Sons of Fire

"Fire does not simply kill, it consumes. It takes away everything, the weak and the strong. It gives us not only warmth but it is also a tool of destruction. It is a pure instrument which must only wielded by those willing to use it without fear. Are you worthy of such power?"

The Burned King, speaking to his Legion for the first time.

Sons of Fire
Battle Cry	"Blood and Fire!" "Blood for the Blood God! Fires of His Wrath!"
Number	IV
Founding	First Founding
Successors of	N/A
Chapter Master	Emiya King of Blades
Primarch	Inferox the Burned King
Homeworld	Crematoria
Strength	150,000 Pre-Heresy
Specialty	Purgation, Area Denial, Planet Kill Operations
Allegiance	Chaos
Colours	Burned Red and Black

This page details people, events, and organisations from The /tg/ Heresy, a fan re-working of the Warhammer 40,000 Universe.

Summary of Legion IV

Numeration: The IVth Legion

Primogenator: Infernox (also known as "Burned King")

Cognomen (Prior): The Hammers of Terra

Observed Strategic Tendencies: Area Denial Tactics, Purgation, Exterminatus and Planet-Killing Actions.

Noteworthy Domains: The Crematoria System (Primary), Tithe Rights to Achaemenid Cities on Terra.

Alliegence: Traitoris Perdita

"Some call us monsters, butchers, animals. I disagree. We only leave pure ash behind in our wake."

Legionary Equerry Dilshad, M.30

None were more feared in the time of both the Great Crusade and the Hektor Heresy than the Sons of Fire. Specializing in cleansing and purification procedures, the Sons of Fire were often tasked with taking worlds which could not be salvaged or retaken. Xenos infested planets, mutant hordes roaming about old human worlds, religious aristocracies which would never accept the Imperial Truth. All were put to the torch, none could withstand the flames of Legion IV.

Legion Tactics

Area Denial was the main forte of the Sons of Fire, which made them lethal in urban warfare and in Zone Mortalis operations. As time went on this specialization was joined by a growing hunger for fire, a need to inflict pain by fire, to burn, not merely disintegrate. This led to the use of special types of flamer fuel, that which instead of disintegrating the target outright would scorch and burn them, leaving them broken and bleeding and waiting for the kiss of the Sons of Fire’s flaming axes. These bloody practises went unnoticed initially, but as the crusade dragged on more and more noticed the pyromaniac tendencies and hunger for both blood and fire that would doom the Legion.

While the Sons of Fire did utilise field armour, support vehicles and transports, these were not given any primacy in the Legion's tactical doctrine. The only exception was flame-weapons tanks such as the Malcador and Predator Infernus, and the Land Raider Redeemer invented by the Sons of Fire as an assault transport that would later be adopted by other Legions.

Legion Equipment

At its creation, the IV Legion, like almost all the Space Marine Legions of the time, followed the standard "Terran Pattern" of organisation as laid out for all the newly created Legions, but even in this earliest period the Legion's procurement and outfitting showed a considerable bias towards direct assault and operations within the close and deadly confines of the kinds of battlefields designated as "Zone Mortalis”, with a speciality on using area denial weapons such as flamers which were most effective in this type of warfare. Once Inferox took command this trend continued, and the Legion's organisational structures were kept largely intact and further streamlined, with its echelons being modified into specialized line infantry formations known as Conflagrations. A Conflagration was a Battalion-level hybrid of tactical/close assault troops for the main part, supported by dedicated heavy assault units such as Terminators and specialised units such as Land Speeder squadrons. This organisation lent itself well to a highly aggressive strategic posture and belligerent tactics involving area denial, burning the enemy out of their fortifications and positions.

Weaponry and tactics were streamlined to be simple and direct. Bolter, Melta and Flamer became their principle weapons, keeping supply needs to a minimum. Noteworthy is that the Sons of Fire quickly became associated with the use of alchem and radiation weaponry to a greater extent than any other Legion, especially the use of burning Phosphex which the legion soon specialized in. Though the Great Crusade was launched to conquer worlds and not destroy them, unless there was no alternative, in such warzones where there was no hope for human life or where the only option was complete purgation, the usual caveats and protocols restricting the use of contaminate weapons by the Emperor's command did not often apply and these warzones were often entrusted to the Sons of Fire who took great joy in burning them to the crust.

Legion Doctrine

The Burned King was always a twisted soul. Twisted like a flame. The Sons of Fire are no different, obsessed with burning. Everything. They set entire systems ablaze for the Emperor, but they found a new master in Khorne. Before the Heresy, they tried to mask their all consuming desires for fire with a cold, calm and ruthless exterior, which broke down when Khorne claimed their souls. They were present on Terra and the Burned King is now a daemon prince. On Istvaan they collected all of the dead loyalists, and burned their bodies and armour to slag and ash, before piling their scorched skulls in a pyramid inside of a captured ship, and firing it into the Warp.

In the aftermath of the betrayal at Istvaan III, the Sons of Fire became ever more insular and uncontrollable on the battlefield as their desire for Fire and Blood took them over, turning them into double-edged sword even to their allies as they burned whole swathes of the battlefield, uncaring who was incinerated. All-out infantry assaults supported by fast moving armour, with the aim of immediately closing into bloody short range and melee and always with the intent to burn the foe from the battlefield became their only goal; inferno for its own sake beyond any strategic objective to the contrary.

Notable members of the Sons of Fire

First Captain Emiya, the King of Blades

Emiya, also known as the King of Blades is a Chaos Space Marine of the Sons of Fire Legion. Once the First Cpatain and Primarch’s Equerry of his Legion, Emiya is now the greatest of all the mortal Champions of Khorne, embodying that god's indiscriminate rage and bloodlust. A Terran from the Nihion Islands, Emiya was part of the early intakes for the Legion during the first decades of the Great Crusade, eventually rising to become Captain of the First Company by the time of the Heresy. In battle Emiya is always where the fighting is at its thickest, wielding his twin blades, the Fang-blade of Ignarak and the Red Sword, these fell weapons continually rise and fall as they sever heads and claim skulls. Since the end of the Heresy, Emiya has become the unstoppable and bloody avatar of Khorne. He hunts through the Eye of Terror and across the galaxy, slaughtering any worthy enough to be killed in Khorne's name.

Inferox, "The Burned King", Primarch of the Sons of Fire

Appearance

Inferox, "The Burned King"

Towering, Dark Skinned, Near-African features. His skin is mostly burned.

Youth

Crematoria did not whether the storm of that was the Age of Strife well. A hundred different cults and sects arose from the mayhem of those times in a desperate attempt to explain away the numerous disasters and phenomena common of the time. From centuries of warfare between these unending number of faiths the planet had been left it cracked, blackened, and bubbling with magma. Infernox's pod landed directly near a pool one day, nearly dying as flames grew around him. One of the cults managed to rescue him however. They were named the Priest of Xerleth, who instead of worshiping a pantheon instead devoted themselves to a single God.

Many had died rescuing the young Primarch but they decided that this Star Child was a gift from their deity. The Priests had always been in the middle of the various wars, being the only monotheistic religion on Crematoria. His coming was seen as the ultimate blessing, a gift for their devotion. Over the years the babe saw how they lived, tending to the fields of fertile ash; producing food to give or trade away. Infernox saw the power the Priests had with their dedicated and regimented lifestyles. He learned of the knowledge that had survived through them, of tool making, metallurgy, and chemistry. He asked them time and time again why they did not use this power to finish all those who threatened them. Blank and hollow faces replied to his questions, showing him the true weakness of the Priests. Although driven to worship their God, they were pacifists who believed all children were equal beneath Xerleth.

Wishing to do away with this weakness Infernox gathered a small following among several tribes. The children who had become disgruntled with their parents' faith decided to join him, seeing the lad as a Prophet of Xerleth's will. Infernox was not the greatest speaker, but his voice and stature were strong enough to carry the day among the malnourished and broken people of Crematoria. Voices often spoke to Infernox in the night, telling him what he had to do to curry favor of the One True God. He gave an ultimatum to the Priests; either they accept his word that Xerleth desired conquest and not peace, or be slaughtered where they stood. The work was quick and decisive, many of the older generation lamenting having ever saved the burned demon they had named Infernox.

Tribe after tribe fell, being converted by the sword. Several times the tribes tried to kill Infernox, using the magicks of their warlocks to slay him. He lived through all attempts, eventually taking on the name of 'Burned King', for having lived through the fires. Infernox became obsessed with fire during this time using it to burn all those who resisted him. He only desired a strong, unified Crematoria that would do away with any weakness. That would allow the strong to thrive, not whither away neglected and unremembered. He reorganized the basic tenants of the Priests to his will, killing off any mutant found at birth unlike before where the deformed were praised as miracles of the gods. The boundaries between women and men were abolished, Infernox seeing the only justification for limiting an individual should be because on their own weakness. Warlocks and witches were brought in as his 'Sons of Fire', to act as his enforcers and judges. The decades passed by, with all thought of any other gods than Xerleth dying off. Deceivers were burned alive, showing all the price of using underhanded techniques to achieve success.

Infernox had done it. Crematoria was his own, burnt out utopia.

The Coming of The Emperor

The Emperor's arrival in system was not observed by those on the small opaque ball of Crematoria. The people had only the basic understanding of technology, and astrology was not seen as a proper way to spend one's time. Huge dropships landed in the central square of the largest Crematorian city, which only housed ten thousand people. Infernox heralded this as the coming Xerleth at last, with his Angels of Fire to welcome them to the promise land. He was surprised at first and then confused when the Emperor introduced himself not as a God, but as a tool to bring enlightenment.

Infernox did not lash out as a babe being torn from his toys, he instead sought out understanding. Many hours were spent in the open courtyard as Infernox asked every question he ever had about the universe. What was fire? What was the sun, that burned so bright? What were the stars? The Emperor answered these questions handily, giving his new found son understanding and wisdom. He explained that Xerleth was just something used to explain what his people could not fathom or rationalize, that it was all just a fabrication. The weight of this discovery struck Infernox deeply.

Everything he had ever believed in was a lie.

But the Emperor saw his son in distress and told him the good news. There were hundreds of thousands of worlds out there, all that needed to helped like his own. That needed to be taken out of the darkness and into the light. Infernox understood this as the Emperor telling him that weakness was abound in the galaxy, and needed to be burned out. He would serve his new Father then, with the desire to create a spanning empire where only the strong would live. He took control of the Hammers of Terra, renaming them after his elite Psyker guard, and set out to help bring peace and stability to the Imperium.

The Great Crusade

Even as Inferox continued his education of the many facets of the Imperium and its enemies and Crematoria was advanced along Imperial Lines, the newly reconsecrated Sons of Fire were called to war. Initially intended by Imperial strategists as a simple defence of a system threatened by an ork warfleet raiding newly-claimed Imperial Worlds turned into a thorough blooding, as the Sons of Fire, eager to show their capabilities now that their father had been returned to them tracked the xenos raiders back to their spawning-worlds beyond the borders of Imperial space in the Skythykos cluster.

Over the course of that first brutal campaign Inferox made and shaped his legion’s aggressive, straightforward fighting style. Though the more advanced weaponry still had its place, he taught the Sons of Fire the simple pleasures of fire, of using smoke to obscure their advance, and the destruction that could be wrought by a simple chainaxe. Committed to waging total war, the Sons of Fire systematically exterminated every ork and purged their worlds with flame to ensure that they would never again be able to pose a threat to the Imperium. However something was awoken in the flames as world after world was burned, a hunger, a mania, a desire for fire, and burning worlds. It was a mania that would come to consume and devour the Legion.

The planets upon which the Sons of Fire now fell were not merely crushed-they were burned. Where once resistance had been found, now were left only grave worlds in their stead-planets burned to ashes. Cities were left standing like silent half-ruined cemeteries commemorating the piles of ash and scorched skulls that littered their forlorn and lifeless spaces. The Sons of Fire Legion became a byword for absolute cleansing, leaving empty worlds to be reseeded and recolonized when there was no need or desire to leave anything behind of the former masters of those worlds.

Under Inferox’s command the Ork empires of Blitzklaw and Mudd Mordrag were burned to ashes by the Sons of Fire, as were the Khrave of Serreak-7 where others had failed before them. In one of the most famous triumphs of its time, the Legion entrapped the Eldar Craftworld of Tuokendar which had endured for a hundred millennia and scoured it of life in a brutal campaign, its vast and charred wraithbone carcass sent hurtling at last into a bloated ancient sun. Nor were human and abhuman worlds spared the Legion's wrath: Alkedar, Susuar, Vaketur, Mygarlas and a dozen more all fell before these Angels of Fire and more than once non-compliant planetary systems surrendered wholesale at the rumour of the Sons of Fire’s approach, so potent had their bloody legend grown.

Game material

Inferox The Burned King, the Fire Rider, Primarch of the Sons of Fire

WS7 BS5 S7 T7 W6 I5 A4 LD10 SV2+/3++

Unit Composition •1 (Unique)

Unit Type •Infantry (Character)

Wargear •Armour of Hades •Flame-Claw Gauntlets •Phosphex grenade launcher

Special Rules •Primarch •Soul of Fire •Sire of the Sons of Fire •Very Bulky

Sire of the Sons of Fire Inferox is the pinnacle of his Legion, the dispenser of justice and the bestower of favour. All his sons aspire to be one with the flame like him, and fight all the harder under his eyes. All models with the Legiones Astartes (Sons of Fire) rule may re-roll the dice when using flamer based weapons in defensive fire, and gain the Crusader special rule. In addition all Medusas, Basilisks and Whirlwinds in an army led by Inferox may take Phosphex ammunition.

Soul of Fire The blazing heart of his pitiless legion, Inferox epitomised the power of unchained fire, its ability to consume all and leave nothing behind. Inferox is immune to all flamer based weaponry, and Fusion, Melta, Plasma and Volkite weaponry have their strength reduced by 2 when firing at him. In addition all his shooting attacks have the shred special rule.

Armour of Hades This blazing suit of armour, wreathed in flames gives Inferox a fearsome visage, and makes it harder for foes to hit him. The Armour of Hades confers a 2+/3++ save, and in addition all successful hits against him in close combat must be re-rolled.

Flame-Claw Gauntlets The Primarch’s signature weapons, these can both project streams of tainted fire at range, or else be used as devastating close-combat weapons. They have two profiles, one for the ranged shots, and the other for close-combat attacks.

Flame-Claw Gauntlets (Ranged) Range: Template Strength: 6 Ap 3 Type: Assault 1, Shred, Ignores Cover

Flame-Claw Gauntlets (Combat) Range: Melee Strength: 8 Ap: 2 Type: Melee, Shred, Murderous Strike, Paired (+1 Attack)

Phosphex grenade launcher This weapon fires the deadly, earth-tainting Phosphex to utterly purge Inferox’s enemies. Range: 18” Strength: 5 Ap 2 Type: Assault 1, Crawling Fire, Lingering Death