Angels of the Void

Shoulder artwork of the Angels of the Void, depicting their cruel, daemonic mockery of the Adeptus Astartes symbol

Colour scheme of the Angels of the Void as displayed by a close-range heretic

## Chaos Warband

### **Allegiance**

Chaos
(*Traitoris Perditas*)

### **Origin**

Ultramarines
(Roboute Guilliman lineage.)

### **Home World**

Dark Terra (Daemon World inside the Eye of Terror)

### **Specialty**

A mixture of tactics are employed by each slaughter team

## Pre-Heresy

### **Colours**

White and silver

The **Angels of the Void** are a mysterious Chaos Warband that descends from the noble Astral Angels. Although a relatively small fighting force when compared to other heretic factions, they are still classified by the Inquisition as *Periculum Maximus* for their secretive ways and ability to deceive most Imperial officers that attempted to investigate their obscure agenda.

These traitors have been harassing the Imperium of Man since early 36th Millennium, when they turned their back on the Emperor. What is common sense among Imperial scholars is that they began their service to the wider Imperium during the Second Founding as a chapter named Astral Angels, descendants of the legendary Ultramarines. If any of the original members of the Astartes remain alive is unknown.

Currently, the Angels of the Void reside in the daemon world of Dark Terra, a blasphemous mockery of its realspace counterpart in the Eye of Terror. They are led by a mysterious figure simply known as the Dark Emperor who, by field reports regarding captured members of the warband, inspired more fear in his followers than anything else, and this loyalty was purely based on such dread.

## Warband History

The Angels of the Void were created at the end of the ancient civil war known as Horus Heresy as part of the honorific 2nd Founding of space marines chapters. Back then, they were called the Astral Angels, a fleet-based fighting force whose gene-seed descended from the mighty Ultramarines. For centuries, these astartes waged war in the Emperor's name, purging all who opposed His grace.

The Astral Angels were regarded as one of the most fervent chapters in their loyalty to the *Codex Astartes*, and spoke openly and freely against all that deviated even slightly from its wisdom. For that reason, it was rare for them to fight alongside other space marines, as attrition between them was almost a certainty. For their ancestry, they received many earlier patterns of equipment, such as cataphractii and tartaros pattern terminator armors and early Mks of power armor.

Throughout the ages, their culture changed and distanced itself dramatically from their parental chapter's customs and traditions, a fact that many students regard as a Warp influence, yet this is nothing but pure speculation at this point. What matters is that those Astartes developed a deep sense of superiority over the lesser humans, whom they saw as pity insects in desperate need of protection.Their grudge was specially potent against the High Lords of Terra and the Inquisition, as these groups constantly interfered with the chapters' independentcy.

The boiling point happened a short time after the 21st 'Cursed' Founding with the excommunication of the Blood Gorgons, a chapter which had been considered heretics for their deviant genes that were too dangerous to be left unchecked. The Astral Angels then started trying to gather allies in order to dethrone the High Lords and replace them with a council of chapter masters that would rule the Imperium.

Their choices of alliance requesting, however, proved their undoing. In a secret meeting, with its discussion content a secret to the invited, chapters from the same 'Cursed' Founding gathered to hear what the Angels had to say. When their leaders proposed such act of betrayal, their guests turned weapons upon them in an attempt to stop that madness right away, although some minor elements of the aggressors stepped forth to defend the "righteous cause" of the Astartes.

In the end of the battle that followed, the Astral Angels majority and their few allies from other chapters managed to flee their persecutors. They had no other choice rather than to cast their oaths of loyalty away and become Renegades.

During the centuries that followed, these Astartes tried their best to hide from Imperial persecution in realspace, making quick raids to unprotected garrisons to get resources and rapidly jumping away through the Warp in order to avoid retaliation. The situation for these once proud warriors was a rarsh one though, for they could barely sustain casualties without effectively losing much of their fighting power, and dared not to attack other chapters and steal their gene-seeds for replenishments.

Eventually, they drove themselves to the Eye of Terror, the greatest rift in realspace that connected to the Immaterium and its nephastous inhabitants. From this moment on, nobody knows for sure what transpired inside the crazy-driving hell that is the Eye. What is known for sure is that, less than a year after the Astral Angels and their allies entered the distortion, the Angels of the Void came out, killing and pillaging alongside daemonic machines and Warp creatures, all in the disconcerting, deepest silence war would allow.

Since their initial attacks, many discoveries were made about this mischievous group. First, it was noticed that they had daemons from all four Gods in their ranks, wHich indicates they worship Chaos Undivided. Second, after examination on their fallen warriors, conclusion was made that they have Astartes from all lineages, both traitors and loyalists, among their numbers, although those of Roboute Guilliman's lineage were more common. Finally, although suspiciously, when interrogating a living member of them, not without much effort, it was discovered by Lord Inquisitor Petrus Tyrannus the name of their leader and homeworld between his blasphemous cries of desperation: Dark Emperor and Dark Terra.

The Angels of the Void most recent struggle with the Imperium took place in the Palyphomas System in 103, M42. It was discovered by Lord Inquisitor Petrus Tyrannus that several seemingly random attacks on small ships in the system's border was a preparation for a major invasion. Altogether with the Solar Titans and members of the inquisitor's personal garrison, they were able to expel the heretics from the vicinity. The main objective of such invasion, however, remains a mystery, as does the information of the Angels of the Void achievement of it or not.

In any case, one certainty about this warband is sure: they will attack again, and when they do, the Emperor's blessing shall be the only salvation for those poor souls that fight against them.

## Warband Homeworld

### Twisted Home of Humanity

The Angels of the Void reside in a planet called Dark Terra, located in the interior of the Eye of Terror. It is a twisted mockery of Holy Terra, its surface entirely covered with blasphemous temples to the Ruinous Powers. All geographical places in humanity's birthplace have a distorted version in this nightmarish realm, including:

* **The Dark Palace**: an enormous building where the Angels of the Void's leader, the Dark Emperor, resides. It is said to be full of ancient tomes of dark knowledge and is protected by several runic inscriptions in its walls, windows and gates. It is also guarded by four Greater Daemons who constantly fight each other and their lesser kin for their leader's amusement.

* **The Cathedral**: This is where the warband's 18 leaders gather to take decisions and exchange information on how the better defeat Imperial Forces. This place mimics the High Lords Senatorum Imperialis, with slaves going around carrying profaned texts and delivering important messages to their masters.

* **The Angels' Fortress**: located in the world's South Pole, this giant fortification is where most chaos space marines of the Void Angels reside, where they train and keep their armoury.

* **The Gods' Palace**: insulting the Ecclesiarchy and its Imperial Cult, this palace is where the warband's Dark Apostles reunite to expand their beliefs in the daemonic entities of the Warp. If a member of the Angels wants to "ascend" and bond its soul to a daemon, this is also where the ritual will take place.

## Notable Campaigns

* **The Battle for Palyphomas (103,M42)** - this battle took place in the Palyphomas System, located in the Segmentum Ultima. The Lord Inquisitor of the Ordo Malleus Petrus Tyrannus was investigating a series of seemingly random attacks on small voidcrafts in the borders of the system. He was able to track the raids to a group of chaos space marines known as the Angels of the Void, a warband that was grouping outside the Palyphomes cluster to launch an all-around attack in the planets bellow. With the help of the Solar Titans and members of the Imperial Guard dispatched to aid the inquisitor, the Imperial forces were able to expel them from the stellar system, but not without many losses, including the Titans' former chapter masters Caroneel Fylacoon.

## Warband Organization

### Commanding Ranks

The Angels of the Void, unlike many other warbands, have a very strict set of organization and hierarchy among their ranks. This discipline has allowed them to defeat more numerous forces time and again, as their multitude of tactics is better used this way.

This warband is lead by its terrible leader, the Dark Emperor, who rarely goes to combat. It is divided into two inner factions, each one composed of Astartes from the original traitors and loyalist primarchs' lineage, called respectively the Fallen Angels and the Ascended Angels. Each one is lead by nine chaos lords, one for each primarch lineage they descend from. These groups constantly fight each other for gaining the favor of their Chaotic Lord, yet fight together when circumstances dictate so.

* **Dark Emperor**: The de facto leader of the Angels of the Void, no one knows for sure his identity or origins before he commanded this warband. Many have speculated that he was the Astral Angels' original chapter master, but this hypothesis have been proved false, for the former leader of the renegade chapter and his cruel monarch have been seen together in the battlefield. During combat, it is said that he wears a corrupted suit of terminator armor that resembles the catphractii-pattern, black as the endless void, and he is regarded as a giant with the speed of a lightning, whose combat abilities have no equal. Many also say that simply starting at his hateful, blood colored eyes drives lesser minds crazy and catatonic with his malevolent presence. Whoever this warrior of Chaos is, he surely embody all that is pure evil in the galaxy.

* **Chaos Rulers**: They are the leaders from the Angels and take direct orders from their Dark Emperor. Each one leads a slaughter team composed entirely of chaos same marines from their name lineage, with their numbers ranging from around a hundred soldiers to approximately a thousand. These chaos lords actually lead the warband most of the times, for the actual leader rarely steps forth to interact with his lessers. Every one of them wears profaned terminator armors said to have been blessed by their nightmarish leader. It is also worth noting that each rules takes a title for himself, such as Warsmith, Forgefather, Rune Priest and many other that resemble their former leaders.

* **Dark Apostles**: These priests from the ruinous powers are the councilors of the chaos rulers, helping them enact their will on subordinates and achieve obscure goals. These Astartes are also responsible for summoning daemons and binding them, as well as blessing the Angels' members before battles.

### Specialist Ranks

Each slaughter team has its own specialized ranks that define their fighting style. Usually these units of specialists resemble the team's original chapter's most notable formations. What follows are special troops found in most strike teams:

* **Chaos Riders**: These Astartes are half engineers half priests. Their role is building the warbard's vehicles and structures, binding these machines to powerful daemons and controlling them during battles. They are common in all slaughter teams for their importanty in maintaining the deadly war-machines working, including tanks, artillery pieces and dreadnoughts.

* **True Angels**: The Chaos Marines that went through heretical rituals in order to bond their souls with daemons in order to achieve greater combat prowess. They are usually deployed first in combat to wear-off the enemies with overwhelming power.

* **Void Wings**: Specialized in ship-to-ship combat and boarding actions, the void wings accompany all of the warband's ships in attacks to Imperial space. They generally wear modified jump-packs and lighter armors to provide better maneuverability in case of void combat.

* **Guardians**: The smallest of the special formations, they are composed of exalted champions that mimic their former chapters and legions honour guards. Their duty is to protect the rulers in combat, as well as fight the major threats in the battlefield, such as loyalist champions.

### Line Ranks

Every slaughter team has its more mundane forces that comprise the bulk of these forces. They are not particularly blessed by the Ruinous Powers, yet are able of obliterating enemy lines with ease. The disposition of these units in each team is up to its Rules. Those include:

* **Heavy Squads**: The Angels' wielders of heavy, portable firepower, these Astartes are deployed with heavy bolters, melta guns and potent flamethrowers to cause severe casualties on the opposing party. They are more common in the Death Guard, Iron Hands, Salamanders, Iron Warriors, Space Wolves and Imperial Fists slaughter teams.

* **Long-range Squads**: The followers of the Dark Emperor that specialize in long-range confrontations. they usually are deployed with precise, potent guns such as lasguns and stalker bolters and specialize in eliminating key targets in combat from a distance. They are more common in the Emperor's Children, Black Legion, Raven Guard, Night Lords, Alpha Legion and Thousand Sons slaughter teams.

* **Close-range Squads**: The most standard fighting forces in the warband, these highly versatile units are generally employed in infiltration missions with pistols, rifles and melee weapons, such as chain and power weapons.They are more common in the World Eaters, Ultramarines, Word Bearers, White Scars, Blood Angels and Dark Angels stlaughter teams.

## Combat Doctrine

The Angels of the Void take advantage of a multitude of tactics the achieve victory due to their genetic diversity. This way, no official combat doctrine can be pointed to this warband. However, they seemed to follow the same pattern when being led into battle by their leader, that is overwhelming enemy lines with sheer force of numbers while targeting opposing officers in order to demoralize them and establish chaos throughout their ranks. They do so by sending forth their mortal slaves first into combat, those poor souls wielding no more than crude blunt weapons. And while this former servants' death screams resonate in the battlefield, the Angels watch from a distance, immobile and silent, like stone statues of a lost age.

## Warband Gene-Seed

The Angels of the void have, among their numbers, Astartes from all different lineages created by the Emperor millennia ago. This has probably happened due to both volunteer enlistment in the warband and stealing of gene organs from fallen enemies in the battlefield. Because of their ancestry, they have to this day a major part of their numbers composed of space marines with Ultramarine's descendent and, as such, are the strongest slaughter team in the warband.

## Warband Beliefs

These traitors are considered worshippers of chaos undivided in general. In truth, however, each slaughter team is free to choose which one of the Deities are going to be venerated and called forth for help. Follows a list of each Chaos Ruler and their followers' beliefs:

* ***The Blood God Khorne***: Blood Angels and World Eaters (the scions of Sanguinius have long succumbed to the Red Thirst and the Black Rage).

* ***The Plague God Nurgle***: Death Guard and Salamanders (taking advantage of the drakes' also having an abnormal resistance, the Plague God infected them with a terrible disease that corrupted their bodies and souls)

* ***The Changer of Ways Tzeentch***: Space Wolves and Thousand Sons (the traitor Space Wolves chose to worship Tzeentch to dispute their lord's favor with their rivals)

* ***Slanneesh, She Who Thirsts***: Emperor's Children and Iron Hands (the latter worshipping the pleasure god for the centuries of abnegation to the desires of flesh)

The remaining teams worship the four chaos gods in-distinctively, each one in their hideous, blasphemous traditions and rituals.

## Notable Members

* **The Dark Emperor**: The cruel leader of the Angels of the Void, also known as the stalker of the void, said by many to be the "personification of ancient nightmare that lurks in the deeps of human mind", he is a powerful warrior like few seen in the galaxy's history. He is much larger than a regular Astartes, a fact credited to mutations and blessings by chaos. He is gifted with supernatural strength and speed, and has the ability to instill maddening fear in anyone that looks him in the eyes, a power credited to a pact with a mysterious deity.

* **Fleshfather Forost**: The Chaos Ruler of the Iron Hands. In battle, he wears a rare Tartaros-pattern terminator armor and several mechanical implants for body enhancement and emotional suppression wich toxic wastings and radioactive emanations drove him sick and mad throughout time. Now, he serves fervently the fourth chaos god hoping to free himself from the pain that afflicts his body and achieve the plesure he could not have in his life as a servant to the False Emperor.

* **Rune Apostle Wosper**: A Dark Apostle from the Space Wolves, he is strongly blessed by the lord Tzeentch. Once loyal, he used to inscribe the runes that protected this former chapter's marines against possessions from warp entities. Now, he inscribes runes with the opposite effect, attracting and imprisoning daemons. It is a widespread truth that he has dozens of lesser demonic creatures trapped in this armor's ceremonial runes.

## Warbard Appearance

### Warband's Iconography

The Angels of the Void's symbol pretty much resembles that of the Adeptus Astartes. However, instead of a human skull, their iconography is that of a daemonic, twisted skull, a clear mockery to the Emperor's angels of death. The behind the skull is also missing, but the meaning for this design preference remains unknown.

### Warband's Colours

The members of the Angels of the Void wear pit dark armors that resemble the lightless space between stars. They also wear grey motifs of skulls and bones, a distinctive characteristic from the Astartes that have sworn their lives to serving chaos. This color scheme strongly deviates from the Astral Angels' original white and silver colors for this equipment.

## Warband Fleet

* ***Dark Glory* (Unknown Class Battleship)** - The personal flagship of the Dark Emperor, this massive unknown class of battleship stays stationed in the orbit of Dark Terra, its crew ever vigilant to the dangers that may lurk in the Eye of Terror's deep space. This relic of a bygone age used to belong to the Astral Angels and was named *Glorious Flight*. Now, it is a corrupted shadow of its former self, its interior swarming with daemons that cantwell the ship's various technologies like they were living flesh being moulded by their unnatural thoughts.
* ***Torrential Strike* (Unknown Class Battleship)** - The destroyer of the White Scars slaughter team, this fast ship is, for obvious reasons, feared immensely by the Imperial Navy for its potent warp-drive mechanism. This technology has allowed the combat ship to make multiple jumps from in and out of the warp during battles, confusing the enemy and appearing right behind them to deliver the killing blow, or fleeing the confrontations where its limited firepower isn't enough with tremendous speed, leaving no chance for persecution.
* ***Midnight Harasser* (Strike Cruiser)** - This cruiser belongs to the Night Lords slaughter team. It is used primarily as bridge for boarding actions by the team's many void wings. The purpose of this strategy is trying to defeat their foes without damaging any valuable cargo that may be inside the opposing ship. For this reason, it has also been nicknamed The Raptor by other teams members.

## Warband Relics

* ***Blood Sword*** - One of the two weapons wielded by the Dark Emperor in combat, this blade has been forged from the spine of a Bloodthirster of Khorne defeated in single combat by the Angels of the Void's leader. When unsheathed, it emanates a black flame that can burn through almost any material. Sometimes, when a chaos ruler achieves particularly impressive feat in the fight to dethrone the False Emperor, he is allowed to use this powerful blade in battle for a time, as a sign of recognition by his master.

* ***Void Claws*** - Bathed in the blood of thousands, this lightning claw that belongs to the Dark Emperor works in a different way than most of its kind. Instead of producing electrical charges to harm the enemy, it has the ability to suck electricity in order power his master's armor and other equipment. This energy draining is enough to, given many strikes, can make armors and vehicles inoperable, rendering them paralyzed and easy prey to the stalker of the void.

* ***Corrupt Jar of infinite torment*** - A jar that contains the souls of the Angels that have fallen in battle. These precious sources of power are used as trade coins with the warp entities in exchange to their services for the warband. The souls trapped inside are tortured eternally, and their screaming faces are sculpted in the vessel's exterior.

## Relations

### Allies

* **Black Legion**: The Angels of the Void have been seen multiple times fighting alongside forces from Abbadon's Black Legion. Although not members of the strongest of chaos factions, the Angels surely are held with respect by the Despoiler. That would explain why a relatively small warband has not been harassed by the major chaos forces even if they reside in the most troubled area of the Eye of Terror.

### Enemies

* **Inquisition**: This warband is known to actively pursue and fight inquisitor targets. They believe the Inquisition is one of the Imperium's worst organizations for they are led by mortals who have authority over Astartes. This hatred toward the holy ordos is reminiscent of the time the Astral Angels were still loyal, yet believed no one but the Emperor and his bodyguards the Custodes should have the power over the chapters' independence.
* **Salamanders**: The followers of the Dark Emperor have a particular grudge against the Salamanders chapter for their inclination toward self sacrifice in order to protect the Imperial citizens, mortals that are regarded as inferior beings by the Angels. This force of chaos space marines delight in orchestrating combat situations in which massive civilian lives are lost when fighting against the sons of Vulkan in order to fixate fear and desperation in their hated enemies' minds.

## Gallery

 Tzeentch Warbands
 Nurgle Warbands
 Slaanesh Warbands
 Chaos Undivided Warbands
 Malice Warbands
 Minor Chaos God-Aligned Warbands

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