Death Company

The Death Company is a unit used by Blood Angels and their successor Chapters, composed of those Marines who have succumbed to the Red Thirst and the Black Rage. Before the Horus Heresy, the Blood Angels discovered that some of their Marines were succumbing to a genetic flaw in their gene-seed, where a Marine would develop a literal thirst for blood and devolve into a raving maniac, to the point that the Emperor's Peace had to be administered. Following the death of Sanguinius, the psychic shock left other marines relieving the events of his death at the hands of Horus so vividly that they believe they were Sanguinius. Knowing that this was occurring to much to be ignored, but wanting to give their battle-brothers an honourable death, the Blood Angels and their successors formed what were known as "Death Companies", Marines overseen by the Company Chaplains to serve as front line shock assault troops. The Death Company will proceed to rip and tear anything in their path until death claims them. Those few who survive are taken back to the fortress-monastery and filled with enough drugs to keep them from attacking everything else until the next time they called into battle.