Order of the Valorous Heart

Order of the Valorous Heart
Founding	M.36
Daughters of	The Daughters of the Emperor
Canoness Superior	Unknown
Specialty	Sisters Repentia, Fighting Xenos, Masochism
Allegiance	Imperium
Colours	Black armour, with black coaks with red linings.

"Pain is the sister who fights at my side. Pain recalls to me my wrongs that I might strive in pursuit of penance. Pain insists that I stand my ground, steady my aim and fight on though my life blood falls like rain to the thirsting soil. Pain is an ally. Pain is a friend. Pain is truth."

– Sister Erynica N’botu, Order of the Valorous Heart

"People don't have these tidy little redemption arcs in reality the way they do in movies."

– Diablo Cody

The Order of the Valorous Heart is an Orders Militant of the Sisters of Battle. They are the most aggressively penitent of all sisters Orders by a long shot; aggressively stamping out heresy with murderous zeal, and being the order with the most Repentia squads on average.

About the Order of the Valorous Heart

The Order was founded by Saint Lucia, ironically one of the more reasonable of Alicia Dominica's sisterhood, but was also one of the most penitent, and clearly the one most affected by getting to meet Big E in person, and played her part in ending the Reign of Blood. As a result, she was very guilty about the whole "Reign of Blood" thing, and when she was put in charge of an order of Sisters of Battle, she instituted an Order-wide feeling of guilt deep into the hearts of every single one of their Sisters, and went about going to worlds where the Imperial Faith was essentially non-existant, and violently reinstating it wherever possible. As per usual, Lucia met her end in an especially violent way, kidnapped by recidivists who tortured her and a bunch of innocent civilians and her own battle-sisters to the point of death, though her battles sisters never once made any noise to spare her from the already miserable pain she was going through. Though after getting one's eyes plucked out, one could argue pain's sort of relative. It was that martyring that sparked the Order to go on a Galaxy wide manhunt for the Recidivist cult who claimed she'd actually given up hope at one point and forced them to admit it was bullshit. After that it's unknown what happened, but given their proclivity for gritty, ruthless violence, you could can probably figure out what happened next.

The Valorous Heart's beliefs are based in their deep institutional need for repentance; Saint Lucia herself believed that the Adeptus Sororitas alone held the guilt in letting Goge Vandire be a massive jackass to the entire Imperium in the Emprah's name, and that level of maniacal guilt and need to repent is clear across their combat and their belief system. They believe that numbing or attempting to run from pain is to deny faith the ability to ignore suffering, and as a result tend to bring less Hospitallers and use less pain-reduction stimms and numbing agents than most other Orders (though a minor hospitaller order is basically tied to their hip, so it's more that they refuse the help of other Valorous Heart sisters), to the point of refusing amputation even when it would be medically necessary. They believe that scars are reminders of the martyrdom of Lucia, and losing an eye brings you closer to understanding how she felt during her final hours. Oh, and in case you thought they got away from this when they aren't fighting, they basically torture each other by sticking their hands over open flames or dig chainsword teeth into their bodies while reciting prayers begging for the forgiveness of the sins of the Daughters of the Emperor, so as a result of all of that, these women look completely jacked up. Their institutionalized guilt means that they're intensely paranoid about the faith of those around them, leading an Order with a higher-than-normal amount of Sisters Repentia in their ranks, ready to go vent their problems with staying faithful with unusually brutal methods, even for Sisters. They even fight with the intent on getting hurt, as they try to cut the enemy off from supply lines and infrastructure, and basically force the enemy to fight these maniacal sisters one-on-one if they have to, and make themselves nearly impossible to move. They also tend to bring a shitload of Retributors with them to keep the enemy pinned into fighting the raging psycho-lesbians with chainswords or melta-weilding women screaming hymns at each other. While their methods and methodology are...well...insane, and maybe lightly chaos-tinted, it's clear that it is working, as numerous death worlds feature sanctified temple-fortresses dedicated to the order, and xenos and heretics over in Ultima Segmentum fear the jet black armor of the Valorous Heart.

In the 42nd Milennium, they got into the same trouble that a lot of Convents did, in that the Great Rift opened and Dark Eldar and Daemons and all that good stuff came pouring out of the rift and keeping them pinned into protracted assaults. They also lost a ton of their preceptories, but they do believe the Emprah watches them as they mow down their enemies, seeing the Dark Imperium being cut off from the Astronomican as just like when Lucia lost her eyes, and call this "The Hour of Abacination", and steel themselves through their holy BDSM to face whatever comes next.

Notable Campaigns

A typical Battle-sister of the order showing off their hallmark all-black armor, and trademark faces that look like they've gone through a weed-whacker.

• First Savaven Crusade (555.M38) - The Cardinal World of Savaven falls to cultist nonsense thanks to them all hanging out in crypts, and the Order of the Valorous Heart take the world back in a decade after burning the place and it's cultists to ash.
• Orphean War of Faith (903-922.M39) - Many of Segmentum Tempestus' fall into Chaos' hands due to the Imperium being too far away to do anything about it at first, and the call is sent out to get together and take back as many worlds as they can, set into motion by an Arch-Confessor who's seeing vivid visions of the Emperor. He, along with the Valorous heart and a couple of other Sisters orders, Grey Knights, and some other Space Marine chapters go into a twenty-year grind that ends with a massive imperial victory. Bt the end of the war, only a fifth of the entire sectors population is dead. Sadly, this achievement would be 80% undone by those pesky Necrons of the Maynarkh Dynasty during the regular Orphean War.
• Aschen War - The Aschen sub-sector gets drowned in the Chaos Cults of the Night Lords and their edgelord demon price "the Horned God". The Dark Hands and Exorcists are sent to deal with them. The Valorous Heart, as well as a couple of Imperial Guard regiments, go to do support.
• Serpheris Secundus Intervention (M41) - The order is called upon to go help clean up a mutant uprising. Flaming and shredding of bodies follow.
• Achilus Crusade (777.M41) - The Order joins the Jericho Reach crusade, and like everyone else, they take a shitload of casualties.
• Battle of the Penitent (938.M41) - They and the Order of the Ebon Chalice get completely pinned to the ground by Warboss Blackaxe, and only survive after falling back to a cathedral, and the sacrifice of hundreds of Sisters Repentia. The Repentias buy the Orders enough time to open the gates of the cathedral and show that they'd stored about a dozen Penitent Engines behind them. They fight their way out on the backs of those machines.
• Plague Wars (100s012.M42) - The Ultrasmurfs and a newly-awake Primarch need a hand in getting rid of the big scary Nurglite invasion that just came barging into their own little sector, and the Order of the Valorous Heart show up to go do some spring cleaning.
• An Unwelcome Resurrection on Vesmir II (M42) - firmly entrenched in the Dark Imperium, the Order takes refuge in the Vesmir system, where they set their fortifications on the orbital hive city orbiting Vesmir II, and are aided by massive mining elevators that go straight through the planet's crust and give the Order and other imperial forces a much needed supply line to successfully fend off Chaos incursions twice in a row... but then the elevators stopped working. A Canoness recognized immediately that the stop and massive energy signatures being seen on the planet's surface were the result of the fact that Vesmir II was in fact a Tomb World. The Canoness knows she can't fight a war on two fronts, but figures maybe convincing the Chaos Space Marines and Necrons to fight each other is a better plan than having them fight the Hive city, so the order descends onto the planet's surface and tell the Guard to hang on tight until they get back from the 'Cron store.

On the Tabletop

Now, knowing what you know about the Valorous Heart, you're probably expecting the entire order to have a shitload of special rules regarding the Repentia, right? Yeah, no. Not this codex. The thing that the Valorous Heart does better than anybody is sit in one place and entrench themselves so deep they lay eggs on that spot. Their Conviction is "Stoic Endurance", which gives a tasty 6+ FNP to everyone with an <Order> tag, and ignores AP-1 and AP-2 within 6 inches of the Imagifier. Everything else in their arsenal gives them something to boost the toughness of their models, and the best way to play them is to simply sit in a spot and keep the Invulnerable save bonus'd up. In cover, if you can.

Gallery

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