Eclipse Jackals

Renegade Tagma emblem of the Eclipse Jackals.

The **Eclipse Jackals** are a renegade unit of Astartes born from secretive experimentation done by an Apothecary known as the Form-Flayer to create a unit of Blackshield Chymeriae. As a faction they are loosely aligned with the Traitor Legions but have rejected the worship or gifts of the Ruinous Powers of Chaos on multiple occasions. The Eclipse Jackals see themselves as an entirely distinct organization similar to the old Legions called a "Tagma". This band of Space Marines were made from the Blackshield organization of the same name during the latter years of the Horus Heresy as contingency against a counter assault by members of the Shattered Legions of the Drop Site Massacre.

## Tagma History

During the aftermath of the Drop Site Massacre, there was a considerable concern of a potential counter strike from the Shattered Legions via aid from the Emperor in replacing their lost numbers. One rogue Apothecary from one of the Traitor legions believed that this was a very likely case and began investigating potential avenues of preventing this, often through stealing information by having his vat-grown thralls infiltrate data holds as serfs from all of the Traitor Legions, even the Alpha Legion, and transferring the captured files through their cranial-data implants into an encrypted channel on his vessel. This rogue apothecary was not as stealthy as he had hoped and was swiftly brought before one of the officers of the Sons of Horus for his presumed treachery.

However, after his immense display of a capability to synthesize vast amounts of battle data and analyze logistical weaknesses in the Legions based on their gene-seed qualities, the captain in the XVIth Legion informed the rogue Apothecary that he had not been discovered by the Sons of Horus, but by his own legion. Instead, the Captain presented him with an offer; he would fake his death, abandon his prior name, iconography, and Tagma in order to focus solely on the study and experimentation in order to create a weapon capable of preventing the Shattered Legions from being able to return from full strength. He took upon himself the identity of a slain Drukhari Haemonculus known as the Form-Flayer, and repurposed his planet’s lab into one meant for the apotheosis of Space Marines and for the creation of the replacement Form-Flayer's new weapon. Not only did he abandon such details but his identity appears to have been actively deleted, perhaps by the Inquisition, or perhaps even earlier during the Heresy by the Traitors.

The Form-Flayer’s experiments were largely with gene-seed to attempt to understand and potentially better produce Astartes for the fight against the Emperor’s forces. His answer to the problem of the Shattered Legions was profoundly arithmetic. Each side of the Heresy had nine Legions at their disposal, the advantage of the Traitors was the slaughter of such great numbers of the Salamanders, Iron Hands, and Raven Guard. If it were the case that the Salamanders, Iron Hands, and Raven Guard were to be replenished back to full strength, the best solution to the loss of a numerical advantage is to simply re-establish it. While the Form-Flayer had been effectively removed from his legion, he secretly planned the creation of a new one.

The Form-Flayer believed that the way to do this was to steal gene-seed from two of the Legions gene-stocks, and create Chymeriae Blackshields using an advanced form of methods used by similar apothecaries at the time. In order to do this he would need a large supply of gene-seed that lacked physical mutations, degenerations, or an inability to produce certain organs. However, in order to ensure Tagmaintegrity, and to instill his potential legionaires with a common system of values and psychology, he dually intended to find gene-seed with intense psychological effects on its Astartes.

When recalling the nature of the War Hounds intense sense of brotherhood, personal pursuit of honor, and tribalism against other Astartes, the Form-Flayer decided on experimenting with the combining this aspect of the pre-Angron World Eaters and the innate fanaticism and compulsory loyalty instilled by the Word Bearers' gene-seed would be an ideal method in order to produce warriors that would honor him and his creation, the Tagma above all else. The Word Bearers were one of the few legions of the Astartes to truly swell their numbers throughout the Horus Heresy, and because of this there were vast shipments of gene-seed being used to mass produce Inductii for the Great Company, most of which who were not outfitted in power armor. The World Eaters were also mass producing Inductii at a similar time. The Form-Flayer quickly planned and executed a set of hijackings of an Inductii ship from each legion, killing its crew, extracting their progenoid glands and taking the rest of the gene-seed stock aboard the ship. He was able to claim roughly a thousand from each.

After splicing the genetic material of different assemblies of the gene-seeds sequence parts from the two legions, the Form-Flayer successfully created a testbed Astartes of the combination he believed was the highest quality and rapidly grew the germline cells of the selected progenoid glands, denucleated them, and implanted the nuclei of these cells into the germline cells of the Word Bearers and World Eaters gene-seed, causing them to grow and culture organs of the hybrid stock rather than their own individual ones. The Form-Flayer had justified to himself that the Word Bearers would eventually squander what was valuable in their gene-seed via the corruption and mutation of the Warp and Chaos possession. The World Eaters would do likewise at the cultural level by feralizing themselves at the feet of the Blood God until their gene seed too was tainted to the point of being unable to be propagated.

Upon successfully creating his hybrid gene-seed zygotes they would need to be cultured to produce gene-seed for two thousand of his Tagma however, the Form-Flayer knew full well that this would not make enough Astartes to combat the potential restoration of the Shattered Legions and that most of the implantations would fail as they generally did with all Astartes. However, he had a plan to mitigate this. It is believed that the Form-Flayer was at least somewhat involved in dealings with the Alpha Tagmaas he did have access to their disguise and cloaking tech. More importantly, he knew of the existence of the untainted Primarch Project gene-tech stolen from the Raven Guard by the Alpha Legion. He succeeded in stealing this genetic technology by tracking down and contacting an Alpha TagmaApothecary that was working on the use of Raptor Project's genetic technology for another Chymeriae project. Luring him with the prospect of corroborating their work, the Form-Flayer killed and ate the Apothecary to absorb the information through his Omophagea. The Form-Flayer began the process of incorporating the molecular machinery of the Raptor genetic material into his own Chymeriae stocks for various experiments.

After this work the Sons of Horus visited the lab to examine his weapon and after three years of planning, the Form-Flayer was ready to culture the final, Raptor enhanced version of his Chymeriae however, only the half of the gene-seed that takes five years to mature and develop would be ready within a reasonable time to give to the Traitors. The Sons of Horus felt that their resources were being squandered on the Form-Flayer’s "enhanced weapons" and that they were too slow, and too costly to produce. They ceased to guard his lab or supply him with key materials. The Form-Flayer had been rationing however, and after the Horus Heresy’s end he had fully created his army of 4,000 warriors from the descendants of former slaves of the Drukhari of the Kabal of the Twisting Bone.

## Notable Campaigns

The Eclipse Jackals were the driving force of the four large scale crusades known to the Imperium as the Mercayne Wars, a series of conquests done by the Tagma to establish control over the Ultima Segmentum or Eastern Fringe. While this ultimate goal has been largely unsuccessful as the Eclipse Jackals have never conquered the Eastern Fringe as a whole, they have established a fully contiguous and powerful empire of their own via these crusades. This empire is reffered to as the Mercayne Ascendancy

## Homeworld

Rather than having a singular homeworld or fortification the Eclipse Jackals carry a singular artifact of their philosophy, and any place where it safely resides is considered the "Den of Black Stars" this sacred space holds the Sanctum Shard a massive piece of black igneous rock that was flung from Nuceria's surface when the planet was bombed by the Dark Angels. The Shard bears the Legion's symbol on its black surface, stained greyish white with ashes believed to be taken from the lumber of the burned Cathedrals of the city of Monarchia. The artifact is immensely sacred, with all initiated Space Marines of the Tagmahonoring their forebears by reciting the names of the dead heroes of old with their left hand on its centre and their right on their second heart.

## Tagma Organization

### Command:

* **Master of the Tagma**

* **Praetor** - Senior Staff Officer Cadre.

* **Consular Representatives** - Senior representatives of the Armourium, Astropathic Chamber, Navigators-Plenipotentiary, Apothecarion, Masters of the Fleet, Castrum of Ordnance, Castellans of Domain, et al.

* **Vexillarius** - Bannermen, Subalterns and Equerries.

* **Oathguard**

### Tagma Assets:

* **Planetary Domains**

* **Capital Class Warships**

* **Secondary Escort Squadrons**

* **Tagma Armourium**

* **Tagma Apothecarium**

* **Auxiliary Forces** - Non-Space Marine, usually non-Chaos Traitor Guard.

* **Tagma Support Corps** - Victuallers, Commissary, Tagma Serfs, Indentures, Servitors, etc..

### Great Companies

Each Great Company are composed of roughly 1,000 line Astartes, but as the Tagma has grown and declined cyclically over time, this number began to vary substantially by time period, and also through the availability of replacement recruits. By the time of the 33rd Millennium, it was decided that Great Companies must remain at 1,000 Astartes and are divided into smaller companies if their numbers exceed that. If they have 2,000 Astartes the Great Company is simply divided into two.

Great Company I

Great Company II

Great Company III

Great Company IV

Cohort I:

Cohort Command: Legatus

Cohort Consuls (Senior Specialists and Advisors)

Cohort Vexillarius (Standard Bearers, Subalterns and Equerries)

Cohort Command Bodyguard

Cohort Assets:

* Strike Cruisers

* Navigators Ordinary

* Drop Pods and Rams

* Light Gunship Squadrons

* Super-heavy Detachments

* Skimmer Strike Detachments

* Support Artillery Detachments

* Techmarine Covenants

* Apothecarium Sections

* Reconnaissance Sections

### Warhosts

Nominally Cohorts numbered five Warhosts, each of a hundred soldiers. Warhosts I was composed of Veterans and other elite units, II, III and IV were line companies and the Vth Warhost was composed entirely of specialist troops such as dedicated Assault, Outrider or Destroyer units. However, in practice there have been many times that the Tagma's numbers have swelled, and as such they regularly exceeded this number of companies, maintaining battalions with seven or ten companies each folded under a particular command, while individual companies also varied in strength

Warhost I

Warhost II

Warhost III

Warhost IV

Warhost V

Warhost Command (Example): Warhost Captain

Warhost Bannerman

Warhost Command Bodyguard Pack

### Warhost Assets

* Heavy Support Packs (10 Space Marine Legionaries)

* Assigned Veteran or Specialist Packs (Various)

* Gunships

* Rhino Armoured Transports

* Tank Detachments

* Support Weapons Batteries

* Dreadnoughts

* Techmarines

* Apothecaries

* 1st Lieutenant

* Packmasters are the most junior officers of the Legion. The numerical positioning of these officers within the Warhosts indicated seniority or ceremonial role and had further titles in rank

* Tagma Tactical Pack (20 Space Marine Legionaries)

* Tagma Tactical Pack (20 Space Marine Legionaries)

* Support Pack (10 Space Marine Legionaries)

* 2nd Lieutenant

* Tagma Tactical Pack

* Tagma Tactical Pack

* Tagma Tactical Support Pack

* 3rd Lieutenant

* Tactical Pack

* Tactical Pack

* Tagma Tactical Support Pack

Warhost VI

Warhost VII (etc.)

Great Company III

Great Company IV

Great Company V

Great Company  VI

VII Great Company

Great Company VIII

Great Company Command: Commander

Great Company Consuls

Great Company Vexillarium (Great Company Bannermen, Subalterns and Equerries)

Great Company Command Oathguard

Great Company Assets:

Great Company Flagship Battle-Barge/Capital Ship

Planetary Assault Craft and Drop Ships

Escort Squadrons

Gunship Squadrons

Great Company Armourium

Tagma Armoured Divisions

Cohort I

Cohort II

Normally each Cohort was composed of five hundred line Legionaries each, as well as various specialists and support staff

Great Company IX

Great Company X

Great Company XI

Great Company XII

### Specialist Units & Formations

* **The Canid Circle** - The Canid Circle was created by the Form-Flayer himself in mockery of the Word Bearers Ashen Circle. They serve to destroy the previous cultures of conquered planets and "rehabilitate" them as worlds of the Mercayne Ascendancy.

## Combat Doctrine

The Eclipse Jackals emphasise garrisoning and combined arms warfare with artillery units supporting infantry. However, due to the nature of their gene-seeds secretive genetech alterations and World Eater lineage, much of their infantry works in melee based units for the purpose of shock assaults.

## Tagma Culture & Beliefs

The Eclipse Jackals Tagma has a vitriolic animus against religion and the Imperial Cult, but also towards entities of the Warp such as Chaos. As such the members of the Chapter are dogmatically focused on supplanting religious cultures and replacing them with one of fierce methodological naturalism. The Jackals value the ideals of the warrior's will, strength and abilities as being devoted to the whole of the Tagma over any one individual, and they are fiercely proud of their geneseed line.

## Tagma Recruitment

The Eclipse Jackals recruitment is drawn from all members of their Ascendancy and they refer to their Scout units as Inductii similar to the rapidly produced unarmored units from the Horus Heresy.

## Tagma Gene-Seed

The Gene-Seed of the Eclipse Jackals appears to be surprisingly stable and lacks physical mutations or inabilities to produce organs. It behaves in a way much like that of the Word Bearers and the World Eaters. However, the gene-seed is said to have a much more pronounced impact on other elements of the Tagma’s morphology. Almost all Eclipse Jackals bear a striking resemblance to one another to a level almost unheard of among even Astartes of the same genetic lineage. This gives them strong similarity and solidarity much like the effect that Horus’ gene-seed had on the appearance and practices of his sons. Most of their physical traits are very clearly identifiable as bearing resemblance to sketches of either Lorgar Aurelian or Angron prior to their respective ascensions to the status of Daemon Primarch. Eclipse Jackals are also known to be abnormally tall and muscular compared to other Astartes due to the influence of the Raptor project genetic material. They also have bright yellow-amber eyes like those of a feral canine.

### Gene-Flaw

* **Zealot's Wrath** - The Eclipse Jackals are prone to a synergistic combination of the Word Bearers and World Eaters gene flaws. They deem almost everything outside the Tagma's belief system to be anathema or heresy, and loathe it with a zealous fervor that would make a Black Templar appear as though he speaks words of pragmatism. They are often prone to lashing out in response to transgressions against their beliefs with psychopathically charged rages.

## Tagma Relics

* **The Shadowed Shields** - The Shadowed Shields are a set of black powershields used by the Oathguard of the legion. These powershields are believed to have been taken from the bodies of Salamanders after the blazes made by their flamers spread to their corpses and singed their armor and equipment. Early Eclipse Jackals saw them as befitting their origins as a blackshield experiment and wore these literally black shields on their sidearms for much of the remainder of the late Horus Heresy. Since that time they have been passed down through the elite terminator wearing veterans, the Eclipse Butchers

## Tagma Appearance

### Tagma Colours

The members of the Eclipse Jackals see their history as being inexorably tied to their time as a Blackshield formation. As such they honor their ancient Heresy-era tradition of wearing brassy-gold painted ceramite armour armed with pauldrons displaying their Tagma emblem on a red field.

## Tagma Emblem

In mockery of the Word Bearers and the World Eaters alike he made the emblem of the Tagma an eclipse over the sun symbol of the Serrated Suns Chapter of the Word Bearers whose solar corona bore curved fangs similar in style to those of the emblem of the World Eaters.

## Relations

### Enemies

* **Imperium** - Though the Eclipse Jackals are referred to as being a renegade chapter by the Imperium of Man, they were never a loyal chapter or Tagma of the Imperium and thus the Eclipse Jackals see themselves as independent from the Imperium, instead they have sought out the creation and holding of their own independent state known as the Mercayne Ascendancy. The Ascendancy exists in the Eastern Fringe though the Tagma maintains guerilla warfare and garrisons for attack across a much wider area of the other Segmentum of the Imperium.

* **Tau** - The Eclipse Jackals are strongly opposed to the Tau concept of the Greater Good and see their Spheres of Expansion as merely being failed attempts at the conquest of the Ascendancy.