War Scribes

Legion II

Generalists, Tech-lovers

Legion Tactics

Cautious, methodical, and predictable, and have an odd tendency to be brilliant when planning grand campaigns, but being more uncertain than most in the maelstrom of personal combat at the tactical level. Some Legions appreciate the War Scribes’ oversight of their wars, and others deride them for percieved cowardice. They lack the bloodlust that most other Legions are known for, preferring a solid, relentless advance, backed by the highest technology they can muster. Where other legions favour boldness, the Scribes favour tried and proven methods, and do not deviate from them. They are dour warriors, not given to emotion on the battlefield, but to those that earn their trust, they will go to the ends of the Galaxy to assist them in their times of need. Their favored weapons are Dark Age relics, and the Legion is replete with them compared to almost any other Imperial force. Even in the 40th Millennium, the Chapter and its successors will have access to much that the rest of the galaxy has forgotten.

Legion Equipment

Legion Doctrine

Because of the Scribes love for knowledge, predictability, and the written word, the War Scribes were encouraged by the other legions and their Primarchs to author the Codex Astartes following the events of the Heresy, with the help of the Crusaders, Steel Marshals, Thunder Kings, and Scions.

They disagree with the Mechanicus in many areas, not least of which is their refusal to hoard technology. The War Scribes do not innovate technology, but they do reverse-engineer it at every opportunity, and disseminate the information to the worlds they conquer, and to the Imperium as a whole when possible. Unfortunately, after the Heresy, the Mechanicus forced the War Scribes to do no more than gather technology, and there is bad blood between them. Any knowledge they do share is almost exclusively limited to the Atalantos Worlds they rule as overseers, for they cannot risk the ire of the Mechanicus too directly. Though the War Scribes aren’t inclined toward political maneuvering, they’ve had to learn to balance the other pillars of the Imperium against the Mechanicus to maintain their autonomy. It is fortunate that they have the authority of being a First Founding Legion to support them.

Space Marines know no fear, but the War Scribes don’t handle Chaos incursions very well, mentally or tactically. They can’t predict the unpredictable, and this puts them at a steep disadvantage. Against Material foes though, their brutally powerful relic weaponry makes them a force to be reckoned with.

The Isstvan Massacre nearly destroyed the entire Legion, and they were completely unprepared for their betrayal at the hands of the Traitor Legions. Despite being a respectably large Legion of nearly 90,000 warriors, only one in thirty Marines survived Isstvan, leaving a bare 3,000 to carry their Primarch back home. The only reason the Legion remains a viable force to this day is the large number of small squads dispatched galaxy-wide to hunt relics, these numbered almost 10,000 and were called back to brace the Legion. Without those reinforcements, which the Mechanicus had no knowledge of, the War Scribes would surely have been annihilated when the Mechanicus attempted to sear their homeworld to the bedrock in an attempt to remove the War Scribes' Primarch from impeding their goals to control the Imperium from Mars, rather than Terra.

As it now stands, the War Scribes are a fleet-based chapter, operating within the loose confederation of worlds known as the Atalantos Worlds, for though the Legion survived, their planet was torn asunder in the apocalyptic clash of forbidden, ancient technology. For the briefest of instants, they and the Mechanicus fought as Dark Age Mankind might have, holding nothing back. The War Scribes Chapter of the 40th Millennium looks much like it did in the 30th, wielding Crusade-era weaponry alongside handfuls of even more ancient relics. They defend their treasures jealously, still remembering their defeat at the hands of the Mechanicus.

Notable successors

Knights Draconian Sort-of Not!BlackTemplars. The first Chapter Master of the Knights Draconian, Nicholai Galilei, served as liaison officer to The Entombed during the Istvaan V campaign. While recovering from the wounds he suffered there, Galilei criticised the War Scribes' strategy for failing to properly co-operate with the other legions present. While the critique was not harshly worded, it created considerable controversy - especially because Arelex Orannis, busy with other duties, did not publicly reply. Internal dissent within the War Scribes made the break-up of the legion for the Second Founding painless: those who agreed with Galilei left, those who disagreed remained in their original colours. Subsequent bust-ups with The Entombed and the Eyes of the Emperor left an embittered Knights Draconian believing that co-operation is largely impossible. Big fans of the Inquisition.