmarines in the Daggers, and biologically the oldest. He has a calm, quiet, and introspective tone to his mannerisms and voice that put others at ease. In battle, he refuses to even turn on his vox-grille unless needed, the better to unnerve the foe. This puts him in contrast with others of his Chapter, who love to use the amplifiers in their helmets to sound war-cries while fighting. Wargear: Artificer armor, servo harness, thunder hammer, storm shield, plasma pistol, frag grenade. Master of the Recruiters – Darius laFordier: Given the sheer size of the Daggers’ jurisdiction, a steady supply of recruits is indispensable. As such, one of the eighteen positions on the Council belongs to the Recruiter. This Marine’s responsibilities number three: recruiting the best and brightest boys from the Septiim system, overseeing the efforts of others who do the same and weeding out the defective, and casting the tie-breaker vote on the Council if needed. Darius is a muscular, squat, argumentative man, covered in veins and scars, and fits the description of the stereotypical Imperial Guard Drill Instructor so closely that some of his Marines mutter that he must have been one before recruitment. A lie, of course, but he finds it profoundly amusing. The actual training of the Daggers recruits and Aspirants falls to the Tenth Company Captain. Wargear: Mark eight armor, Stalker bolter, bolt pistol, incendiary grenade, chainsword. Master of the ''Gargantuan'' – Jeremy Haskell: Haskell is a master of warships, rivaling the Fleetmaster for sheer experience, but where the fleet strides across the void, the ''Gargantuan'' never leaves its orbit. Its massive weapons, rocky shell, servitor complement, and many, many corridors are familiar ground for Haskell, who rarely departs. His responsibility during the Invasions extends to the other satellites and platforms in the system save those under the express control of other branches. His centuries of experience show on his lined and worn face. He had gone white before a mortal man might have, but his ruthless combat demeanor and total control of the mightiest weapon in the sector have done much to endear him to the Navy, SDF, and Mechanicus whose platforms he sometimes commandeers. Wargear: Mark seven armor, combi-bolter/flamer, chainsword, auspex. Master of the Vault – Aitrandus: Aitrandus is the last of the four Techmarines on the Council, and the youngest. His exceptional eye for detail, even for a Techmarine, allows him to carefully inspect the truly ancient weapons and armor that are contained within the vaults of the orbital and terrestrial fortresses and bases the Daggers maintain. Beyond the Armory, where so many of the Chapter’s precious wargear relics are stored, many of the Chapter’s relics have no combat function at all. This includes things like flags, holopicts, dataslates with uncopiable files, maps of Glasian invasion routes, and other items that are both too fragile to move much, too inert to be used in battle, and too precious to lose. As such, Aitrandus is the Council member least likely to enter battle despite his vaunted rank. This suits him, as he finds a certain calm and reverence in his task. Wargear: Artificer armor, twin shotgun, two bolt pistols, grenade launcher, combat blade, servo harness. ==Chapter Makeup== The Chapter Composition listed here reflects both the pre- and post-13th Black Crusade formation of the Chapter. The 11th through 13th Companies were created only after the conclusion of the Seventh Glasian Migration. Council of Masters: 18 Masters, 91 Honor Guards<br> 1st Company – Company Captain, First Lieutenant, 50 Elites (Standard Bearer), 50 Terminators (Champion, Lieutenant), 1 Venerable Ironclad Dreadnought, 4 Stormravens, 4 Bikes, 2 Attack Bikes, 4 Land Speeders, 1 Land Raider Crusader, 6 Predators, 1 Predator Annihilator, 1 Whirlwind, 6 Rhinos, 2 Razorbacks<br> 2nd – 5th (each) 60 Tactical brothers (Captain, Lieutenant), 20 Assault brothers (Standard Bearer, Champion), 20 Devastators (Lieutenant), 2 Dreadnoughts (various), 6 Bikes, 1 Attack Bike, 2 Stormravens, 4 Land Speeders, 1 Land Raider (various), 1 Land Raider Terminus Ultra<br> 6th – 8th (each) 60 Tactical brothers (Captain, Lieutenant), 20 Assault brothers (Standard Bearer, Champion, Lieutenant), 20 Devastators, 2 Dreadnoughts (various), 6 Bikes, 1 Attack Bike, 2 Stormravens, 4 Land Speeders, 1 Land Raider (various), 6 Whirlwinds, 6 Razorbacks<br> 9th – 125 Devastators (Standard Bearer, Champion, Captain, 2 Lieutenants), 2 Devastator Centurions (optional), 1 Assault Centurion (optional)<br> 10th – 175 Scouts (Captain, 2 Lieutenants)<br> 11th – 40 Inceptors (Captain, Lieutenant), 20 Intercessors, 20 Hellblasters (Lieutenant, Champion), 20 Aggressors<br> 12th – 40 Intercessors (Captain), 10 Inceptors, 30 Reivers (Lieutenant), 10 Hellblasters (Lieutenant, Champion), 10 Aggressors<br> 13th – 100 Vanguard Scouts (Captain, 2 Lieutenants), 10 Incursors<br> ''Aerospace Force'' – 5 Marines, 109 Thunderhawks (various), 1 Stormbird (5 twin-linked lascannons, 3 twin-linked heavy bolters, 6 Dreadstrike missiles), 12 Stormravens, 12 Fire Raptors, 12 Storm Eagles, 18 Stormtalons, 12 Overlords<br> ''Motor Pool'' – 97 Space Marines, 8 Primaris Marines, 40 Predators (various), 7 Land Raiders (various), 45 Land Speeders (various), 60 Rhinos (various), 4 Hunters, 8 Stalkers, 3 Repulsors, 2 Astraeuses, 20 Whirlwinds, 2 Centurions, 15 Vindicators, 3 Vindicator Laser Destroyers, 1 Centaur, 2 Attack Bikes, 6 Bikes, 12 Rapiers, 187 Tarantulas; all 9th through 13th Company units draw their vehicles from the pool, with no assigned units<br> ''Chapter Specialists (not counting Council of Masters)'' – 30 Techmarines, 4 Primaris Tech-brothers, 14 Apothecaries, 4 Primaris Apothecaries, 3 Helix Adepts, 11 Librarians, 1 Primaris Epistolary, Reclusiarch, 12 Chaplains, 4 Primaris Chaplains Sum Marines – 1386 Space Marines in the Chapter, and thirteen on deployment in the Deathwatch, for a total of 1399, prior to the creation of the Primaris Marines. After their creation, the total Blue Daggers came to 1725 Brothers. Space Fleet – 1 Battle Barge: Age of Apostasy Era battleship-hull (''Sharp Edge''), 2 Luna Cruisers, 11 Strike Cruisers, 49 Frigates, destroyers, and escort carriers, 2 Viper Scouts, ''Gargantuan'', 1 courier cutter, various local space stations and orbitals The Daggers are expanding their fleet as quickly as their shipyards will allow them, and recruiting heavily from the populations of worlds they protect. Their fleet is the proportionally fastest-expanding part of their force strength, and this has saved them in the past. Had their fleet consisted of the single Battle Barge and trio of frigates with which they had started their defense of Septiim, they would have been destroyed four times over. The Chapter also controls a small number of orbital platforms and one lunar base around Septiim Primus to undertake repairs of their ship or cache documents before taking them to the ''Gargantuan''. They are lightly defended, and are for logistical purposes, not combative. ===Chapter Nomenclature and Leadership=== The Daggers have largely retained the leadership and structural positions of the two Ultramarine Successors that Founded them, those being the Angels of Fury and the Novamarines. The Chapter does have a few unique titles for their leaders, but those are mostly cosmetic alterations of pre-existing posts within the general guidance of the Codex Astartes, as laid down by their gene-sire Lord Guilliman. Iron Hail: This technique was pioneered by the Ultramarines during the final few decades of the Scouring. Using a combination of retro-rockets, Drop Pods, unmanned gun turrets, Assault Marines with jump packs, and Assault Teleporting Terminators, the Daggers launch an entire Company’s worth or more of Marines from an orbiting ship, usually one of their Strike Cruisers or the ''Sharp Edge''. Before the inhabited Pods strike the ground, uninhabited Pods use the rockets to lurch ahead of the others, and arrive at the ground first. These serve as decoys, drawing enemy fire away from the occupied Pods, but are not empty. Instead, their interiors are laced with heatsinks, shock absorbers, targeting cogitators, and magazines. Their exteriors are slightly different as well, as they contain heat-shielded Rapier Quad Bolters, which draw on the shock absorber and magazine equipment inside to send sheets of high-explosive bolts out at whatever AA batteries may be firing at the Pods. When these dummy Pods land, their side hatches blow open as all Pods’ do, but instead of disgorging Marines, they instead activate Fragstorm packages and smoke dischargers located inside, identical to those on a Furioso or Ironclad Dreadnought. While frags and smoke are still filling the air, the occupied pods land, and the hatches blow open. Assault Marines and Terminators with Teleport Homers emerge. The Assault Marines use their Jump Packs to rocket clear of the impact site and engage defenders in close quarters, while the Terminators use their Lightning Claws and Chainfists to clear away obstructions and call in backup. Other variants of the technique use the Deathstorm variant of Drop Pods with in-built Assault Cannons. The Blue Gunline: Another technique inherited from the Ultramarines of the Scouring, this technique involves using sensor suites and LADAR packages on Command Rhinos and Land Raiders Excelsior to map out a battlefield at long range, then using smoke dischargers and covering fire from vehicle-mounted bolters to provide cover for snipers to enter preferred shooting vantages, all at the speeds that only transhumans can attain. A classic variant of the same ground control technique practiced by infantry since the Phoenician Empire, updated for modern capabilities. Needle Formation: A Blue Dagger technique developed by the boarders of the great Glasian Cylinders. This technique refers to the practice of using modified Assault Rams, Thunderhawks, and Teleporters to move vast numbers of boarders onto the Cylinders at once. Thanks perhaps to their avian heritage, the Glasians prefer wide spaces on their starships. Corridors and chambers that are far larger than a Mechanicus-designed ship would contain are very common. On the one hand, this makes boarding and teleporting into the interior of the ships far safer. On the other, it means that boarders must sometimes contest vehicles inside the enemy ships, which a boarder might not be equipped for by default. To compensate, the Daggers have developed methods of allowing tracked Rapier platforms, Terminators, and even Dreadnoughts onto their Rams and shuttles and gunships, even when their normal layouts would forbid this. However, it is a very tight fit for Dreadnoughts on anything smaller than Thunderhawks. The Emperor’s March: A belief structure for the Chapter. While older members of the Chapter are more likely to believe the same things about the Emperor and the history of Mankind as the Novamarines and Angels of Fury, the younger members of the Chapter have taken to this belief. They believe that the souls of those who die in the honorable service of the Emperor’s armies will join together in an endless procession of glorious souls to the side of the Emperor Himself in the Warp to aid him in battle against the Gods of every other starfaring race. ===Chapter Relics and Fleet=== Astartes Chapters that serve long and courageously in the military of the Emperor often accumulate Relics. These Relics may be tokens of particularly one-sided or heavily contested victories, or they may be noteworthy gifts from other persons in the Emperor’s service. Others yet may be battle trophies, technological artifacts, recordings of speeches, or wargear. The youth of the Blue Daggers is such that they have accumulated little of a relic collection, but they do have a few items of note. * Reach of Terra) This mighty Power Glaive is among the largest Powered weapons in the Chapter Arsenal. A token of appreciation from former [[Setting:Cloudburst/Cognomen|Cognomen]] Fabricator General En’Kal for destroying and aiding in the disposal of the Glasian Cylinder that attacked Cognomen, this Power Glaive has an edge even outside of its power field. Its head leaves a distinct contrail of ionizing gasses in its wake, giving the illusion that it is wreathed in living light. It has cleaved through all materials on which it has been tested, and is traditionally carried by the Chapter Champion, presently Cesper Clerc. * Chain of Albrinter) An unusual force field generator. This relic is a piece of the Chapter’s history. It originally belonged to the Novamarines, who imparted it to the nascent Blue Daggers when the Chapter formally contributed officers to the new Founding. Its force field is actually substantially less durable than that of even an Astra Militarum Chaplain’s Rosarius Field, but the chain is feather-light and draws the barest amount of power from the wearer’s backpack generator, and its operation is silent. Therefore, since there is no drawback to wearing it and it can easily turn aside shrapnel or a brush from a flamer, it is often carried directly into battle by a member of the Council of Masters during Glasian Migrations. It is presently carried by Chapter third-in-command and Master of the Ships, Gwinnet Eiger. * Tome of the Borderlands) The Blue Dagger Librarius is small, but orderly and close-knit. In the large Chapter, the low psyker birthrate makes the recruitment of new Librarians all-important, especially given the Warp-tainted nature of the threat the Chapter was specifically Founded to stave off. Thus, the Tome of the Borderlands is a crucial part of the Librarius’s efforts. Within its psycrystal pages is a full listing of the entire library of psykana possessed by the Chapter, including all of its Emperor-blessed psychic warfare techniques, a rough map of the Septiim system’s Warp Currents (which are vigorous with so many inhabited bodies), the psyker birthrates of every planet from which the Daggers recruit, and every single member the Librarius has ever had. This is in addition to all of the wards, totemic scribings, and litanies of focus, power, and loyalty that every Librarian’s focus book contains. It is never carried by any member of the Chapter, but is instead left in Master Covum’s secret sanctum, to be studied by any Librarian deemed to have sufficient need by the Council. Theoretically, it could serve as a very valuable field aid for the Librarius in battle, but it has few combat functions any other psychic focus tome would lack, and so it is left behind to minimize risk. * Starburn) This relic Plasma Cannon is a huge weapon, the largest plasma weapon any one Marine in the Chapter can carry even with Terminator armor. Looking more like the cannon of a Macharius Omega than a normal plasma weapon, it burns hot enough in each shot to melt right through Ceramite and Adamantium, and its shots are long-ranged enough and fast-moving enough that they can down a Glasian hovertank with one good hit. Because of its weight, its bulk, and its enormous power requirements, it is only deployed in the grip of a Terminator even if it could theoretically be used by a strong Marine in good conventional Power Armor. It is stored in Master Carache’s armory, but it is not his – any Terminator with need of it can make use of it in an emergency. It is especially often used by the Daggers who work alongside the Deathwatch to constrain alien and piratical threats that fly to Cloudburst from Drumnos in search of easy pickings. * Glint of Knowledge) This is hardly a relic at all, the Chapter Tech-brotherhood scoffs. The Glint of Knowledge is only fifteen years old by the Terran calendar according to the serial stamp, hardly an artifact of an ancient master. However, despite its youth, it stands apart from all other auspexes in the Chapter armory for good reason. Its power feeds, its multispectral receivers, and its extensive cybernetic connection capability allow any variant, any model, any make of Power Armor to interface with it, and enjoy a vast array of autosenses. It is somewhat larger than a typical auspex, but that is no obstruction to its use. It can sit in the equipment slot of a Techmarine’s upper arm segment, it can be strapped to a forearm to keep hands free, it can be carried by its grip, or it could be fastened to the inside of a shield, and it would still work perfectly. The Glint of Knowledge has the usual array of auspex sensors built into its casing, but also includes a helm-interface flex-cable allowing it to display its findings through the machine spirits of the user’s helm display, overlaying them in Imperial gold. It also contains a vibration scanner, a metal detector, a composite radiation scanner, and a wind speed analyzer, in addition to its normal functions, making it incredibly useful for hunting Genestealers in the dark. It was taken as a prize from the pirate ship ''Just Your Luck'', boarded and scuttled by a team of Terminators after it assaulted the Septiim Economic Zone world of ANKH 909. Its actual origins are a mystery, but it has Forge World serial stamps on it, so it was clearly made on a Martian world and then promptly stolen. * Dead World’s Vengeance) No relic is viewed with more superstitious dread by the Space Marines of the Cloudburst Sector than this Storm Bolter. This was the only weapon recovered intact from the planet Chlorit. After the destruction of the world by the Glasians in the Second Migration, Ordo Xenos inspection ships examined the ruin of the world, its crust turned to molten rock and powdered stone from the blast emanating from the engines of the Cylinder. There they found world-crushing destruction not far less than that of a full World-scale Exterminatus. However, there were a few spots on the far side of the planet where the devastation, while more than enough to kill every living thing present, had not destroyed all of the artificial structures. Perhaps the blast from the Glasians had been too far away, or perhaps the dense metal core of the planet had bent the shockwave aside like a tectonic event. Regardless, a few buildings were still partially intact. Inside one of them, a Deathwatch Marine found a Chimaera lodged in a wall, its pintle-mounted Storm Bolter still perfectly preserved by the vacuum. It was salvaged, and presented by the Ordo Xenos to the Exigent Task Unit Cloudburst. Since then, there are whispers among the Initiates that the gun is haunted, and the screams of millions of Imperial farmers and soldiers can be heard in the crack of its shells. Certainly, the gun seems extremely accurate for a Storm Bolter, and when loaded with Kraken rounds, it can punch through armor like a chainsword through glass. Maybe its Machine Spirits seek vengeance still, or perhaps the Inquisition upgraded it somehow. Regardless, it is usually carried by the Terminator boarders who teleport onto the Glasian Control Cylinders that invariably assault Septiim in each Migration, so the xeno scum can hear their Vengeance coming. * Final Argument) This is a celebrated relic of the Scout Company of the Blue Daggers. This weapon was acquired by Scout Sergeant Frieg on his seven-year stint in the Deathwatch. An Ultima-series Sniper Rifle, this massive bolt weapon has a range of well over two miles, and its integrated multi-view scope allows for real-time gravity, wind, Coriolis Effect, and bolt movement delay compensation. No one Scout claims it now, so it is held on the ''Gargantuan'' in the armory of Master Doreth until it is needed. * Faith’s Colors) The oldest relic of the Chapter is not a weapon at all. This is a tabard, hood, and robe worn by a Chaplain of the Ultramarines during the assault against the Fortress of Hera by Konrad Curze during the Ruinstorm. The clothing was preserved in a stasis field by the Novamarines after they inherited it, and was given to the new Chapter as a reminder from the Novamarines to Augustus Alderoster to always be vigilant against those enemies that know the Imperium best: its own Traitors. Now it sits in the Vault of Aitrandus for all the Chapter to see, a reminder of that most important lesson. * ''Unending Shield'') A Land Raider Crusader and the unofficial command vehicle of the armor fleet of the Blue Daggers. Manufactured in the great subterranean cities of Calth, this vehicle served the Angels of Fury as a typical Land Raider for most of its life. However, it was modified into the Crusader pattern after the Black Templars first proved the viability of the design, and was never changed back. This was the only Land Raider given to the Blue Daggers by the Angels of Fury, alongside its Centurions. It is outfitted with a Machine Spirit of ferocious violence, two Hurricane Bolters, twin-linked Assault Cannons, a pintle-mounted multi-melta, a Hunter-Killer missile tube, searchlights, smoke dischargers, two Fragstorm packages, extra armor, and a mounted auspex, which sets it apart from most Crusaders. It is the personal transport of the Captain of the First Company, and is invariably crewed by a Space Marine crew to maximize the capability of the vehicle. Of course, the Captain of the First may also choose to use the Chapter’s only Land Raider Excelsior or a Damocles Command Rhino instead, and coordinate the troops instead of leading them directly, in which case this Land Raider is simply fielded by the First or Second Lieutenant of the Company. * Spiritual Cast) This incense container is a small cup and chain, in which ritual blessing incense can be burned and waved over firearms in preparation for use. The blessing of the machine spirits of the firearms of the Space Marines is always important, and this incense burner was the personal favorite of the founding Master of the Armory of the Blue Daggers. It is said that the beneficence of the Machine Spirits that he coaxed into the first generation of arms for the Chapter still lingers in this burner, which is kept in a place of honor in Master Alling-Durant’s armory, where the Tech-Brothers anoint their guns before Cylinder boardings. The flotilla of the Blue Daggers fleet contains but one Battle Barge, the ''Sharp Edge''. Its eleven Strike Cruisers are the ''Azure Death'', the ''Clashing Stars'', the ''Memories of Honorium'', the ''Name of Wrath'', the ''Scouring Action'', the ''Punishing Gesture'', the ''Blue Flames'', the ''Blackwell'', the ''Valorous Conflict'', and the newest of the lot – the ''Fury’s Sons''. The fleet also flies two Luna cruisers, the ''Wrath of the Stars'' and the ''Lofty Rage''. ===Chapter Organization=== [[Image:Organization.png|thumb|left|The Blue Daggers' organizational structure, post-Great Rift]] Thanks to the relentless but scheduled behavior of the Glasians, the Chapter has largely homogenized their Reserve Companies. The formations still exist, but the ability of the Seventh Company, for example, to mobilize entirely on Land Speeders is gone. In its place, the Reserve Companies train heavily in defensive infantry combat, formation-breaking, and urban combat, to ensure that they can be dispatched without assistance to secure systems from the depredations of the Glasians. However, that does not extend to the Devastator Company, the 9th, which is the closest in composition to the Codex Astartes and its templates. When the Chapter does mobilize for missions outside the Cloudburst Sector – increasingly common in the anarchy of the 42nd Millennium – the Chapter rarely sends an entire Company to deal with whatever problem they face. They greatly prefer to send a single Strike Cruiser with at most a Company Captain and five squads, supported by an [[Apothecary]] or two and a bevy of Techmarines. When the Chapter does dispatch larger forces, they send a member of the Council of Masters to lead them. Coincidentally, this has been Lord Eiger on every occasion thus far. Had all gone to plan, the Chapter had intended to change this protocol anyway. Now that the Chapter has attained its fullest strength and integrated itself into the supply chain of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and proven itself in lengthy battle against many alien and Chaotic foes, it had intended to fan out its forces more, and participate in more military activities against foes outside Cloudburst proper. That change has been forced upon them. A typical dispatch of Blue Daggers previously consisted of the following forces, prior to the Great Rift opening: [[Image:Dispatch.png|thumb|left|A typical combat deployment of the Daggers before the Great Rift opened]] ===Captains and Lieutenants=== After the great battles that composed the Seventh Glasian Migration and the concurrent Chaotic and Orkish incursions, the remaining Company officers of the Chapter were as follows: [[Image:Officers.png|thumb|right|The post-Great Rift Company leaders of the Blue Daggers]] <br> ===Noteworthy Brothers and Allies=== Chapter Flag Ensign – Tomas Coleville<br> As the Flag Ensign of the Chapter, Brother Coleville is the senior NCO of the Blue Daggers, and speaks on behalf of the squad leaders for the Council of Masters. He is a member of the Command Squad of the First Company Veterans, and prefers the use of a plasma pistol to all other weapons, for its versatility and one-handed use. Coleville is one of seven surviving members of the third induction class of boys into the Blue Daggers, along with Master Doreth and Captain Savoir. He is a calm and respectful man, and has undertaken extensive studies into languages to better communicate with whatever local forces his Masters assign him to liaise with on missions. Reclusiarch – Brother-Chaplain Logan Luostre<br> As the keeper of the relics and the recruiter of the Chaplaincy, Reclusiarch Luostre is a common sight in the Headquarters briefings and functions of the Chapter. His role includes the typical responsibilities of the second in command of the Chaplaincy of a Codex Chapter, and his vigil towards Brothers who may have been tainted by the Chaotic elements of the Glasian equipment that surrounds them on their centennial Migrations never wavers. He prefers the use of a Crozius Arcanum and Plasma Pistol for his battlefield role. Chief Navigatrix – Amandaer MacCraccen<br> MacCraccen is the only Navigator presently rated to fly the huge Battle Barge ''Sharp Edge'' through the Warp under normal circumstances, and also serves as an advisor to Lord Eiger. She is a stuffy and classist lout who barely tolerates the semi-humans who surround her, and is apparently oblivious to the irony of that attitude, given her own non-human status. For all her Navigator snobbishness, however, she is a truly skilled Navigator, and fearless in the face of battle. Chief of Astropathy – Lincoln al Ross<br> Lincoln al Ross is more than a mere Astropath, he is also the Chief of Ciphers for the Chapter, and interprets encrypted orders and instructions from the Inquisition for the Chapter when they arrive. His choir includes over twenty other Astropaths and lesser psykers, and a staff of one hundred eight mundane servants, who see to their needs and pass along their messages to the right ears. Technically, this and the Septiim system Astropathic Choir on the ''Choral Reef'' station are independent bodies, but given their physical proximity, one choir picking up messages intended for the other is quite common, and discreet mechanisms are in place to ensure privacy. Captain of Serfs – Prestor Waulke<br> The serfs, bondsmen, and sailors of the Blue Daggers crew their ships, man their vehicles, staff their bases, and operate most of the ''Gargantuan''. Therefore, they are entrusted with huge responsibilities, including defending the Chapter’s holdings from Glasian boarders. Waulke is a staff crewer and officer of the ''Gargantuan'', and liaises with Master Haskell on daily tasks. Most of the serfs of the Chapter are either retired PDF or washouts from the Dagger training programs. Officio Munitorum Liaison – Commissar Danielle Anand<br> As a byproduct of their remit to defend an entire Sector that takes weeks to cross, the Blue Daggers liaise intensely and frequently with the other branches under arms of the Adeptus Terra. As a result, a mechanism of interaction with mortal soldiery is needed, and that is a spot the Commissariat is perfect to fill, given their lack of traditional ranks and their extra-jurisdictional authority. Commissar Danielle Anand began her career as a junior Commissar in the Imperial Navy, but rose steadily through their largely reputation-based ranking system until she caught the eye of the Commodore assigned to the Waterscale, who recommended her to her current job as the official Liaison Officer of the Blue Daggers. As the only woman on the ''Gargantuan'', the serfs tend to avoid her, which is annoying to her since they need clear lines of communication in crisis. She is a member of the Chapter Core. Her task is a somewhat boring one outside of Crusades and Migrations, but during those times, she is a whirlwind of activity, coordinating messages from hundreds of participants in the joint military efforts and passing them along to the Council of Masters. ===Command and Deployment Structure=== The Daggers generally do not actually place members of their Council of Masters in Company Captaincies, allowing each Company to have its own Captain, with the Master serving above him. Though this lengthens the chain of command, it serves the widely-dispersed Chapter well, since the odds of an entire company being assembled in one place are quite low. Further, the Master can always have a competent and loyal Captain assume command of the company in battle if it is divided across multiple battlefields, alleviating the difficulties through distributed command. Thus, the Master of Scouts is not the 10th company Captain, nor is the Chapter Master the Captain of the 1st. Other Ultramarine Primogenitors have been heard to mutter that this is a way the Chapter seeks to defy the Codex, though in reality, it is simply an unfortunate side-effect of the Chapter’s unique and unpleasant role in the galaxy.<br> In terms of behavior and conduct, the Daggers are very much the scions of the Novamarines from which their officers’ Gene-seed came originally. They conduct themselves amongst the commoners with distant politeness and are permissive of the Imperial Cult, but ultimately do not seek human company or interaction beyond what is needed.<br> The Chapter theoretically allows its Vehicle Crewer Marines to not count towards the allotment of Battle Brothers in a Company, but the leadership of the Chapter knows full well that if that were allowed in any significant number, they would be well over the traditionally permissible maximum size of a Codex Chapter. Thus, this privilege is extended solely to the crews of the Stormbird and the Land Raiders of the Chapter, as those are considered the most sanctified armaments of the Chapter. The dedicated Motor Pool of the Chapter is also crewed exclusively by Serfs, save when they are substituted out by a Marine temporarily, for the purpose of improving performance.<br> The Chapter interacts well with the Deathwatch, and contributes Marines when asked. The Daggers do have one notable oddity in their interactions with the Chamber Militant, however. When a line battle company member of the Chapter joins the Deathwatch to take their Long Vigil, they are replaced in their home unit. Vehicle Crewers are sometimes also subject to this. On rare occasions, Chaplains and Apothecaries are also subject to this. If a Marine returns alive, they reintegrate into their old post alongside its new incumbent. If said post is a command position, and therefore cannot be shared, the returning individual and the incumbent decide who shall hold the position, with the other joining one of the Honor Guards of the Council. Chapter tradition dictates this procedure be carried out, not only because Deathwatch service is often fatal, but also because the Daggers simply cannot afford to be understrength when the Glasians arrive. Given that those who serve the Vigil are not informed how long their service will last, it has become a necessary precaution.<br> The Daggers also serve alongside Rogue Traders when asked to do so by a higher authority, such as the Lord Sector Cloudburst, though only as advisors, thus far. Blue Dagger squads or demi-companies often accompany Traders and Explorators into the Cloudburst Circuit to put down alien pocket kingdoms. No Rogue Trader has yet had the nerve to ask for a full combat deployment from the Daggers. The Blue Daggers are generalists in training, and the relatively new armor and ships at their disposal somewhat limit their overall potency. As the Imperium decays, the technological abilities of the Forge Worlds that equip the Space Marines decay as well. Most Blue Dagger equipment is designed for maximum durability rather than raw power, and this affects their combat style. Individual Daggers are just as tough and capable as any other Astartes, of course.<br> In combat, Daggers tend not to operate in groups smaller than three at the fewest, whenever possible. Rarely, Marines will serve singly for reconnoitering or spotting, but the Daggers avoid sending their Marines off by themselves. Some of the Septiimi love for rapid-fire weapons has made its way into the Daggers’ preferences, which lends itself to Blue Dagger vehicles mounting as many extra weapons on their hardpoints as possible. Relatively few Space Marine vehicles have this option, however, compared to those of the Guard.<br> The Blue Daggers have few Librarians among them, and an abundance of Techmarines. This can manifest in a preference for artillery and combined-forces attacks over reliance on psychic power, but the Daggers are not averse to Librarian support for their Battle Brothers. Likewise, the large number of Chaplains and Techmarines means that the Chapter can usually rely on spiritual or technological support against its Warp-infused foes. At the heart of the Chapter’s holdings is the ''Gargantuan'' space station. Although the Blue Daggers have other outposts in the Septiim system, this is where the vast majority of their activities occur, and it is where the Chapter Core is located. The Core is the official formation of logistics and dispatch for the Chapter. At the moment, the incumbent leader is the Master of the ''Gargantuan'' itself, Jeremy Haskell. His responsibilities include seeing to the hiring and retiring of serfs, the buying or building of servitors, and the purchase of supplies the Adeptus Mechanicus and Chapter cannot provide. For instance, he often places orders for supplies and clothing from the Flaxweave Foundry on Thimble, or sends Astropathic messages to the Inquisitors of the Ordo Xenos who need to be updated on the progress of the disposal of Glasian relics into Septiim. He is also in charge of choosing which serfs have honored the Chapter enough to be transformed into Servo-skulls after death. However, responsibility for the serfs who are assigned to specific roles on the Chapter’s ships falls instead to Lord Gwinnet Eiger.<br> The Chapter Core also contains the Chapter accountants, who carefully tabulate the running costs of the Chapter’s operation. They keep track of bolter shells fired and power packs spent, they keep track of the use of fuel in the vehicles of the motor pool, and they track diligently the rate of collection of boys to become Space Marines. Unlike most of the servants of the Chapter, these are not serfs, nor bondsmen from Septiim Primus. They are instead a small cadre of university-educated statisticians and moneykeepers of the Septiim Tertius Planetary Academy and Technical University, which has a contract to supply them to the Daggers. They work closely with the Adepta Administratum and Mechanicus to meet the supply needs of the Chapter, since its own forges and those of Solstice are not yet fully up to their needed capacity.<br> The final component of the Chapter Core is the ''Gargantuan''’s small population of assorted civilians and Officio Munitorum personnel. These people are the operators of the tugs that carry salvaged ships to the ''Gargantuan'', liaise with the Commissariat and Astra Militarum on deployments, coordinate jurisdictional disputes over Naval assets during invasions, appraise pirate and alien ships that are captured in the course of Dagger missions, and sell whatever salvage the Chapter collects that they cannot themselves use. As they are technically not members of the Chapter nor their serfs, they occupy an awkward position outside the Dagger hierarchy, but are also totally dependent on them and obey their every command. Though the Daggers are used to working alongside other forces of the Imperium, they do not rely on that being so. Having an unexpected flight of friendly Avengers swoop down on the ranks of advancing aliens may be a welcome tactical opportunity and a pleasant sight, but the Daggers would only have dispatched their troops to fight those alien ranks if they had had some confidence that they could have won without the airstrike. Their relative lack of artillery and excess of Techmarines and Land Raiders means that the Daggers are well equipped to perform infantry advances, but not always under the best of cover fire. The Forge Moon of Solstice is working hard to ensure the Daggers are properly equipped, but the Daggers also have the forges of the ''Gargantuan'' to use. Eventually, the Daggers may tire of relying on the Martians to supply them, and take matters into their own hands. Not all of the crews of the Blue Dagger ships and stations are serfs, of course, as that would necessitate hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of serfs, all of whom would become the responsibility of the Chapter Core. Most of the starship crewers are bondsman ratings of the local Septiim population, trained and educated on Septiim Tertius and Secundus to serve as employees of the Chapter. High Rates, Warrants, and other positions of great complexity are usually filled by serfs to oversee the lesser crew. All officer positions, like Shipmasters and the entire Apothecarion apprentice staff, are serfs, as are all those authorized to crew the actual weapons of the ''Gargantuan''. The recruitment facilities of the Blue Daggers are generally overseen by a Blue Dagger, but crewed by only a few bondsmen and serfs instead of having full Space Marine staff. The size of the Chapter and its holdings ensures that outside of the Migrations, the Chapter’s command personnel may be spread a bit thinly. It would be unthinkable for the fleet to be dispatched without a Marine on every ship larger than an Escort, and the many stations it holds throughout the Septiim Economic Zone usually have at least one Marine there at all times, sometimes from the Motor Pool or Fourth Company. They are typically withdrawn during Migrations. Those Marines that receive this task usually do so that they may train to command ships in the Fleet, or train to command small crews in defense of ground installations in the path of Glasian advances. ==Wargear and Tactics== The Blue Daggers conform to the most general paint and marking schemes of the various Ultramarine Successor Chapters from which they descend. Each Company uses a unique kneecap and pauldron paint scheme to distinguish the Company, then a number on the opposite kneepad to distinguish individual squads. Within each squad, every Battle Brother marks the backs of their pauldrons and the center of their gorget collar with a number to indicate their position in the squad, and each Sergeant adds a single red pip to these markings, plus a red helmet if they wear one. Veterans denote their armor with bone-white markings. However, the trim on the armor that Battle Brothers wear uses Company-specific coloration only on the front half, with the back half using solid dark blue, the same color as the hulls of Blue Dagger aircraft and space interceptors.<br> The extra-sized Honor Guard that the Chapter employs mark their armor exclusively with the Veteran pauldron and breastplate decorations, save the Ancient if there is one present. Because the Chapter withdraws all of its non-Deathwatch personnel to the Cloudburst Sector during the Glasian Migrations, the Campaign Badge of the Migration Defense they are serving overrides all others. The Chapter does not grant Marksman Honors in normal service, but if the Battle Brother in question earns them while serving with the Deathwatch or Inquisition, they are allowed to keep them.<br> The Brother-Lieutenant is a position that existed in the Chapter for centuries prior to their institution in the greater Adeptus Astartes. Lieutenants in the Chapter use Sergeant Red for their Lieutenant helms, save for a single gold line down the middle of the helm, bisecting the eyes, as well as a single gold square on the left pauldron, facing forward. Any Marine who serves on the Council of Masters also wears a single bright green armband while in their normal dress robes, but otherwise is allowed to customize their armor as they see fit, although few do, and most simply use the same markings they had prior to elevation to the Council, unless the position they vacated had unique markings.<br> As part of uniform dress, the Power Armor of the Battle Brothers does not include any fabric accoutrements, unless it is part of a specific decoration or Battle Honor that that Brother has earned. Some Veteran Sergeants and Lieutenants prefer a small half-cape over the strong arm, but this is officially discouraged for reasons of uniformity. The one exception is the Chaplaincy, as their standard Power Armor often includes a tabard and knee-length loincloth worn over the armor, displaying events and icons significant to that Chaplain’s past. Librarians may wear small masks that cover their noses and mouth if they decline to wear a helmet, but these are purely ceremonial, not part of the armor. Scouts are the only part of the Chapter battle line to use cloth, and it is usually part of their camouflage scheme. Members of a dispatched force of Marines and serfs usually don Campaign Badges on their left kneepad, and put squad markings on the right. Since the genetic, cybernetic, and hypnotic alterations made to Marines during their creation often imparts ambidextry, the Chapter, like most, does not mandate which hand be used for any given task. The Chapter employs Mark 7 Aquilla Power Armor almost exclusively. The youth of the Chapter means that it has no armory of ancient Marks of armor to deploy as its progenitors did, and the Cognomen and Solstice arsenals are small compared to the vast fabricators of Lucius and Voss Prime that arm many other Chapters. However, the Chapter does have a small stock of Mark 8 Errant armor and a few customized suits of older marks, generally gifts from Forge Worlds or Chapters from which the original pool of geneseed and gear was collected at the Founding of the Chapter. The Mark 8 pattern was recently delivered to Cognomen, meaning that it is now slowly making its way out to the greater Chapter. For now, its use is restrained to Brothers in descending order of service duration, so it is quite rare outside of the Council of Masters, the Honor Guards, and the Company Officers. The fact that the Chapter can barely equip half of its First Company Veterans with Terminator armor somewhat limits its ability to enact Space Hulk boarding actions, or confront the very largest of Tyranid or Necron foes. The Daggers make up for the lack of Terminator armor by outfitting their First Company with as much in the way of specialized ammunition as they can use. The presence of Vengeance, Kraken, Dragonfire, Flux, and Metal Storm bolts being issued to their Veterans is standard. Techmarines of the Chapter have less common access to ancient and potent technologies than their forbearers have, and often equip their Servo-harnesses with simpler weapons – the Chapter has but one Conversion Beamer and three Infernus pistols total. As partial compensation for the lack of diversity of arms among the Battle Brothers, the Daggers make common use of Combi-attachments. Meltas and grenade launchers are popular for their flexibility, but the most coveted are Combi-Gravs, as useful in boarding actions as they are in infantry battles. Of course, these are amazingly rare. The Chapter has no Volkite weapons. The Chapter, like many others, has preferred weapons for their Marines in the field. In deference to their frequent task of boarding alien ships designed for beings smaller than Marines are, the Blue Daggers use Chainfists and Chainswords whenever they can choose equipment, although individual Marines are not required to wield them if they have a personal preference for some other melee weapon. The Chapter’s combat doctrine calls for every Marine outside the Council of Masters, even those who have specialized roles in the Chapter like Apothecaries, to carry some kind of bolt or plasma weapon, also in deference to the Chapter’s tactical situation: they are always outnumbered. Losing ranged capability is a terrible idea. Members of the Council of Masters are generally exempt, since they have Honor Guards, but most comply anyway. Combi-attachments are quite popular here, as well, with heat-based weapons being the most common, like flamer and melta-weapons. Also common are looped bandoliers of grenades and extra ammunition, issued to at least one member of every Squad, with some volunteering to bring more extras, just so that squads cut off from their Brothers during Glasian Migrations or by other horde-styled enemies are never without resupply. Bolters with mounting rails are quite popular, as opposed to those that have unadorned barrels. Because the senses of a Space Marine bolter or pistol integrate directly into the data-feeds of the operator, not all Blue Daggers bother affixing iron sights or other simple targeting optics to their weapons, but many do. Scopes that can scomp-link to helm autosenses are very popular, as are small flashlights that can be attached to the heat shroud and turned on and off with a thought-impulse through the helm senses. Company Captains in the line Companies and Squadron Commanders of the Gunship pool usually tend to prefer the use of energy weapons when available for their mounts. For example, the Thunderhawk pilots of the Chapter generally tend to mount Turbolaser Destructors over Battle Cannons in their dorsal turrets. They have less dispersal, are unaffected by a planet’s gravity, and their power cells can recharge from the power plant of the Thunderhawk; the same can’t be said of one hundred-fifty-five-millimeter smoothbore cannon shells. Similarly equipped are the Escorts of the fleet. The Glasians are, obviously, the primary spaceborne threat to the Chapter, and thus most of its fleet is outfitted to repulse them. The Glasians employ extraordinarily potent plasma weapons and wings of fighters as their primary anti-starship defense. Thus, the Daggers outfit their ships with as much Void Shielding and Point Defense as possible. However, the Daggers aren’t the Grey Knights nor the Imperial Fists. They lack access to the vast archeotechnological power of Deimos, Mars, Terra, and Titan. Having but two small, simple yards to build ships, the Daggers are forced to compromise on their vessels, installing their preferred two upgrades to the exclusion of all others. Sniper weapons are not common outside of trained Scout units, even among Marines who have kept up their marksman training. Squads are sometimes issued Stalker Bolters in lieu of dedicated sniper platforms, and Stalker Bolters that retain their burst- and auto-fire modes are highly prized among Tactical Brothers. More rarely, squads may equip as many as six of its ten members with non-bolter weapons. The squad of Brother-Lieutenant Jonas, for instance, has a large array of weapons among its members. They carry a Stalker Bolter with a custom scope, a plasma cannon, a plasma pistol and Power Axe, a missile launcher and twin pistols, a Heavy Flamer and pistol, a heavy grenade launcher and bolter, a Storm Bolter, and three bolters with chainsword bayonets among them, with a variety of melee weapons distributed across the squad. The wargear of most Astartes in the Chapter follows a strict template, determined first by the Angels of Fury and later by Magos Sneth of Solstice. Space Marines in Tactical squads employ a mixture of Godwyn Vb Bolters and Godwyn Vs Stalker Bolters. Assault Marines prefer the use of Ultima Bolt Pistols and Sunfury MkIII plasma pistols, accompanying chainblades of various types. Devastator Marines in the Blue Daggers employ the Mark 1vc Heavy Bolter in the main, but their love of Devastator combat styles ensures that they field a dizzying variety of other weapons as well. Marines on boarding actions prefer the use of Meltas, including when dispatched on missions to scuttle the Glasian Cylinders. Storm Bolters are not a popular squad-level firearm, but they do make the occasional appearance. Sergeants are free to choose whatever arms they want from the arsenals, save Relics of the Chapter unless authorized. The few Hurricane Bolters and Flamers in the arsenal are of the Voss Prime model. Both Marine and human crewers of the vehicles and ships of the Chapter motor pools and flotilla are under standing orders to bear a loaded firearm at all times. The Glasians may be easy to predict, but the many pirates and aliens of the Imperium’s borders are not. The preferred weapon for vehicle crewer Marines is the Ultima V bolter, while human crewers prefer the Ocelot PDW and Bluebird sealed revolver. Both the Ocelot and the Bluebird have their chambers and ammunition wells sealed as fully as possible, so that both can be suppressed with muzzle-screw sound suppressors, which are rare on weapons of their size. Combat dogma for the Daggers emphasizes mass suppression only when they have assembled the numbers for it. Lacking the scale of force of the Legions of old, the Daggers use groups of camouflaged Scouts and Devastators to provide cover fire and recon, push their armor and infantry through the targets they need to engage, and then leave as quickly as they came. Since the Glasians have little discernable hierarchy and are both mobile and individually fragile, the precision insertion and assassination tactics of the Raptors or the Raven Guard are simply not as useful against them as they would be against Orks or Eldar. Instead, the Daggers frequently make use of a mixture of old Legion-style tactics and more modern Speartip tactics. They may employ a light artillery barrage to slow or scatter an enemy formation, lay down fire from Devastators and Scouts, then drive armored transports into fresh gaps in enemy lines to deliver Tactical Marines straight into the fight. Alternately, the Chapter’s abundant Scouts and Devastators may shoot their way into the deepest, most solid cover available; then, when the enemy has encircled them, call in teleporting Terminators or a wave of Assault Marines. In normal engagements against Glasians – inasmuch as anything about them is normal – the Daggers prefer anti-wave tactics. They will equip their squads with as many anti-tank weapons as they can, then split up into individual squads and move to solid cover. When the Glasians arrive, the Daggers begin picking off vehicles as quickly as possible, while those equipped with Flamers and grenade launchers will keep any disembarked infantry at bay. Mobility is therefore often sacrificed for cover, though the large number of Rhinos and Land Raiders in the motor pool ensure that it is never sacrificed entirely. Additionally, the Daggers employ their respectable aerospace forces to provide saturation cover for their forces on the ground. They focus on breaking up formations on the ground and shooting down transports with long-range weapons, as well as providing cover for disembarking Marines. The Daggers also practice boarding tactics, since that is an integral part of their anti-Glasian operational methodology. The expansion goal of the Chapter remains one of the near-mythically potent Achilles-Alpha Land Raiders, but that prize remains beyond their reach, for now. When performing boarding actions against ships or stations that are worth keeping, in contrast to the Glasian hardware that is useful only as target practice, the Daggers prefer rapid-advance and shock tactics rather than a slowly-advancing wall of armor and guns. The techniques they employ were originally developed by the Terran Federation’s Armada during the Golden Age, and have barely updated since. The Daggers make use of what they call a Prize Team, consisting of a few Techmarines and an Apothecary, to take control of the target once a beachhead has been seized. These Prize Teams, being as much Space Marines as their less specialized brothers, are perfectly capable of fighting, and do not generally require an escort. The local Navy began the practice of referring to similar formations of boarders as prize teams, but the Daggers formalized it. A Prize Team may make use of small, magnetic cargo containers that affix to the exterior attachment points of a Space Marine’s Power Armor backpack generator, filled with whatever devices are needed by the Prize Team during a capture mission. Common items include data-spikes, uplink cables, self-deploying vox transmitters and range boosters, extra Melta Bombs, bulkhead cutters, and capsules of poison to be used on ship life support systems. These containers are available to any other Chapter, of course, but the Blue Daggers only use them commonly in Prize Teams and on missions where supply in the field will be impossible. ==Notable Battles== The youth of the Chapter, and the fact that they must hoard the majority of their strength to repel the Glasian Migrations, means they do not have lengthy battle honors or rolls of ancient glory as do their Predecessor Chapters. That does mean that they are idle. Like nearly all of the Loyalist Chapters, the Blue Daggers regularly test their mettle against foes who threaten the integrity and the safety of the Imperium of Man, and its remit to bring all human souls to its light and the firm hand of its laws. Here listed are the first three campaigns they went on outside of their own territory in which the Chapter took significant casualties. All three of the Blue Dagger forces listed here answered to the most experienced member of the Chapter, Lord Gwinnet Eiger, in his role of Master of the Ships and third-in-command of the Chapter. ===The Siege of Sarenaak=== This massive conflict in early M41.805 constituted the largest mobilization of the Chapter up to that point. The entirety of the Battle Companies and two hundred Marines from other Companies engaged in direct combat against the forces of the Pustulent Heaven-sent warband of Nurgle in the Naxos Sector. The conflict began when the Pustulent Heaven-sent, led by Death Guard Terminator Andal the Corpulent, besieged the fortified Hive city of Halsstead on the planet Chyrox, just outside the Inquisitorial demarcation of the Pox Ring Containment Zone. The Celestial Knights, engaging the Nurglites on two other fronts, were unable to dispatch aid. Thus, the Blue Daggers took up the call. Although their numbers were diminished by the losses they had suffered in the recent Fifth Glasian Migration, the Chapter still mustered over seven hundred Marines, nearly the full strength of the Chapter. The Blue Daggers fell on the planet in a great surge, supported by orbital fire from their flagship, the ''Sharp Edge''. The Nurglites were able to withstand the sudden arrival of the Imperial forces by forcing a breach in the city and occupying it from the inside. The influx of Warp-spawned toxins there turned many of the residents into savage, mutated beasts, their bodies ripped to pieces by Nurgle’s own plagues, and the Nurglites sent them into the oncoming Daggers to weaken their resolve. Undeterred, the Daggers retaliated with the fullest force of their Land Raider and Thunderhawk contingent, bringing Astartes arms to bear on the mostly-mortal Nurgle cult. Within a month of intense combat, the infected population and the cult that had ruined them were dead, and Chyrox was left to rebuild. ===Apex Point Skirmish=== Prior to this date, the space fleet of the Chapter had not been tested in battle against forces that could match it. In M41.856, a force was en route to the Gothic Sector to participate in an Inquisitorial task force there when it was abruptly assaulted by a fleet of pirates while exiting the Warp to re-ascertain Navigation bearing. The fleet was forced into rapid defensive combat, against a contingent of pirate vessels that technically outnumbered them, which were looking to steal rare Astartes vessels and gear for themselves at the Apex Point Warp Nexus. Four Astartes ships were boarded, although the pirates were unable to make much headway against the bondsmen and serfs of the ship crews. Eventually, the pirates were driven off, but the damage was done. The ships of the Blue Daggers had lost fifteen percent of their manpower and significant ordinance in the conflict; enough had been lost that their ability to participate in the conflict was diminished greatly. The flotilla quickly patched their hulls and flew to the rendezvous point, but took only a rear-line role in the ensuing conflict. ===War for Castinug=== A small colony on the edge of the Drumnos Sector in M41.945, the planet Castinug had been a long-form colony experiment by the Adeptus Mechanicus. Using terraformation technology and techniques thought lost during the purge of the Librarius Omnis but rediscovered near the end of the millennium, the Mechanicus was attempting to transform the arid rock into a mining and farming planet to feed the insatiable Drumnos Sector’s desire for resources. When early warning satellites at the edge of the system reported a surge of Warp emergences, the Mechanicus sallied forth its few Basilikon Astra ships to repel the unknown arrival. However, when the emergent forces revealed themselves as a force of Orkish raiders, the badly outgunned Mechanicus forces immediately sent for aid. The Daggers answered, and dispatched two hundred Marines to respond to the threat. By the time the Blue Daggers had arrived at the Castinug colony site, however, the Orks were already on the ground. The Marines pushed groundside and engaged, driving off the Orks and saving the last of the Techpriests there, as well as the precious terraformation technology.
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