Remus Ventanus

"Not today. Today we march for Calth."

– Captain Remus Ventanus during the Purgation of Colchis

Remus Ventanus, also known as the Saviour of Calth, was captain of the Fourth Company, First Chapter of the Ultramarines Legion during the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy. He first came to prominence during the Battle of Calth.

Horus Heresy

Captain Ventanus was present during the muster on Calth, believing that his legion and the Word Bearers were about to go kill Orks together and make up after what had happened on Monarchia. He was put in charge of overseeing the Erud regional muster, which he suspected was Guilliman's way of teaching him to do something other than kill shit, since the primarch believed that his Astartes had to have some kind of retirement plan once the Crusade was over. He was discussing a labor shortfall with some of the local officials of Numinus City when the Word Bearers launched the fleet tender Campanile through the Veridian dockyard and began massacring the unsuspecting Ultramarines on the planet and in orbit. He and his sergeant, Kiuz Selaton, narrowly missed being killed by the marauding Word Bearers and quickly started trying to fight back and sort out what was going on. Along the way he found a legion standard in the hands of a dead Ultramarine, its shaft twisted by the Marine's death spasms, and took it along with him, using it as an improvised weapon.

They were almost trapped inside Numinus, until they linked up with skitarii forces under the command of Magos Meer Edv Tawren and Master Arook Serotid. They were able to reestablish contacts with Captain Lyros Sydance out at the Erud muster and reunite with him and the rest of the Fourth Company at the Leptius Numinus palace, which had a cogitator unaffected by the Chaos scrapcode the Word Bearers had infiltrated into the Calth noosphere. They made contact with more skitarii, Ultramarines, and Imperial Army elements along the way, assembling a sizable force under Ventanus' command. The Word Bearers eventually assaulted the palace, but were defeated. One of them, Morpal Cxir, provoked another Ultramarine captain into killing him after he'd surrendered, which allowed Samus to manifest and start wrecking shit. Ventanus banished the daemon with Cxir's athame. Magos Tawren then informed Ventanus that she had discovered a killcode formulated by her predecessor that would allow them to purge the scrapcode and retake control of Calth's defenses.

Ventanus left a token force to hold Leptius Numinus as long as possible and took the rest of his troops to a spaceport in Lanshear city that possessed a data-engine of sufficient strength to run the Calth defense grid. They were nearly wiped out by superior Word Bearer forces under Hol Beloth, until Ultramarine, Army, and Titan reinforcements arrived, vectored there by the junior magos who'd remained behind at Leptius. They held back the Word Bearers long enough for Tawren to deploy the killcode and for a kill team led by Roboute Guilliman to knock out the engine the Word Bearers were using to control the grid. With Calth now being battered by lethal levels of radiation from its poisoned star, Ventanus led an exodus into the planet's underground arcologies, swearing to purge every single Word Bearer still on the planet. During the ensuing Underworld War, Ventanus mortally injured the Dark Apostle Maloq Kartho with an athame known as the Shard of Erebus; however, Kartho was able to ascend to daemonhood, becoming the daemon prince M'kar.

Ventanus was retrieved from Calth some time later and became a senior advisor to Guilliman, helping him establish and refine the treatise that would ultimately become the Codex Astartes. He discovered a flaw in one of Guilliman's tactical plans and pointed it out, whereupon the primarch told him that the Codex was meant to be a set of guidelines for Space Marines, not a dogmatic holy book to be followed without question. This lesson was lost on some people.

The Scouring

Ventanus survived the Heresy and continued to serve the Legion. During the Scouring, Ventanus led the Ultramarines to the Word Bearers' homeworld of Colchis and Exterminatus'd the shit out of the place in revenge for what they'd done to Calth twenty-five years previously. After his death, which occurred under unknown circumstances, he was laid to rest on Calth in a special tomb said to have been designed by Guilliman himself, along with the Shard of Erebus he'd used to defeat Kartho. As the millennia passed, the location of his tomb was lost, and Ventanus' name faded into myth and legend.

41st Millennium

In the waning years of the 41st Millennium, a young Uriel Ventris rediscovered Ventanus' tomb while exploring the caverns of his homeworld. He kept the knowledge to himself, feeling that to boast of it would lessen the accomplishment. Decades later, when Honsou and his Bloodborn invaded Ultramar, M'kar ordered Honsou to find and destroy Ventanus' tomb and the Shard of Erebus, as he knew that the athame could be used to inflict True Death on him. Honsou had created a warp-twisted clone of Ventris who retained all of the original's knowledge, which he used to track down the tomb's location. There, he and his troops were confronted by Ventris and his Fourth Company, only for Ventanus' spirit to appear at the head of the Legion of the Damned. The ancient warrior's armour was blackening to match that of the spectral Astartes he led, but the symbols of the XIII Legion were still visible, along with his green cloak of office. After Ventanus' specter had helped to drive away the Chaos Marines, he presented Ventris with the Shard of Erebus and M'kar's true name, giving his successor the means to kill the daemon prince permanently. With this task done, he spirit was finally at rest after ten thousand years.

Tabletop

	Pts	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Sv
Remus Ventanus	155	5	5	4	4	3	5	3	10	23+

Ventanus is basically a souped-up Centurion with power armor (not artificer armor for some reason), bolter, power sword, an iron halo, a nuncio-vox, grenades, melta bombs, and the legion standard he used to smack Word Bearers on Calth. He has Master of the Legion, Adamantium Will, and Cunning Strategist: as long as Ventanus is alive, the opponent gets -1 to all reserve rolls and his player can reroll all their reserve rolls. Also, that -1 stacks, so if you were to put an LR Proteus and a Damocles Rhino on the table with him, your opponent will only be bringing in reserves on a 6, while you can tweak or reroll your reserve rolls as you please. His standard grants Fearless to his attached squad and any other Ultramarines within 6". If taken as the warlord, he has a fixed trait that gives him and all Ultramarines units in the army Stubborn if they're within 3" of an objective. Since he has Master of the Legion, he can also take a command or Invictarus squad, putting another standard on the table, and because he doesn't have to join them they can spread out and give you two 6" Fearless bubbles. Basically, you're not taking Ventanus because he's a combat monster like Sevatar or Sigismund, you're taking him because he's an awesome support HQ who can dick with your opponent, ensure accurate deep strikes and barrages, and bolster your army. He's surprisingly cheap for a character that has all this stuff (only 155 points!) so he makes a good option for a budget HQ even if you don't take him as your warlord.