The Sorrowful Years
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| [//Vox Volnoscere and a Marines Saturnine Envoy discuss strategy+] [//edward_r/@death_of_a_rubricist et tom_k/@ghostys_neon_rust+] |
“A veil shall fall. Brother will fight brother; and when it is withdrawn, a son will find his father.”
[+Gammer Wychwood, Seer and Prophetess+]
Skirmishes of the Sorrowful Years
The Sorrowful Years was a lacuna in major battles that lasted for three years in the middle of the eight-decade War of the False Primarch. Engendered by the Diet of Fools, the Chapters of the Pentarchy of Blood turned inwards on a mass recruitment drive. In turn, the Partisan Chapters fell to recovery, rearming and repairing their strongholds as the False Primarch prepared his grand assault.
With the Pentarchy Chapters turned inwards, primary defence of the region fell to the Extinction Armada and the forces of individual planets.
Garrison forces of the Pentarchy continued to resist the gradual advance of the Partisans, none of the Chapters launched any major offensives. Instead, a low-grade war of small probing advances, espionage, strike and counter-strike began between small groups of Marines and special forces on both sides as they sought to undermine the other sides' efforts to rebuild.
It is a measure of the horror of this civil war that this period is recorded as one of rebuilding, entrenching and reinforcement for all involved. The scanty evidence, however, lies against this neat interpretation. While the Chapters Astartes grew and recovered, the common folk of the Sector, the very flesh and blood of the Imperium, were subjected to their erstwhile protectors' harrowing and unpredictable advances.
Small groups of Space Marines collided in skirmishes all across Heliopolis, and beyond. Where they fought, others suffered. Villages and towns all across the spectrum of the Imperium's many culture-types were wrecked or indelibly marked by the vicious and no-holds-barred skirmishing. Thus was the period well-named: The Sorrowful Years.
***
Orthodox Kill Teams
'Here before me are collected the true and righteous; victorious by the grace of the God-Emperor. Those who stand and serve me; I hail thee God-killers.'
[//Aramis Enoch, Master of the Extinction Armada and Hand of the Twelve+]
Charnel Guard
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| [//Killteam: ] [/liam_m/@6pluspainting+] |
From left to right: Ranict; Alerios; Helios (Squad Sergeant); Durus; Lythak. 7th Ostire members and veterans of Ishim, the five members that survived the War of Kadath were tasked with holding the line at Artex, Abraxas Subsector, against the Inheritors.
The Charnel Guard, swollen in size and ambition by the events of the Diet of Fools, were increasingly visible after the Sorrowful Years. Where before they had dutifully provided support to their fellow Blood Angels' descendants, the Flesh Eaters, Chapter Master Gorn had moved to the fore as Velghor became increasingly absent from high command assemblies.
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| [//14th Ostire, Fourteenth Squad+] [//matt_t/@spacedhulk+] |
'Orfeo, as with most of the experienced Charnel Guard, had been assigned his own squad. He was ancient beyond mortal comprehension, even by the standards of his kin. Pale, greying skin clung tightly to his skull, a thin veneer of life barely masking his skull. Breath hissed from mechanical lungs, steaming into the humid air of the Hive from the respirator fused to his face. I would learn later the injuries had been inflicted by a greenskin's flamer during the War of the Beast, over a thousand years before.
'Though rendered in the same gloss black and crimson livery as his freshly-blooded battle brothers, his armour was artificed and embellished far beyond anything I had seen previously. Sculpted blood drops and an angelic visage proudly declared his genetic heritage. In stark and brutal contrast to this artistry were the severed skulls mounted to his power pack, their eyeless sockets staring at me in silent accusation. Parchment rendered from human skin was draped across his left hip, whilst the now infamous Rose of the Pentarchy was emblazoned upon the immense power gauntlet so popular amongst his Chapter.
'Yet for all his dark and brooding majesty, it is the smell I remember most vividly. In my work for the Inquisition I have encountered death countless times, and the foul, pungent scent of it is always unmistakable. But until the Charnel Guard assigned Orfeo and his men as my bodyguards, I had never experienced that stench from a living being.
'They were the bringers of death. Eaters of the slain. Carnage and destruction made terribly manifest. The stink of blood and gore and rancid flesh followed them everywhere. Even now, when I think of them, I smell it still.'
[//Magister Optix, Ordo Plenum+]
***
Death Eagles I
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| [//Tactical Squad Vengaarl, Combat Squad I, 3rd Battle Company+] [//alexander_l/@noctuscornix+] |
Even at this stage of the War, it was unclear to the Partisans that the two Death Eagles Chapters were not one and the same; and the two – while maintaining only cold political relations – frequently attempted to sow further confusion by adopting alternative schemes like the Codex night-pattern example below.
On top of this, the Death Eagles I were internally riven by their Chapter cult, as explained here. The Holy Canon so core to their being had made their organisation rigid; and the Sorrowful Years saw the Chapter suffer the growing pains of huge internal strife. On the battlefield, however, this affected their effectiveness during the period not one jot. The striking sight of the Holy Warriors of the Death Eagles buoyed the spirits of Orthodox forces wherever they went.
***
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| [//Kill Team identval{incerto}+] [//oskar_s/@greenstuffflu+] |
Unidentified Death Eagles Kill Team, pictured after the failed night attack at moonbase on Corinthia Triari, Cambyses subsector. With the intent to degrade the defending Riven Lords' martial integrity by focussing on the oil fields and tankers, the assaulting Death Eagles found themselves outnumbered and at tactical disadvantage – worse; as if the defenders had intercepted intel, all the oil proved to have been moved off-planet before the attack was launched.
After a bloody withdrawal, Pentarchy forces saw little choice but to bombard the moon, reducing the entire planetoid's surface to dust and rendering the moon base unusable for further operations. The failed attempt to take control over the moonbase and oil fields are thought to have prolonged the war for Cambyses by several years.
This alternative night-scheme pattern follows Codex strictures; and is a perfect example of the Death Eagles' obfuscation strategies. Indeed, so effective is this that we cannot be certain that this is a Death Eagles I Killteam: note the use of the Death Eagles II pauldron iconography alongside Death Eagles I colours. Depending on your interpretation, this is either a highly disrespectful choice, or a particularly effective tactica bellum.
***
Death Eagles II
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| [//Kill Team Brolo – note the carbon-black compound honour-stave markings; each recording an action within the past galactic-standard year. The fighting during the Sorrowful Years was both high-intensity and frequent+] [//edward_r/@death_of_a_rubricist+] |
'Make the mark count. Mark the count. Count your marks and see victory done.'
[//Death Eagles catechism+]
The Death Eagles II, having suffered catastrophic losses at the hands of the Jade Talons, Void Barons and Riven Lords in the early part of the war, spent the Sorrowful Years well. Their scout Company was expanded and hothoused, with dozens of Kill Teams being created and serving against non-Astartes foes. Menawhile, their power-armoured brethren continued their cool, calculating strikes against harder targets.
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| [//Kill Team ident {incerto+] [//oliver_n/@magos_nexnbo+] |
***
Flesh Eaters
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| [//The famous 'Jaws of Doom': Vaustus, Jael, Gregor (Squad Sergeant), Yanus, Faethor+] [//paul_h/@the_midnightmare+] |
'Abraxas Subsector.
Donias System.The Shrine of the Joyous Pilgrim.A bolt-hole for followers of the Abomination unto Him.Suffice to say, none of those that turned from the Emperor's light survived. Mission complete, my Lord.'
[//Mission report, Sergeant Gregor, Jaws of Doom Squad+]
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| [//Kill Team: Sineaters+] [//paul_h/@the_midnightmare+] |
A gigantic brute of an Astartes, he was known as the Secerăte de Întristar in Olde Karpathian. Translated loosely to the Harvester of Sorrow in High Gothic, he soon became known as the 'Harvester of Sin' amongst the followers of the Emperor, for the fearful toll he meted out upon the traitorous Partisans; Astartes and human alike. Was he one of the Chapter's Chaplains? An officer? Or simply one of The Lost of unrivalled power?
While his nature would not become clear until after the Sorrowful Years, the Harvester appeared only at the head of the Flesh Eaters' Death Company; and was marked as much by his silence and the forbidding fixed helm as his stature. He brought to the Abraxas region the twin gifts of blood and death through the mighty war mace Purgatory and crackling clawed gauntlet The Tears of Perdition.
***
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| [//Kill Team Edict+] [//dennis k/@the_iron_within+] |
'Threw the rad-bomb, it did; and those that perished in its blast I count fortunate. For then they were among us; and those that by the blade they did not kill, by the hand they killed. Even I am dead; though me they missed; for the touch of Destroyer is the touch of Atom. The caress of the Black Wurm, it is, and from that, none escape. Though they may walk yet, they are dead men.'
[//Caef Hwl, Lamb's World 2nd+]
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| [//Space Sharks Combat Squad in camouflage variant armour+] [//johan_b/@johannusminiatures+] |
Some claimed the Carcharadons' peculiar warrior-cult was diluted somewhat by their integration of geneseed alien to their forebears; but the Ordo Xenos saw nothing other than hybrid vigour. It is true that the hurriedly-uplifted intake struggled with the thick tongue of their sponsors and used the Low Gothic 'Space Sharks' in place of their archaic title, they were no less resourceful, intimidating and terrifying in battle.
The pictured squad fought over the dusty ground of Cambyses Primary, engaging and destroying infiltrating Iron Guard and Wormwood Sons alike.
***
Red Talons
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| [//Kill Team: Regal+] [//dennis_k/@the_iron_within+] |
'I have nothing for you, wretch. Spend your mortality elsewhere, for I have not even the edge of my blade to spare for the likes of you.'
[//Brother Klogg, Red Talons Sixteen-Eight-Four.]
The Red Talons preferred full-scale operations, and so their activity during the Sorrowful Years was mainly restricted to garrison duties and counter-operations, rather than active pursuit. Nevertheless, the Talons were far from idle; and their few Kill Teams were almost invariably a portent of Company or greater strength deployments against those enemies they rooted out.
Vigilants
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| [//Kill Team Last Blade+] [mikl_h-w/@duckcalledsue+] |
'The Vigilants! Well-named they were; for Kill Team protocols were not merely their craft, but their entire raison d'etre.'
[//Inquisitor Dah-Ji, Ordo Pacificus+]
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| [//Hound Epsilon. L–R: Bryn Llorn, Jaroslaw Ubbe (Sergeant), Mathias Tullius, Orbeross Matangi, Artor Lightgangen+] [//robin_p/@darth_grimbeard+] |
During most of the conflict, members of the broader Hound organisation were typically deployed at Killteam scale. Designated as Hound-Epsilon, the pictured unit spent much of the war engaged in Head-Hunter missions over the Myrean Shield-Worlds at the behest of the Ordo Astartes. Thanks to a significant supply of Kraken Penetrator rounds, they accrued an impressive tally of Partisan kills, including a number of Silver Stars' officers.
***
Partisan Kill Teams
'Let this be my covenant. I ask of you everything you have. Let it be counted against me in trust. Give me your arm, and your eye, and your heart; and you will be repaid tenfold.''Never, therefore, forget me. Never forget what I owe you. Never, then, will you be lost.'
[//attr. Volnoscere+]
Inheritors
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| [//Fire Team Bodhi+] [//lars_j-d/@lars.j.dahl+] |
The Inheritors would occasionally deploy formations such as this during the course of the war, always at the behest of Decurion Kamakanei of the Silver Star's Kapihe, liaison to the Chapter. Why these ad-hoc formations existed, and what exactly was their purpose, could never be ascertained.
As with so much associated with the Silver Stars, the truth remains clouded in mystery and obscure half-truths.
***
Red Fish
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| [//Kill Team: Shell Weavers+] [//@genericbuzzard+] |
A dependable, if largely unremarkable Tactical Squad of the Red Fish's Fifth company, the Shell Weavers experienced casualties of forty percent during a single, vicious encounter with a Demi-squad of Charnel Guard in the opening months of the Sorrowful Years.
Red Fish Marines showed a tendency to develop into generalists, with a solid grasp of a myriad of the facets of warfare, rather than specialists, who were devoted to one manner of making warfare. While it gave them nearly unsurpassed flexibility, it was known to have disadvantaged the Red Fish in the brutal, close quarters combat that so many of the Pentarchy chapters favoured.
As the War dragged on, Red Fish Marines who survived encounters with their more brutal counterparts swiftly learned to engage their foes at long range, to deny the enemy openings to engage in their favoured melee combat.
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| [//Squad Agum, Marines Orcinus+] [//harry_k/@the_cadaver_synod+] |
"Atmospheric impact in t-minus 30, all hands prep for insertion"
As the drop pod ripped through the air, lancing streams of anti-air fire rushed up to meet it, scouring great rifts in the dark sky. Inside, the pod's six occupants scanned through mission briefings and expected resistance numbers.
'Remember brothers, our primary target is this line of Generators, designation Omicron through Phi. Only after these have been destroyed and the defense turret network deactivated do we have permission to engage other priority targets.'
While his lack of lower jaw rendered him incapable of smiling, Sergeant Agum's one remaining eyebrow raised and twitched as he focused on each of the pod's other inhabitants in turn.
'This does not, however, mean that we will be ignoring any of our cousins we may encounter, after their acts against our wards.'
'Impact imminent – prepare for immediate deployment! Brace brace brace!'
The pod smashed into the earth, plumes of dirt and dust erupting skywards even as the doors swung down and a cry of vengance emerged from within:
'Remember Ul-Hiyar! For the Red Fish! For the Primarch!'
***
Marines Saturnine
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| [//tom_k/@ghostys_neon_rust+] |
“I know Posthuman dread when I see it, or 'Astartes Shock' to the layman. They're too big and too heavy to move the way they do, and the brain sometimes simply can't handle it. Doesn't help that an Astartes in combat ain't the glorious sight that scripture leads you to believe. It's brutality that your mind rejects. Whoever this poor sod came up against, whatever horrors he’s witnessed… it has left him in a catatonia that he won’t recover from. Considering he is still able-bodied… I’d recommend an immediate Servo-lobo op. It’d be a mercy really.”
[//Chief Surgeon Vorsten Myles, Officio Medicae, evaluating a single survivor of a Marines Saturnine Kur-Raid during the Sorrowful Years, circa M33+]
***
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| [//Kill Team: Ash-bearers+] [+nick_t/@k0rdhal//] |
First Squad, Second Company, known as the 'Ash-bearers'. They are pictured with the Ruinbringer Koschei (Captain of the Second). Made up of veterans of the hell-wars that made up the Gehenna Rift campaigns, they would not balk at turning their arms on their cousins. For what is an Astartes when compared to the horrors of the Inversion?
Star Wardens
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| [//Kill Team: Wicked Void+] [//james_h/@inky.beard+] |
'Our father. Our gene-father. We have waited for centuries, sometimes patiently, sometimes depairingly; and now he has returned to us.
'And you think you will take him from us? Heh. You are much mistaken, Red Talon.'
[//Frater Weasand+]
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| [//A fire team with a mix of both scarlet-handed and gilded-arm Star Wardens shows that the spiritual divisions ran through every layer of the Chapter. L–R Harrower Morhalt, Rampager Caradoc, Blood-brother Yvain+] [//sean_d/@nomadpainting88+] |
'Yvain. Bastard. That was what we all knew him as. Cold. Brutal. An ooze. A tool and a bad one at that. He lacked all comradeship with his brethren and took subtle delight in gaining the ire of his kin. Naturally he would follow Morhalt to the very end, both of them rotten, their gene-seed unfit to return to our vaults. In fact it was Yvain who first posed the question to his dread-frater of the Abominations heritage. Our heritage. To call Yvain a true believer is false, he was not, he only believed in the egotism it brought; for it stoked his already inflated sense of self importance. Never did Yvain snap to heel and heed the call of his betters. Always did he saunter through the years believing himself equal to the rest of us. How could he be? He was born on a starch-barge. Plebian scum. It was no wonder he turned on his family. Destined to ever be a sword and never a shield for our Chapter, I am glad that Caradoc pummeled his skull to a fine paste inside his helm. May his corpse forever rot on the rad-wastes of Kharak Thirty-Three. I ordered the scav-corp to leave his war plate and armaments. I truly believe even the machine spirit that shrouded him was infected with his moist filth. Bah.'
[//Excerpt from the Memoir-Reductor+]
***
Iron Guard
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| [//Kill team Magor: L–R: Jakab, Balázs, Tóth, Magor (squad Sergeant), Virág and Egyed+] [//@mutantsnakeeyes+] |
The Iron Guard entered the war on the Partisan side like a sledgehammer. Few had perfected the naked aggression of boarding actions quite like this most direct of Chapters. Squad Magor of the 4th Company operated from a swift strike cruiser named Fene's Hunger and are recorded as having completed more boarding actions during the war than any other unit in the chapter. It was by their actions that numerous Pentarchy ships were lost, including Sanguis Vitae, The Oliphant and Perpetuum.
Whilst breachers Balázs and Tóth carried the squad's special and heavy weaponry respectively, battle-brothers Jakab, Virág and Egyed made up the kill team's line troopers. Each marine displays considerable variation both equipment and heraldry, as was common in the Iron Guard.
Originally a full squad of ten marines, by the middle of the Sorrowful Years they had been reduced to just six. That so many of the squad still lived despite the brutal boarding actions in which they fought is a testament to the squad's skills and sheer grit.
***
Silver Stars
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| [//████████ ███ ██████ █████+] [//edward_r/@death_of_a_rubricist+] |
“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
[//Marcus Aurelius, Meditations+]
█████ ██ ███. █████████ ███ █████ ██████ ███ ███████. ████ ███ ███ ████ ██████████ ██ █████, ███████ ███ ███████. ███ ███ has its own unique qualities. A ██████ ████ ██ ███ ████ ███ ████ ██ █████ ██; but rather ████ ████. ██ ███ ███ 'Canticle' was not ███ █████ █████ ████ ████ was seen.
[//Attr. Kapihe Riverhead+]
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| [// Killteam: ████ █████+] [//gunnar_l/gunnarlopez08+] |
███ █████████ █████ ███ ██.█ ██████ ████ ████ – 'Orion' ███ ████████ ██ ███ ███████ ██████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ███ ██████ ██████████
[//unattr.+]
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| [//████████ Ke Alaula+] [//james_t/@the_pigs_sty+] |
Where the Marines Mendicant ostensibly formed a cadre of Astartes specialists dedicated to the elimination of threats to Volnoscere, the Oki-hāmau (lit. ███ █████ █████) did not occupy a fixed place within the formation of the Legion, but rather it was the name for teams raised on an adhoc basis for specific ████████. The commanders of Oki-hāmau cells were afforded a great deal of latitude in how they achieved their mission objectives and many came to favour a ‘combined arms’ approach when assembling their teams.
Ke Alaula (lit. ███ ███████ ████) consists of an unidentified member of the Kapihe, four Void Hoplites and the Furibundus Dreadnought Ikaika, presumably selected less for stealth than for ‘shock and awe’. ████ █████ █████ ██ ███ ██████ █████.
***
Jade Talons
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| [//adam_s/@adam_james_creates+] |
'The bigger the prey, the bigger the spear.'
[//Samsaran proverb+]
The Sons of Samsara were masterful hunters, and matchless in jungle terrain like that of their dense, fever-ridden homeworld. Their Kill teams were as idiosyncratic as any other part of the Chapter – elusive, quick to laughter, and bearing some of the most advanced and peculiar equipment of any of the Partisans. Rumoured to have the patronage of a Techpriest who claimed direct contact with a Primarch, the Jade Talons were quick to join the Partisan cause.
The Vox Volnoscere is said to have compared them to leopards; noting that they served best unleashed.
***
Void Barons
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| [//Sapper Team Atrokles+] [//simon_v/@heresyhobbyheadquarters+] |
Long used in the frenetic ship to ship battles of the Void Barons, Sapper teams were composed of veteran astartes, who excelled in zona mortalis engagements. Armed with modified bolt guns and bandoliers of explosives, Sappers were often both the first and last sight of a target.
Pictured above is Sapper team Atrokles. Atrokles led his kill team throughout the Years of Sorrow, accompanying noted Partisan sympathizer Aldo Neostis as he acted as a privateer throughout the Morqub sector. Atrokles and his men would find themselves repeatedly targeted by Carcharadon Astra purge teams, though reports of Atrokles were reported as late as the Fall of Siklon. His unit was known to have accounted for at least two Pentarchy officers during the late war period.
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| [//DECA-579: Active on Outopus+] [//jericho_a/@5_grots_in_a_humie_suit+] |
'This image is problematic. Heavy with intentional obfuscation, the identity of the blue, yellow and gunmetal figures is only tentatively identified as a possible Codex variant of the Storm Tyrants' plate. The figure in the centre, meanwhile, is almost exaggeratedly costumed as this mythical 'Diologus'.'
[//Interrogator Dane, Ordo Propter+]
'Every member of the Guard or Navy in the Myrean League seems to have a story about this verdammt piratical reaver; but it's never first-hand. Always an uncle, or drinking buddy, or soldier long-since-transferred. That the Marines Mendicant are reduced to dressing up as bogeymen to scare the troops clearly shows they're on the back foot.'
'Burn the thing. And for Throne's sake do it yourself. I don't want the bloody lower decks getting hold of it.'
[//Admiral Heilo, Battlefleet Heliopolis (Reserve)+]
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| [//Kill team Aegis; led by Sergent Arturius+] [//matt_s/@sonofnemeton+] |
+ Deployment: Abraxas. Opposing: Flesh Eaters; Charnel Guard; Death Eagles. Of all these, it is the Charnel Guard I respect. Gorn's men balance the ferocity of the Eaters with the control of the Eagles. Ward yourselves, brethren. This will not be an easy victory. +
[//Lieutenant Fabian, Second Company+]
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| [/Kill team Pre-emptive Retaliation+] [//cameron_m/@dizzyeye.01+] |
Depleted and bereft, the remaining warriors of the Firebreak fought to avenge the death of their homeworld. Stoic, they regarded the loss of Frith not as an ending, but an opportunity. The world, they said, had taught all it could; had passed on all it was worth knowing.
The final lesson? One of contrition. Life continued after death – in a form. Extinction was a transformational event, and all the surviving Sons of Frith came to hail the Last True Son.
[//'The Grim Host'+]
[//@drybrush_mafia+]Range estimates scrolled across Dadrico's display. He shunted the data to his team-mates with a blink.'Pentarchy strong point, some seventy-five meters ahead.'Below, the team was in movement. Sergeant Menerio Ageios had decided on a course of action in the moments he'd first seen the vid feed from his scout.It fell now to his brethren to make that plan a reality. Behind him, his enhanced hearing perceived the micro-clicks as his demolition specialist individually programmed the fuses on his frag-cannon shells via the input screen on his wrist.Luciean Steele was a masterful example of what mathematical precision and well-aimed man-portable artillery could achieve. Around the corner of the destroyed hab-block, Deanym Trayne braced his modified Infernius-pattern heavy bolter and prepared to unleash suppressive fire."On your initiation, Brother Achith..."Without a word, the scout picked off an unaware mortal soldier with a clean headshot from his stalker- pattern boltgun. Before the headless corpse had hit the scorched earth, Trayne and Ageios had exited cover and unleashed suppressive fire against the barricades concealing their foes. A half-second later, Brother Steele fired four frag-canisters at precise locations.The fifth and final round struck the charging Charnel Guard marine squarely in the shoulder guard, his own post-human reflexes saving his life for the moment. As he charged the Riven Lord Kill Team he was met by the tectonic impact of the final member's thunder hammer, knocking him from his feet.Brother Pieter Gabriel switched his grip on the immense weapon as he stepped from his hiding place, bringing the weapon over his head in a two-handed downward arc to finish his downed foe.The ping of hot metal was all that broke the silence, aside from the faint crackle of an errant fire somewhere nearby.Without a word, the Grim Host continued towards their objective...***Marines Mendicant
[//Kill Team: Castoff Contain+]
[//edward_r/@death_of_a_rubricist+]'Let none deny the Last True Son.'[//Grafitti found on Sarassass City subways in the wake of the Void Baron invasion+]
[//Kill Team: Seraph Static+]
[//cameron_m/@dizzyeye.01+]Kill Team Seraph was a typical unit seen fighting within the timeframe of the Sorrowful Years. Sent with the directive of securing important Partisan assets, they would be later seen in support missions involving the vindication of HVTs of the Extinction Armada within the later years of the War's end.Redacted sources imply members were chosen for their medley of skills, but also for being united in the crimes committed against them. Brother Sergeant Gon Morh of the Firebreak, for example, was one of the first to land on Frith after it was reaped by the Pentarchy.***Third Party Kill Teams
While they were the most visible, the Orthodox and Partisan Astartes elements were far from the only combatants. Indeed, human, abhuman and non-human forces formed the bulk of both activity – and prey – in the war of the False Primarch. To attempt to catalogue them all would be the work of madness, for so much has already been lost, never to be remembered...Ecclesiarchy
[//Battle-Choir Theta+]
[//jamie_c/@mutantsnakeeyes+]Battle-Choir Theta had the dubious honour of being one of the few units to fight on both sides of the war.
Originally serving in Richephanes' shadow army, it was tasked with proving the existence and nature for the Ecclesiarch and the Holy Church of Terra. They were then assigned to Morgetheon's army on Sanctram and witnessed Verashyon's great betrayal. Holding the rear guard, they held the line long enough to allow Morgetheon to escape the Pentarchy's attack.
Only twelve men would survive.Battle-Choir Theta was disbanded and the survivors were relogated to tertiary duties. However, after their role in stopping the first attempted assassination of Morgetheon, the Kill team was re-instated and ordered to proactively remove any threats to the Heliopolean Ecclesiarch's life before it arises.This took them into the heart of the Pentarchy territory and there are a number of fragmentary reports of the Battle Choir's actions throughout the Sorrowful Years.
No one can say for sure whether any survived the War of the False Primarch though rumours speak of a veteran soldier wearing a black cowl in the employ of Inquisitor Archezoff some 79 years after the war who would speak after serveral rounds of amasec about witnessing a demi-god in action...***Inquisition
[//Ordo Astartes [+CLASSIFIED+]
[//oskar_w/@ruinstorm_militia+]
'His nature is at the root of this. Therefore, seek it out.'
[//Doctrina Pacificus+]
***
Chapters of the Annulus Vow
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| [//Kill Team: Orchid+] [//benji_b+] |
+DATACOMPILED//VARIOUSSOURCES//+
Angels of Ruin Astartes engaged in various sabotage, espionage, abduction, assassination, and intelligence gathering operations during The Sorrowful Years.
The identity of only a few of the marines can be confirmed as reliable first-hand combat accounts are remarkably scarce. Very few other recorded Astartes combatants were confirmed alive after an engagement with the kill team, and only one mortal first hand account exists.
What can be confirmed is the wider Chapters vow to uphold the Annulus Umbra, and previous combat records against elements of the Riven Lords, Void Barons, and Frateris Templars; the latter being attributed to aggravated pilgrim fleets attempting to arrive, and forcibly bypass, the exclusion zone in the galactic north of the over all war theatre. Their excuse being that they came to assist in 'The Emperor's holy war' though none bore any clearance codes or writ of passage valid enough to enter.
***
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| [//Annulus Vow: Panaceans+] [//luca_h/@datacrypt_624+] |
++DATAspoolload]}|=%//---compl/++++++Development Corrections Group STERN, Chapter Astartes: Panacaeans+++As the first formation of this obscure Chapter that saw Combat Action post-Bisarra, DevCorr STERN was the focus of much of my early investigations. Led by Knight-Hygienist Tybor Stern, this unit rapidly became a keystone asset in the Partisan Propaganda effort. From the Sorrowful Years onwards, dozens of incidents of sabotage, infiltration, assassination, and other forms of information warfare were carried out by Stern and his Group of Veteran Astartes Operatives. For further details on the subject, refer to my Archives, crypt-stacks 77-gamma to 112-aleph/5.
[//HIS humble servant, Inquisitrix Sil Benhada, Holy Ordos Astartes.+]
***
Pirates and opportunists
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| [//Kill Team of Craftworld Dain Mir+] [//brenton_c/@imago_apis+] |
'Their persistence in the face of Humanity Dominant might almost prove admirable, were they not so monstrously alien. For the Eldar have ever been infamously elusive, their taste for open and honourable warfare thin. In this, the Dain-Mir are typical of their kind. Many theories for their presence here have been extended to me – aiding the Abomination; opposing it. Some even claim they created it – but all theories are ultimately pointless. To attempt to understand one's foe is a blasphemy. I, and therefore all of you, need know only one thing of the Dain Mir: that they are unwelcome here, and should be prosecuted with all possible vehemence.'
[//Master Enoch, Ordo Astartes+]
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| [//The Schuylkill Irregulars+] [//sean_z/@Forges_of_Zed+] |
'War is chaos, and chaos invites opportunity, and opportunity means profit.'
[//Ivan Patryk Schuylkill+]
Even small conflicts invite piracy and banditry, but in a conflict on the scale of the War of the False Primarch, piracy is no longer an opportunity but a necessity. Both sides employed numerous void-faring privateers, from renegade human pirates to professional raiding elements, to even the occasional xenos warband. Among such forces were rogue traders of a variety of different reputations.
The rogue trader Ivan Patryk Schuylkill and his Irregulars was a privateer force that was employed by the Orthodox forces to launch raids on enemy supply lines, critical manufactorum and recruitment worlds, and act as forward scouts for larger invasion forces.
***
Adeptus Mechanicus
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| [//Kadathian Kill-Clade, 'The Empty Hand'+] [//nick_t/@k0rdhal+] |
[THEVOIDISEMPTYANDDEVOURSALLWHOGAZEUPONIT]
Part of the Nihil Circulus Black-ops programme of Forgeworld Kadath, The Empty Hand undertook numerous deniable ops, attacking Orthodox research stations, Vigilant groups, Inquisitorial conclaves and even Ecclesiarchy Grand Choirs. Despite their infamy, their existence was never corroborated or confirmed by Kadath.
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| [//Kill Team Amarantha+] [//juno_a/@warppainter+] |
+STATEMENT+Forgeworlds are declaring support for this Primarch. Mars, the Mechanicum, can ill-afford another schism.+QUANDARY+ But neither can it send its might so soon after the last one.+RESOLUTION+ So I'm sending you. Bring the Forgeworlds back in line, back to Mars.+EFFUSIVE+ Do what you have to, I leave everything to your judgement.+QUERY+And the returned Primarch?+DISMISSAL+I leave everything to your judgement.+THREATIMPLICIT+Mechanicus is to remain unified, under Mars, whatever the outcome of this conflict.+
[//Fabricator General Nero-Gollos to Magos Amarantha, on the eve of her departure for the Segmentum Pacificus+]
Imperial Guard and auxiliary forces
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| [//Kill Team: Brass Tacks+] [//nick+] |
'The Ebla regiments. Loyalists, very long history of Imperial service – unbroken, in fact, since the Great Crusade. It's to this you can attribute their old-fashioned – and therefore superior – equipment, Lord-General. Never apply identifying numbers; making them maddening to work with. Troops pre-hardened in the PDF, veterans from the off. From a munitions-producing world, heavily equipped.'Always mechanised, all powder-weapons for shock and noise value. Favour outmanoeuvring and overwhelming the enemy. Maintain grenadier platoons in every unit for heavy assault – storm troopers, in effect.'Despite high commissariat attrition rates, faith in the Imperial cult is unusually strong. Unpopular with other troops generally for being headstrong, independent and uncommunicative as well as being ‘straight and narrow’ on worship.'Ranks above sergeant unclear- use terms like Bashar and Burseg for commander and subcommmander. Specialise in anti-traitor combat. Aggressive, which combines badly with poor communication to often leave them overexposed. Usually effective, never popular. No Eblan officer has ever been promoted above regimental leadership. No Eblan regiment ever follow orders exactly to the letter.'In short, Lord-General, the qualities that make 'em such a pain in the arse on the battlefield is exactly what makes 'em so damned useful as Kill Teams. You can deploy 'em where you like; those little Centaur battle-tractors will make sure they do the High Lords' will where you need 'em to. If you'll permit a little informality, they'll stick it right up those Partisan bastards'
[//Marshal Neys Brecht, during his brief to the Lord-General Laurens d'Blanche+]
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| [//james_t/@the_pigs_sty+] |
'...I recall reading about the Void Hoplites of the Saturnyne Ordos in an account of the early years of the Great Crusade, and how they kept the predations of Old Night at bay for centuries before the armies of Unification reached the Polities of Saturn.'With the formation of the Legiones Astartes, one might well question the purpose of continuing to train and equip men and women for the Solar pattern Auxilia – but as I have seen, there are roles to which shock troops like the Astartes are ill-suited; such as pathfinders and peacekeepers and it was in these arenas and more that former Void Hoplites excelled to such a degree that the Solar Auxilia became a template utilised throughout the galaxy.I am uncertain whether the Argyntum Stellæ set forth from Sol in the company of cohorts of the newly minted Solar Auxilia or whether they became allied with them later, though of course even allowing for the time dilatory effects of travel through the Immaterium or repeated juvenat treatments, any who might have traveled with them into the darkness beyond the stars would be long dead.Regardless of how long they had been in his service, it was clear that Volnoscere recognised and appreciated the capabilities of the Void Hoplites, even going so far as to afford them the honour of wearing the heraldry of the Legion including the Stellæ Argentae...'
[//Cassar Illiatauri of the Chamber Borealis+]
The exceptional training and superior equipment of Void Hoplites complemented the combat capabilities of Astartes well, and the degraded remnants of the once-powerful Solar Auxilia were responsible for multiple successful decapitation strikes and disruption raids prior to the cessation of their operational status.
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| [//Kill Team: Undu+] [//mike_v+] |
“Heed not the idealogues and myth-claspers, my resilient kinfolk. We must persevere at the forges and the foundries. Production is our noblest endeavour, proud Sardau, and profit our supreme reward!”
[//attr. Guild Grandmaster-Engineer Brom Grindl before the Lagour VI Catastrophe+]
The Red Fish and Wormwood Sons enjoyed a number of mutually beneficial alliances with abhuman regiments of the Morqub Sector, and the Squat League of Bron in particular provided staunch – if distant – allies to both. Squats have long memories and have frequently banded together against 'longshank' aggression (both commercial and martial); it was as a result that the Squat-dominated system of Vostaval, in Myrean space, turned to join the Partisans after a period fighting alongside the Vigilants and broader Orthodoxy.
***
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| [//Killteam of the Caldrassian Fusiliers+] [//gunnar_l/gunnarlopez08+] |
With over one hundred regiments active at the time of the War of the False Primarch, the Caldrassians , hailing from the industrial world of Caldras in the subsector Pythinia, were a well-known commodity in the Segmentum Pacificus. Fighting in defence of worlds such as Tarantus, Vestibal, Rybal Secundus, the Caldrassians sold their lives dearly.
As the war continued, Caldrassian regiments were unfortunate to be fighting on both sides of the conflict, with a particularly tragic incident on Vestibal where Colonel Packhan of the 88th regiment, fighting for the Primarch, wiped out his own father's regiment that was fighting for the Pentarchy. The elder Packhan was killed along with most of his men in their failed assault.
Their valiant, loyal service doomed both themselves and their world, which was subsequently forced into service as a penal colony for three millennia.
“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”
[+Sé Leóþcræft of Gefeoht, Chang Qing fl.~M.0+]
***
Warfare on a Sectorial scale
Planets bear rich and complex histories and cultures of their own, but they are little more than pinpoints on a Sectorial scale. Even entire planetary systems are as densely knotted as atoms on this measure. Likewise, army groups and fleets do not stretch between the stars in any meaningful way. However massive in human scale, starships and marching boots are effectively invisible at a strategic level. Pickets and interdiction fleets rely far more on gravity signatures, trace engine-spoor and blind luck than they do on active sensors. To attempt to occupy the void is as senseless as emptying an ocean with a sieve.
Step back even a pace from the tactical level, and Sector-wide planning is considerably more about politics and manipulation of personalities than blunt martial capabilities. It is perhaps why the Twelve High Lords of Terra proved such implacable foes for the False Primarch.
Decisions must be made in order that thinly-drawn resources are spent wisely. The Key Systems tracked on a sectorial map represent only those regions strategically vital to the Imperium of Mankind. They highlight Cardinal sytems, Forgeworlds Majoris, Naval bases and the like – the organs of empire. Even Chapter Homeworlds, Castellan planets and lesser Forgeworlds – puissant and noteworthy though they may be – fall into the Systems Minor, documented only on a much smaller scale.
***
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| [//Sector Heliopolis+] |
Indeed, despite the culture-ending scale of warfare that the War of the False Primarch represented, of the seven thousand or so stars that lie within the combined Heliopolis–Morqub cluster, many of the fifteen hundred or so inhabited planets contained therein avoided warfare entirely. Many of the inhabitants went about their day-to-day routine, working, loving and passing on in peace and with utter ignorance of the existential threat even then transpiring beyond their vision.
Most, however, did not.
Warfare on a Sector-wide scale is inherently complex and difficult to track. Operations that involve whole worlds are written into Tacticae and Histories. The up-close aerosolised blood and reek of ordure of the battlefield; the frantic flailing of abruptly-truncated limbs and haunted, despairing weeping boxed and tidied into rhetorical or literary abstractions; numbers and arcs made of these pinpricks of horror against an uncaring velvet backcloth.
Placed neatly into the context of strategic sweeps, grandly-titled offensives can be described in terms of feints and wings and flanks – but in truth, such warfare bears little resemblance to the ground warfare from which it takes its name.
Whatever his nature, it is a measure of the abilities of the 'Primarch' that he was able to shepherd and structure an assault across a sector, in what opened the mid point of the war.
Even he, however, was limited to sending broad groupings. Even he had to admit division, and structure his goals in a manner that could be achieved by the Astartes and warriors that followed him. As one steps forward from the Sectorial scale, down through subsectors and into individual systems; worlds; continents; landscapes... even he had to let go and allow his lieutenants and aides make the decisions on the ground.
Prior to his mass offensive, then, the groundwork was laid in the ten thousand battles of the Sorrowful Years. The selection of Kill Teams above are but a fraction of the thousands that fought in the often-bewildering warfare of the Sorrowful Years.
***
'There was never any doubt in my mind. It was the divine son of the Emperor, blessed be his throne. As regal and angelic as any of his brothers. To follow him into battle was not merely an honour, but a necessity. How could his Lords of Terra have fallen so far as to deny his divinity?'
[//Lieutenant Leonid Barbala, Caldrassian Fusiliers+]
***