Imperial Wardens (Risen)

> The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory.
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> *Arvem Medius, Praetor-Militant of the Ulysses Regiments and Legion Master of the Imperial Wardens*
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## Imperial Wardens

### Primarch

Ulysses (Deceased - Pre-Imperial Unification)

### Observed Strategic Tendencies

Regimental Founding, Total Intergration with Mortal Forces, Minimal Astartes Deployment, Battlefield Leadership and Command

### Legion Homeworld

Unimatrix - The world of Unimatrix is held as a Relic World by the Legion, maintained as the deathplace of Ulysses
The Phalanx

### Warcry

The Imperial Wardens do not have a single battlecry, instead mimicing those used by the mortal regiments they lead into battle.

The **Imperial Wardens** are the IInd of the vaunted Space Marine Legions forged by the Emperor of Mankind at the onset of the Great Crusade o bring His light to the long-lost human colony worlds scattered across the stars. However, where other legions would fight in numbers great enough to conquer star clusters on their own, the Imperial Wardens were a dying breed, cursed with a gene-seed defect, near impossible bad luck and, worst of all, a Primarch dead before the Imperium even reached him.

All of this together made the Imperial Wardens combat ineffective soon after the Great Crusade had begun, their numbers too small and their genetic issues too great to see them rise to stand amongst the ranks of their fellows, and yet the legion would not go quietly into the night, no suicidal final actions as many believed they would do. Instead, the Imperial Wardens restructured, a Legion of Astartes in name only, in truth, becoming the lords of mortals, commanders of vast Imperial Army regiments.

Initially called the *Warden*-pattern Regiments, and later renamed as the *Ulysses*-pattern Regiments in honour of the IInd's deceased lord, these regiments soon proved their worth as ferociously powerful and compitent soldiers, armoured and equipped with the greatest pieces of wargear that could be manufactured en-masse for the numberless ranks. By the end of the Great Crusade, the Imperial Wardens and these *Ulysses* Regiments were utterly synonymous, one being interchangable for the other, making up the finest morta soldiery in the galaxy, much to the anger of the Solar Auxilia, who had once held such a title.

When the Great Secession reared its head and engulfed the galaxy, Arvem Medius initially tried to remain neutral in the conflict, acutely aware of the fatigue his mortal forces were already suffering after the decade long Rangdan War. However, are making planet fall on the world the galaxy believed the Palatine Lions had perished upon, seeking answers at the gravesite of another dead Primarch, the Legion found its hand forced. the XVth were not dead, but rather utterly insane, their maddened Primarch leading them against the Imperial Wardens and their mortal regiments, striking down many of them, including Arvem medius himself, before fleeing in to orbit, storming the *Hammer of Mankind*, the legions Gloriana-class Battleship, fleeing towards Secessionist space.

Now encased within a Dreadnought, Arvem was furious, putting out a general order to his legion and their followers. The Palatine Lions, and all openly declared Secessionist forces, were to be fired upon on sight, the Imperial Wardens to stand with the Emperor once more. Going to Terra, Arvem knelt before the Emperor, pledging his loyalty anew, preparing to stand and fight against the Secessionists who sought to destroy everything they had sworn to uphold.

Bloodies and beated as with all the legions loyal to the Emperor, as Terra fell, the Imperial Wardens were forced to flee into the Webway, some soldiers of the Unimatrix First and Only alongside them. Elsewhere in the galaxy, warriors of a hundred *Ulysses-*Regiments fought and died against the Secssionist menace, holding out for as long as possible, refusing to ever surrender, to ever take a step back, only death ending their duty, something they forced those who sought to strike them down to work hard for.

As the years past, the wilted legion began to perish, the neverborn assault, let in by the ascendant Solaris, tore through their ranks, until only Arvem Medius, Praetor-Militant and first Imperial Warden, remained. There, surrounded by the decaying corpses of his warriors, a bargin was struck, a bargain to save the IInd Legion where none other had made with the God of Entropy himself; Nurgle. The IInd Legion soon stood anew, raised up beyond their mortal shells. The Imperial Wardens were no more, now they stood as the Risen, the dead brought back as a curse on the living.

## Legion History

### The Great Crusade

#### The Geneseed Crisis

There was a time when the Imperial Wardens had one of the purest geneseeds of all the legions, rivalling the likes of the Paragon Order or the Void Watchers. However, this time is seldom remembered by any within the Imperium, even the legion barely able to recall such a time, due to the singular issue that changed everything about the Imperial Wardens; the Gene-Seed Crisis.

This event, though often referred to as a singular one, was in reality three distinct events, all of which struck the Imperial Wardens in quick succession, striking at the vulnerable genetic banks that allowed the warriors of the Astartes to continue their wars.

As the Emperor's Wars of Unity broke the bounds of Terra, the pacification of the Selenar gene-cults of Luna and the Martian Compact allowed the Imperium to produce and equip new Space Marines at an unprecedented rate, and the Legions began to expand to meet the demands of the vast new war across the stars.

This continued as the Great Crusade began, the legion moving away from the cradle of humanity as a large portion of their geneseed was dispatched from Terra, heading for Luna for establishment there alongside the other legions reserves, the IInd’s stores kept on Terra until last.

Some claim that elements of the Selenite cults still resistant to the rule of the Imperium and the Imperial Truth hijacked a defence laser and destroyed the ship carrying the IInd Legion's gene-seed, while conflicting accounts recount that the ship simply lost control and crashed as it was attempting to dock, whilst others claim that it simply vanished.

The loss of the IInd Legion's gene-seed reserve was a severe blow to the Legion's development, but it would not have endangered the Legion's survival if a second calamity had not occurred in quick succession, turning what was a mere setback into a crisis that would threaten their very existence.

Like all of the Legiones Astartes, the Imperial Wardens recovered the Progenoid Glands from those of its warriors who fell in battle. From these organs a fresh set of gene-seed implant organs could be grown and a new Astartes created to replace the fallen. This system was, however, far from perfect.

The nature of battle, and the manner in which Legionaries died, did not always allow for such recovery. To ensure that there were always organs ready to implant into new Aspirants, a vast reserve of gene-seed for every Legion was kept safe on Terra. From this emergency reserve it should have been possible to keep the IInd Legion supplied with new warriors, and even with the loss of the gene-seed reserve sent to Luna the Legion would have endured and in time grown; its survival should have been certain. But in a single night that hope was obliterated.

It was discovered that a fast acting viral blight had suddenly infected several of the gene-seed vaults on Terra, its cause and origin unknown. The Bio-Magi of the Mechanicum tasked with overseeing the gene-stocks feverishly sought to hold it in check as its progress threatened to wipe out in a matter of solar hours what had taken a century to build, but the doubtlessly artificial, and many surmised xenos, infection defied treatment, and it was only the intervention of the Emperor's own peerless bioengineering genius that was to purge the taint.

While many Legions suffered losses from this attack from an unknown quarter, the blight was found to have destroyed the remaining gene-seed stock of the IInd Legion in its entirety. From that moment the Imperial Wardens began to die.

While other Legions grew in size and glory as the Great Crusade gathered pace, the IInd Legion withered. The only way it could replace losses was from the Progenoid Glands of the dead. Without the Legion's Primarch, the Emperor and His gene-wrights could only rebuild the IInd Legion's gene-seed reserves with painful slowness.

As the process of rebuilding crept forward, the IInd Legion's strength dwindled with every battle, quickly falling far beyond effective combat strength, as the final blow was delivered to the legion, the blight working its way inside the gene-seed of the legionaries still living and fighting.

Though this strain seemed to be far less virulent than the virus that had wiped out the supplies on Terra, it was still potent enough to slowly kill the Progenoid Glands of the afflicted Astartes, doing little to hamper them as they fought, but if they fell it caused a rapid disintegration of all genetic material of the warrior, resulting in gene-seed being unrecoverable even in warriors other legions would have been able to harvest with ease.

It was this that sealed the legions new role; they had no reserves of gene-seed, either on Luna or on Terra itself, the Emperor lacked the means to create large amounts without the aid of the IInd legions Primarch, and even the final stage of survival for the legion; the harvesting of the fallen, was all but impossible for the second. The doom of the Imperial Wardens was at hand, and it was here that Legion Master Arvem Medius made his case for the IInd to transition away from being a frontline legion, the Emperor granting their request to instead attach to the Imperial Army, never again to crusade as a frontline legion, instead becoming drill masters and regimental leaders, until such a time as their Primarch was found, and the curse could be undone.

As a final, cruel blow, even this would be denied to them, and the Imperial Wardens would ever be a legion teetering on the brink of death, even a single warrior of their legion falling in battle a heavy blow that could never be recovered from, even as other legions easily absorbed the loss of thousands.

#### Ulysses and Unimatrix

A gargantuan world in the heart of Segmentum Pacificus, nearly five times larger than Terra, on the cusp of being so massive that it would no longer be able to support an atmosphere of any kind. What the world was once like, or even what it was once called, has been forever lost in favour of its new name, Unimatrix, sometimes simply known as “the City”.

In an age long last in the Dark Age of technology, the City, Unimatrix, began its life as a tiny settlement, an experiment into a new technology that would boost its efficacy beyond any of its fellows, creating a computer network that would surpass all others. This was the beginning of the Tartarus Network, and its success stands apparent to all.

Servitors and the use of the human brain were no strangers upon the world that was, nearly every city using the bastardised remains of human beings, but they all had a single thing in common; they all required physical space. Even a human stripped of everything save the brain required physical space to house, maintenance to keep biological components alive, and nourishment to keep them working. This limited the size of the networks of the world, entire districts given over to buildings housing nothing but human remains. Tartarus changed that. With science long since lost, they learnt how to fully digitalise a mind, to pull it from the brain and upload it into a cogitator bank. Suddenly, space for storing biological components was removed entirely, a single cogitator the size of a battle tank able to house thousands of brains, and soon, the city began to grow with a speed never seen before across the world.

Unimatrix grew like a cancer across the world, spreading in all directions, absorbing all other cities, towns and sprawling metropolis into its greater mass until finally there was no land left. Of course, Unimatrix would not accept such pathetic limitations, Tartarus having grown immeasurably, its linked minds now encompassing millions, perhaps billions, contained in hab-block sized cogitators. Both Unimatrix and Tartarus needed more space, and so they spread into the seas, and once they were taken it spread upwards and when it scraped the sky, its tallest towers breaching the atmosphere it went the only other way it could, burrowing deep into the bowels of the planet, its cancerous growth continuing until there was nothing the city did not touch. The old world was gone, all that remained was Unimatrix, trillions living and dying it the in the warrens and tunnels of the planet sized city, few even knowing there is a sky, let alone seeing it. And of course, all who died were collected, their minds resparked by arcane sciences as they were forced, screaming, into Tartarus.

With death being such an awful reality, the population of the world began to do anything to avoid it, and of course, Unimatrix provided, just as it did everything else. Vast portions of the Tartarus processing power were dedicated to ever improving rejuvenat treatments and cybernetic replacements, able to keep a human alive indefinitely.

For a Price.

If a person had a wallet thick enough for what it cost, and a stomach strong enough for what it takes, immortality was not an idea, it was a reality. Unsurprisingly, it was only the richest who could afford this treatment, and of them, none were older or richer than the Olympians, the founders of the city when it was just a city, one amongst hundreds. The Olympians were power made flesh, and they intended to live forever. Of course, there were others who were powerful within the city, the sons and daughters of the Olympians, or those who had, in some way, reached a level of power to afford the treatments Unimatrix offered, beings centuries old that could barely be called human, but even they were still a species apart from the Olympians.

The Olympians ruled supreme, anything they wished for within their grasp, controlling the population through the use of vast robotic armies, similar to the Mechanicum Castellax Battle-Automata, stamping out disent with merciless efficiency, specialising in capturing rebels alive to force them to undergo the transference into Tartarus while still living, the greatest punishment within Unimatrix. Sector Rebellions were commonplace, on a standard day perhaps tens of thousands being in open rebellion, but these individual acts of defiance were nothing to the Olympians, their acts lasting mere hours before being snuffed out. Only one lasted for more than a handful of hours, led as it was not by men, but by a god; the Primarch of the IInd *Legiones Astartes*.

The Primarch, his true name lost to time, his appearance and even personality forgotten and discarded, is now remembered only by a single word; Ulysses, meaning “Great One” in the dialect of Unimatrix. Ulysses led a full four sectors into rebellion, billions rising alongside him to challenge the Olympians. The rebellion was brutal, even managing to slay one of the great Olympians themselves, cutting down the ancient being and forcing him to undergo the transference into Tartarus he had forced onto so many others. It was a great victory, but it was still but a drop in the ocean.

The death of an Olympian caught the eye of the other rulers of the city, an act against one of them was a direct threat against all of their kind, and with that in mind, they struck with such power that even a Primarch could not resist. If he would rise with billions, then they would send the full might of their robotic armies against him, and when they did, the three and a half week rebellion ended within twenty eight minutes. The vast majority of the rebels were captured alive, forced into Tartarus with little ceremony, but Ulysses was taken before the Olympians, his sentence personally handed down, before he too was forced into the planet sized computer, the first Primarch to die.

It was only when an outside force finally arrived at Unimatrix that finally, the wheel was broken. Led by warriors of the Imperial Wardens, billions of elite soldiers of the Imperial Army, alongside mechanicum constructs to match and exceed those that Unimatrix itself fielded, waged war against the City. For solar years the battle raged, city fighting erupting in every corner of the city. The death toll spiked to unknown heights, no records remaining of how many died upon the world in total as the Olympians desperately began to convert civilians into battle servitors, linking them to Tartarus to send against the foe.

Then finally, the war ended, the last Olympian cut down, and the Tartarus network isolated from all external connections, the leader of the compliance, Praetor-Militant Arvem Medius, legion master of the Imperial Wardens, soon before its primary access control, giving the order to begin the shutdown sequence alongside his confident, Centurion-Colonel Roland Wolfe. Once begun, nothing could halt the destruction of the Tartarus network, predicted to take many cycles to finally die. If it had simply been deactivated instantly, the IInd may have been spared yet more heartbreak, the legion already suffering more than most, but such was not the way of the galaxy.

Past the point of no return, a discovery was made, the identity of one of the occupants of the network; Ulysses, the Primarch and gene-father of the IInd Legion. It was only through him that the Legion could ever hope to recover from the gene-seed crisis, and now, through their own actions, they had sealed their fate, and worse, they had committed patricide, however unknowingly.

Word was instantly suppressed by Arvem, and yet still it leaked out to the wider force, moral plummeting within mere hours. A great victory became the greatest loss of the Great Crusade thus far, Roland and many other Imperial Wardens present taking their own life, rather than living with the shame and guilt of their own actions.

In time, the world was scoured by the Mechanicum, all taint removed from it, before they too left, the city now silent, no life existing on the world, scrubbed down to the microbial level. WIth nothing but the city remaining, life could never again flourish on the world, and this is how the Imperial Wardens decreed it would forever stand, a Relic World watched over by the IInd Legion for all time. And so Unimatrix died, remaining standing as a monument to a father who’s sons would never know his face.

#### The Phalanx

While the Relic World of Unimatrix is officially listed as the Imperial Warden’s homeworld,the IInd *Legiones Astartes* in truth have no world of their own, no great bastion of culture or base for recruits, Unimatrix being depopulated shortly after its capture by the IInd Legion and their mortal armies, it’s population rehoused across the galaxy, or joining the ranks of the Unimatrix First and Only regiment, the closest analogy for a First Company Elite that the diminutive legion has.

The Imperial Wardens also maintain their own Gloriana class vessel; the *Hammer of Mankind*, a giant of a ship but undergunned for its size, more of a heavily armed and armoured macro-transporter than its Battleship rated contemporaries. However, the vessel never served as their flagship, that title belonging to another.

As the legion moved past the unremarkable world of Inwit, the Imperial Wardens, already far below viable crusade strength and relegated to second line duties and patrolling already conquered territory, a signal was discovered, drifting in the dark space just beyond the edge of the systems Mandeville Point. Immediately, the legion scrambled, expecting an enemy attack, but instead, what they found was something far grander, it's worth measured in far more than steel and stone.

The vessel was gargantuan, the amongst the largest starship known to have been constructed by human hands the Emperor’s Flagship it's only rival, and something of its magnitude has not been seen since the Dark Age of Technology. The size of a small moon or large asteroid, its foredeck can dock a dozen Imperial Navy Cruisers around its circumference. It’s like had never been built before, and would never would be built again. The secrets of its construction dated from before the foundation of the Imperium of Man, its immense golden form crafted by engineers dead long before the Emperor first united Terra.

Quickly boarded, the Imperial Wardens brought the mighty Fortress into life, the systems identifying the vessel by a single word; *Phalanx*. Immediately, word was sent directly to the Emperor’s fleet, such a discovery demanding his personal attention. Within days, the glorious armada of the Emperor translated into the system, what was left of the Imperial Wardens kneeling within the cavernous main hangar of the *Phalanx* as the Emperor arrived, the legion gifting the mighty ship to the Emperor before falling silent, awaiting his next words.

For a time, the Emperor walked the halls of the mighty vessel, the Imperial Wardens remaining kneeling, their Emperor never bidding them to rise, but when he returned, Arvem Medius was allowed to rise, the Legion Master standing before the Master of Mankind, the Emperor smiling down upon the mere Astartes, before making His proclamation.

The Imperial Wardens had surpassed the Emperor’s expectations of the ruined legion, proving their worth even in their new state. He told them in words as clear as day that until their Primarch was found, they would not return to Crusade strength, even his artifice would require centuries of work to accomplish that, and the Great Crusade demanded his attention at all times. However, until such a time as their Primarch was reunited, the Imperial Wardens would serve a new purpose, one that befitted their nature as charismatic warriors, passing to the legion the unprecedented task of not merely fighting alongside mortals, but to go one step further; to train them, to mold them into the very peak of human performance, and to lead them into battle, their small numbers making them a perfect officer cadre for such a force, and with that, the first *Warden*-pattern regiment was authorised.

This alone would have been a boon to the demoralised legion, but what was said next would lift their spirits even higher. The *Phalanx* would not become part of the Emperor’s great fleet. Nor would it be given to one of the newly found Primarch’s. Instead, the Imperial Wardens would be permitted to utilise the mighty Star Fortress as their bastion, their mobile homeworld until their Primarch was found, and the heart of the new *Founder* regiments.

To say the Imperial Wardens were overjoyed would have been an understatement, a roar echoing around the flight bay that some say can still be heard to this day. As the Emperor departed, the Imperial Wardens, spearheaded by Arvem Medius, set about their tasks, preparing lists of what would need to be done, who would need to be contacted, which allies and forge worlds needed to be secured to carry out the Emperor’s new edict. In short order, the *Phalanx* became both mighty Battle Station and an administrative hive, new regiments of warriors existing within its halls upon hundreds of dataslates before the legion had even set out for the first recruiting world.

Soon, the *Phalanx* became a hub of activity, mortals filling its halls, both warriors and scribes alike, the ships coming to lead first the 1st Terran *Founder*-Regiment and later the Unimatrix First and Only, Praetor-Militant Arvem Medius rarely away from its bridge.

The hull of the starship was many kilometres long, triangular in cross-section with its upper surface bristling with weapons and sensorium domes. Two wings swept back from the hull, trailing directional vanes like long gilded feathers. Every surface was clad in solid armour plating and every angle was covered by more torpedo tubes and Lance batteries than any Imperial Battleship could muster. Countless smaller spacecraft, repair craft and unmanned scouts orbited like supplicants jostling for attention, and the wake of the titanic engines seemed to churn the void itself with the force of their plasma fire.

However, for all this, the *Phalanx* was not always utilised as a pure warship, the *Hammer of Mankind* often leading the fleet, the *Phalanx*  itself arriving later. While its firepower was great, able to turn back entire fleets on its own, its power was also in the symbol it cast, a manifestation of the will of not just the Imperial Wardens, but also the Imperial Army itself, and while the title was never officially bestowed upon it, many came to see the *Phalanx* as the flagship of the Excertus Imperialis.

Serving the legion and the *Ulysses* regiments well throughout the Rangdan War, the *Phalanx* would find itself limping through that conflict, damaged but alive as it plunged into the next conflict, Civil War erupting across the Imperium. It was in this war that the final blow that would crippled the *Phalanx* would be struck, warriors of the Omnimarines boarding the ship during the Solar War, crippling many of its systems before being repulsed. After this, the *Phalanx* rarely moved, managing one final warp jump to stand vigil over Unimatrix after Terra’s fall, standing vigil over the Slumbering Host who lay beneath it.

#### Gods amongst Mortals

The *Ulysses*-pattern Regiments, initially known as the *Warden-*pattern but renamed in honour of the IInd Legions dead Primarch, are organised and equipped upon strict organisational guidelines that are not only easy to understand for those who fight within them, but are also kept to the same exacting standard no matter where in the galaxy the regiment is raised from, something only the elite Solar Auxilia can boast alongside them. This means that generals assigned *Ulysses* forces can at a glance see the strength at their disposal, and know what those soldiers can accomplish.

Unlike many of the regiments of the Imperial Army, the *Ulysses* regiments do not place stock in noble birth, wealth or any other numerous factors when they recruit for their ranks, with every soldier, from lowborn scum, to scions of planetary governors beginning their time in the regiments at the lowest rungs, advancement only possible through martial skill, not societal hierarchy, and it is quite common to see once noblemen led by hive gangers, their old lives all but forgotten as the regiment becomes their new family.

What is less common amongst other regiments of the Excertus Imperialis is the complete and utter separation of military and political power. For most regiments, the lure of using military office to step into the world of Imperial politics is a commonplace desire, officers ordering their men to conduct sometimes suicidal charges or keep a war going for longer than required in an attempt to boost their own political standing. For the Imperial Wardens, this would not stand, and upon joining the *Ulysses* Regiments, an individual forever gives up any hopes of political standing, a decree that the Emperor himself ratified and wrote into law, ensuring that none could attempt to circumnavigate it.

The most common soldier within the regiments, and the start point of all soldiers of the regiments, is that of the Pike Guard. Equipped with heavy carapace armour and a deadly weapon known as a las-pike, these Pike Guard fight in units of twenty warriors, organised into ranks five long and four deep. In battle, these Pike Squares would fight in tight formation, shoulder to shoulder with the warrior beside them, trusting in the mobile shield bubbles of their Guardian pattern tanks to keep them safe from artillery fire. The las-pikes were key to their combat style, one end boasting a small adamantium spike, used for digging the spear into the ground as a brace against charging enemies, but this was not the main power of the weapon. Along the metal length of the spear ran a series of focussing arrays, power supplied by a linked fusion-pack each soldier carried on their back. In battle, this power could be shunted into the blade, empowering it beyond mere metal, though nowhere near the level of a true power weapon, or could muster the power into a powerful las-shot, boasting the stopping power, if not the penetrative qualities, of a mighty bolter.

The cycle rate of this weapon was far slower than a normal lasgun, Pike Squares often firing in staggered volleys, their Squares advancing smoothly, the rear rank moving to the front, firing and recharging, allowing the new rear rank to do the same, filtering forward until they were once again at the back, their pikes recharged to repeat the process. On the withdrawal a similar tactic was used, the front rank firing before moving backwards to the rear of the formation, ensuring that any retreats were fighting ones, still presenting their weapons towards an enemy force.

Beyond these Pike Squares, there were soldiers arrayed as heavy weapon squads, still referred to as Pike Guard despite their lack of the eponymous las-pikes, equipped with heavy weapons, autocannons and other heavy weapons, crewed by two men and often arranged into squads of three weapons teams. The true advancement however came in the form of the two veteran infantry branches, many soldiers advancing into these if they did not choose to specialise in other forms of warfare, such as armoured, artillery or aerial, these branches being the elite Fusiliers or the mavericks of the Roundheads.

Of these, the Fusiliers were the more commonplace and more traditional, boasting the a reinforced version of the armour worn the Pike Guard, but replacing their large and unwieldy pikes with far more compact weapons, often using Volkite Chargers, Bolters or Rotor Cannons, laying down hails of firepower as they move in support of the Pike Squares, often operating in squads of ten to maintain mobility that the Squares lack, though they could muster in squads of twenty if the situation demanded.

The final infantry branch were the Roundheads, Grav-chute equipped warriors so named due to their distinctive bubble-like helmets that provided them with not only enhanced sensors and mapping equipment, but also a fully sealed environment suit, the equal of those suits commonplace amongst the Solar Auxilia. Introduced to the regiments when the Imperial Wardens led the first conquest of Elysia, the Roundheads soon became common within the regiments, deploying from specially redesigned bomber aircraft. Usually, these soldiers were equipped with brutal assault weaponry, ranging from Volkite pistols through the flamers and even lightning claws, expecting to drop directly onto the foe before engaging them in hand to hand combat. They were not however permitted to give chase to fleeing enemies, even if by doing so they could cut them down. Indeed, such a tactic was outlawed within the *Ulysses* regiments, fleeing enemies gunned down but never chased, soldiers maintaining their disciplined ranks so as to not allow themselves to be drawn out or fooled by a feigned retreat.

Many throughout the Great Crusade would compare the *Ulysses* regiments to the more well established Solar Auxilia, the force boasting greater prestige for a long time due to having been founded at the very start of the Great Crusade, though eventually the *Ulysses* regiments would rise to greater prominence as their numbers swelled immensely. However, the two forces in truth boasted very few similarities beyond both being elite mortal armies utilising carapace armour.

While the Solar Auxilia were regarded as fast moving stormtrooper units, the *Ulysses* regiments were nothing less than consummate siege troops, only the more statically minded legions delving into such warfare to as great a degree. While the Solar Auxilia boasted mobile tan artillery batteries, the Ulysses regiments maintained far more static or wheeled guns in their arsenal, and though they did possess some more mobile artillery, such as the Amentum Ordnance Batteries, or light tanks such as the Lykaon Attack Squadron, they primarily prefered heavier vehicles and slower advances, pounding the enemy with thousands of tons of shells and bombs before the infantry and armour took to the field to force and breach.

### The Webway

The Great Secession hit the IInd Legion hard, as it did with all those who sided with the Emperor of Mankind and remained loyal. This loyalty did little to stem the loss each warrior of every legion now felt however, and in exile within the Webway, the legions began to pull apart, distrust or outright hatred festering in the hearts of the legions who had mere weeks before been firm allies in the face of the Secessionist onslaught.

For the Imperial Wardens, this manifested not in rankled pride at defeat, the legion never having been known for overt celebrations or displays, but instead in a seeming lack of focus upon an issue that had gnawed at the IInd for centuries; the geneseed crisis. The Imperial Wardens geneseed was dying, the mind of the Emperor unable to solve the issue without taking his mind from the Great Crusade, something Arvem Medius had always accepted as necessary for the good of the Imperium. Now however, with nothing but time, the lack of care for the issue grew in his mind, the Praetor-Militant becoming increasingly irate as both the Emperor and Lacona, the two greatest geneticists in the known universe, seemed to care nothing for Arvem and his kind.

Tensions worsened, coming close to a boiling point, a situation only averted when Solaris, believed dead and now reborn as a daemon primarch, shattered the walls of the Imperial Webway, allowing the warp to seep into its bounds, engulfing the legions trapped there in the pure stuff of chaos. In this the Imperial Wardens and those few mortal warriors who had escaped with them were no different, the neverborn smashing into their ranks, slaying more with each passing day. Already withdrawn, the legion was now cut off from any others, abandoned by all, left to die to the daemons as they had been against their own geneseed.

Arvem fought to survive, something he had done all his life, even as his legion died around him. Finally, his mechanical form battered and laid low, Arvem knew a moment of silence, the daemons no longer attacking as he knelt in the remains of his entire legion; the first Imperial Warden, now the last Imperial Warden. Despair was all he knew, and in that moment, he was damned, a whisper sounding in his mind, one he could not turn away from.

*Give in. It is over. It is done.*

Arvem had neither the strength nor the will to resist anymore, allowing the voice to guide his actions. For seven times seven years, Arvem laboured in morose silence, dragging the corpses of the dead into intricate patterns that burnt the warriors eyes, and yet never did he stop or rest. His mechanical dreadnought form grew louder at the start, screeching metal and alarms of imminent failure eventually falling silent, systems falling into disrepair, and yet still he moved, unimpeded by his machine death. Beyond his sight, daemons waited, holding position and stopping any from reaching the fell acts being conducted within.

Finally, at the last day of the ritual, surrounded by the dead, Arvem felt the truth seep into him, the realisation of what he had wrought, and with a strength that was not his own, tore wide the powers of the warp and invited them in.

The result was instantaneous, Arvem’s mechanical form becoming fleshbound, a daemon prince of his new master. All around him, the dead and decomposing warriors of the Imperial Wardens stood, time rusted armour and emancipated corpses animating once more, exposed bone faces turning to look upon their elevated lord.

The Imperial Wardens were no more, for even Arvem had passed away during his long labours. In their place, a new legion was formed, one that was dead and yet could never die, that would march without end to the glory of the god of eternal entropy. They were risen from the graves, and so the Risen they became, their seemingly frail forms made all but unbreakable by the power of chaos ascendant.

As the grand host of chaos came together under the elevated Malcador, the Risen followed suit, pledging themselves and the power of their god to this new supreme champion. As the other legions trained and grew in power, so did the Risen practice their new role as tenders of the dead. When any fell within the host, it was the Risen who would harvest their corpses, returning the barest minimum to their previous owners in the form of wargear or rapidly worsening geneseed, but stealing the flesh and bone away for themselves. Corpse takers, dead men, all were names used for and by the legion, and in their image, an army of the undead began to grow, still small in number, but potent in strength.

When the breach on Terra yawned wide and the warp in orbit stretched to engulf the heavens, the Risen marched forth, the *Phalanx*, thought lost in the warp in the Great Secession so long ago, at the head of the undead fleet. As worlds fell, the host grew larger, the Risen once more presiding over lesser troops as the Imperial Wardens had done so in ages past, necromancers to the god of entropy and despair, to the god Nurgle.

## Legion Organisation

### Recruitment

As a legion who’s numbers fell rather than rose as the crusade wore on, it is of little surprise that the IInd Legion had very little in the way of a recruitment process, their supplies of geneseed almost non-existent, those few glands that could be harvested from the fallen kept in stasis on board the mighty *Phalanx* that served the imperial Wardens, their security paramount above anything else, sacred to the legion in a way nothing else was.

Regardless, recruitment clearly does happen within the IInd Legion, measured in individuals rather than batches as in many other legions. Each warrior of the Imperial Wardens, as well as the officers of the *Ulysses* Regiments, are trained to look for those youths who show promise above their fellows, those who rise above to lead. In this, they care little for natural strength, for such can be crafted with implantation. Attitude and aptitude matters beyond physical traits, and the legion would rather take a single leader from a feral world, a youth who could speak in nothing but grunts but had captured the respect of his peers, than they would a perfectly honed hive world killer who knew only how to follow his gang bosses orders.

Once such a candidate is selected, they are quickly spirited away, taken to the Phalanx for screening, undergoing rigorous testing to ascertain his genetic match. Many times, the legion rejects a candidate who would be a match for their geneseed in any other legion, those forces having geneseed to risk wasting over implantation failure. However, for the Imperial Wardens, only those who have a match rate of ninety nine percent with their own genome will be accepted, all other candidates instead placed in training academies for the *Ulysses* Regiments, their skills clearly pointing to them being valuable officers, though like all in the mortal regiments the legion leads, they will start from the bottom, only the best rising to the top to lead.

Those that do pass begin the implantation process immediately, a process taking years, but one which slowly moulds them into a perfect warrior. Not merely content with strength however, these aspirants are trained in the art of leadership from the very beginning of their journey, instructed by both Astartes and mortal officers of the *Ulysses* Regiments, though most soon outstrip the aptitude of these mortal soldiers.

When they finally pass through their period of implantation and training, standing as a space marine in body, mind and soul, they are assigned to a Battle Group, an Imperial Wardens deployment that may boast only a handful of Astartes. These warriors are not girded in recon armour as some legions practiced, their newest recruits expected to perform scouting roles before transitioning to a standard tactical, assault or breacher squad. Nor are they given mighty Power Armour, to form the bulk of their legions fighting strength. Instead, uniquely amongst the *Legiones Astartes*, these new warriors are equipped with Tactical Dreadnought Armour, Terminator plate, some of the greatest personal armour constructed by the Imperium of Mankind.

Giving such elite equipment to raw recruits would not be countenanced by any other legion, their suits reserved for veterans, but for the Imperial Wardens, their numbers so diminished, it is more than possible for their entire legion to deploy in terminator plate, the additional protection for such novices of paramount import. It is a well known fact that most Astartes deaths happen shortly after they finish their implantation process, the new warriors often believing themselves invincible or otherwise not yet fully adapting to their new abilities and statuses as transhumans. This is not acceptable for the IInd, the legion shielding such new warriors in the best way possible, organising them into squads with others who have not yet risen to officer ranks such as Centurion-Colonel or the coveted Praetor-General.

All that said however, even the newest recruits into the second are adapt leaders, far more proficient in directing an assault than most their age, though at the expense of forging a breach themselves. They are a legion of officers, thousands moving to their orders, the galaxy shaking as billions of men at arms crash against the foes of mankind, ever directed by steely eyed warriors of the Imperial Wardens.

## Unimatrix

A gargantuan world in the heart of Segmentum Pacificus, nearly five times larger than Terra, on the cusp of being so massive that it would no longer be able to support an atmosphere of any kind. What the world was once like, or even what it was once called, has been forever lost in favour of its new name, Unimatrix, sometimes simply known as “the City”.

In an age long last in the Dark Age of technology, the City, Unimatrix, began its life as a tiny settlement, an experiment into a new technology that would boost its efficacy beyond any of its fellows, creating a computer network that would surpass all others. This was the beginning of the Tartarus Network, and its success stands apparent to all.

Servitors and the use of the human brain were no strangers upon the world that was, nearly every city using the bastardised remains of human beings, but they all had a single thing in common; they all required physical space. Even a human stripped of everything save the brain required physical space to house, maintenance to keep biological components alive, and nourishment to keep them working. This limited the size of the networks of the world, entire districts given over to buildings housing nothing but human remains. Tartarus changed that. With science long since lost, they learnt how to fully digitalise a mind, to pull it from the brain and upload it into a cogitator bank. Suddenly, space for storing biological components was removed entirely, a single cogitator the size of a battle tank able to house thousands of brains, and soon, the city began to grow with a speed never seen before across the world.

Unimatrix grew like a cancer across the world, spreading in all directions, absorbing all other cities, towns and sprawling metropolis into its greater mass until finally there was no land left. Of course, Unimatrix would not accept such pathetic limitations, Tartarus having grown immeasurably, its linked minds now encompassing millions, perhaps billions, contained in hab-block sized cogitators. Both Unimatrix and Tartarus needed more space, and so they spread into the seas, and once they were taken it spread upwards and when it scraped the sky, its tallest towers breaching the atmosphere it went the only other way it could, burrowing deep into the bowels of the planet, its cancerous growth continuing until there was nothing the city did not touch. The old world was gone, all that remained was Unimatrix, trillions living and dying it the in the warrens and tunnels of the planet sized city, few even knowing there is a sky, let alone seeing it. And of course, all who died were collected, their minds resparked by arcane sciences as they were forced, screaming, into Tartarus.

With death being such an awful reality, the population of the world began to do anything to avoid it, and of course, Unimatrix provided, just as it did everything else. Vast portions of the Tartarus processing power were dedicated to ever improving rejuvenat treatments and cybernetic replacements, able to keep a human alive indefinitely.

For a Price.

If a person had a wallet thick enough for what it cost, and a stomach strong enough for what it takes, immortality was not an idea, it was a reality. Unsurprisingly, it was only the richest who could afford this treatment, and of them, none were older or richer than the Olympians, the founders of the city when it was just a city, one amongst hundreds. The Olympians were power made flesh, and they intended to live forever. Of course, there were others who were powerful within the city, the sons and daughters of the Olympians, or those who had, in some way, reached a level of power to afford the treatments Unimatrix offered, beings centuries old that could barely be called human, but even they were still a species apart from the Olympians.

The Olympians ruled supreme, anything they wished for within their grasp, controlling the population through the use of vast robotic armies, similar to the Mechanicum Castellax Battle-Automata, stamping out disent with merciless efficiency, specialising in capturing rebels alive to force them to undergo the transference into Tartarus while still living, the greatest punishment within Unimatrix. Sector Rebellions were commonplace, on a standard day perhaps tens of thousands being in open rebellion, but these individual acts of defiance were nothing to the Olympians, their acts lasting mere hours before being snuffed out. Only one lasted for more than a handful of hours, led as it was not by men, but by a god; the Primarch of the IInd *Legiones Astartes*.

The Primarch, his true name lost to time, his appearance and even personality forgotten and discarded, is now remembered only by a single word; Ulysses, meaning “Great One” in the dialect of Unimatrix. Ulysses led a full four sectors into rebellion, billions rising alongside him to challenge the Olympians. The rebellion was brutal, even managing to slay one of the great Olympians themselves, cutting down the ancient being and forcing him to undergo the transference into Tartarus he had forced onto so many others. It was a great victory, but it was still but a drop in the ocean.

The death of an Olympian caught the eye of the other rulers of the city, an act against one of them was a direct threat against all of their kind, and with that in mind, they struck with such power that even a Primarch could not resist. If he would rise with billions, then they would send the full might of their robotic armies against him, and when they did, the three and a half week rebellion ended within twenty eight minutes. The vast majority of the rebels were captured alive, forced into Tartarus with little ceremony, but Ulysses was taken before the Olympians, his sentence personally handed down, before he too was forced into the planet sized computer, the first Primarch to die.

It was only when an outside force finally arrived at Unimatrix that finally, the wheel was broken. Led by warriors of the Imperial Wardens, billions of elite soldiers of the Imperial Army, alongside mechanicum constructs to match and exceed those that Unimatrix itself fielded, waged war against the City. For solar years the battle raged, city fighting erupting in every corner of the city. The death toll spiked to unknown heights, no records remaining of how many died upon the world in total as the Olympians desperately began to convert civilians into battle servitors, linking them to Tartarus to send against the foe.

Then finally, the war ended, the last Olympian cut down, and the Tartarus network isolated from all external connections, the leader of the compliance, Praetor-Militant Arvem Medius, legion master of the Imperial Wardens, soon before its primary access control, giving the order to begin the shutdown sequence alongside his confident, Centurion-Colonel Roland Wolfe. Once begun, nothing could halt the destruction of the Tartarus network, predicted to take many cycles to finally die. If it had simply been deactivated instantly, the IInd may have been spared yet more heartbreak, the legion already suffering more than most, but such was not the way of the galaxy.

Past the point of no return, a discovery was made, the identity of one of the occupants of the network; Ulysses, the Primarch and gene-father of the IInd Legion. It was only through him that the Legion could ever hope to recover from the gene-seed crisis, and now, through their own actions, they had sealed their fate, and worse, they had committed patricide, however unknowingly.

Word was instantly suppressed by Arvem, and yet still it leaked out to the wider force, moral plummeting within mere hours. A great victory became the greatest loss of the Great Crusade thus far, Roland and many other Imperial Wardens present taking their own life, rather than living with the shame and guilt of their own actions.

In time, the world was scoured by the Mechanicum, all taint removed from it, before they too left, the city now silent, no life existing on the world, scrubbed down to the microbial level. WIth nothing but the city remaining, life could never again flourish on the world, and this is how the Imperial Wardens decreed it would forever stand, a Relic World watched over by the IInd Legion for all time. And so Unimatrix died, remaining standing as a monument to a father who’s sons would never know his face.

## Legion Geneseed

There was a time when the Imperial Wardens had one of the purest geneseeds of all the legions, rivalling the likes of the Paragon Order or the Void Watchers. However, this time is seldom remembered by any within the Imperium, even the legion barely able to recall such a time, due to the singular issue that changed everything about the Imperial Wardens; the Gene-Seed Crisis.

This event, though often referred to as a singular one, was in reality three distinct events, all of which struck the Imperial Wardens in quick succession, striking at the vulnerable genetic banks that allowed the warriors of the Astartes to continue their wars.

As the Emperor's Wars of Unity broke the bounds of Terra, the pacification of the Selenar gene-cults of Luna and the Martian Compact allowed the Imperium to produce and equip new Space Marines at an unprecedented rate, and the Legions began to expand to meet the demands of the vast new war across the stars.

This continued as the Great Crusade began, the legion moving away from the cradle of humanity as a large portion of their geneseed was dispatched from Terra, heading for Luna for establishment there alongside the other legions reserves, the IInd’s stores kept on Terra until last.

Some claim that elements of the Selenite cults still resistant to the rule of the Imperium and the Imperial Truth hijacked a defence laser and destroyed the ship carrying the IInd Legion's gene-seed, while conflicting accounts recount that the ship simply lost control and crashed as it was attempting to dock, whilst others claim that it simply vanished.

The loss of the IInd Legion's gene-seed reserve was a severe blow to the Legion's development, but it would not have endangered the Legion's survival if a second calamity had not occurred in quick succession, turning what was a mere setback into a crisis that would threaten their very existence.

Like all of the Legiones Astartes, the Imperial Wardens recovered the Progenoid Glands from those of its warriors who fell in battle. From these organs a fresh set of gene-seed implant organs could be grown and a new Astartes created to replace the fallen. This system was, however, far from perfect.

The nature of battle, and the manner in which Legionaries died, did not always allow for such recovery. To ensure that there were always organs ready to implant into new Aspirants, a vast reserve of gene-seed for every Legion was kept safe on Terra. From this emergency reserve it should have been possible to keep the IInd Legion supplied with new warriors, and even with the loss of the gene-seed reserve sent to Luna the Legion would have endured and in time grown; its survival should have been certain. But in a single night that hope was obliterated.

It was discovered that a fast acting viral blight had suddenly infected several of the gene-seed vaults on Terra, its cause and origin unknown. The Bio-Magi of the Mechanicum tasked with overseeing the gene-stocks feverishly sought to hold it in check as its progress threatened to wipe out in a matter of solar hours what had taken a century to build, but the doubtlessly artificial, and many surmised xenos, infection defied treatment, and it was only the intervention of the Emperor's own peerless bioengineering genius that was to purge the taint.

While many Legions suffered losses from this attack from an unknown quarter, the blight was found to have destroyed the remaining gene-seed stock of the IInd Legion in its entirety. From that moment the Imperial Wardens began to die.

While other Legions grew in size and glory as the Great Crusade gathered pace, the IInd Legion withered. The only way it could replace losses was from the Progenoid Glands of the dead. Without the Legion's Primarch, the Emperor and His gene-wrights could only rebuild the IInd Legion's gene-seed reserves with painful slowness.

As the process of rebuilding crept forward, the IInd Legion's strength dwindled with every battle, quickly falling far beyond effective combat strength, as the final blow was delivered to the legion, the blight working its way inside the gene-seed of the legionaries still living and fighting.

Though this strain seemed to be far less virulent than the virus that had wiped out the supplies on Terra, it was still potent enough to slowly kill the Progenoid Glands of the afflicted Astartes, doing little to hamper them as they fought, but if they fell it caused a rapid disintegration of all genetic material of the warrior, resulting in gene-seed being unrecoverable even in warriors other legions would have been able to harvest with ease.

It was this that sealed the legions new role; they had no reserves of gene-seed, either on Luna or on Terra itself, the Emperor lacked the means to create large amounts without the aid of the IInd legions Primarch, and even the final stage of survival for the legion; the harvesting of the fallen, was all but impossible for the second. The doom of the Imperial Wardens was at hand, and it was here that Legion Master Arvem Medius made his case for the IInd to transition away from being a frontline legion, the Emperor granting their request to instead attach to the Imperial Army, never again to crusade as a frontline legion, instead becoming drill masters and regimental leaders, until such a time as their Primarch was found, and the curse could be undone.

As a final, cruel blow, even this would be denied to them, and the Imperial Wardens would ever be a legion teetering on the brink of death, even a single warrior of their legion falling in battle a heavy blow that could never be recovered from, even as other legions easily absorbed the loss of thousands.

## Notable Imperial Wardens and *Ulysses* Regiment Personnel

**Praetor Militant Arvem Medius**

Praetor-Militant Arvem Medius is the legion master of the Imperial Wardens, the IInd *Legiones Astartes*, as well as the supreme commander of the Ulysses-pattern Regiments of the Imperial Army. A veteran of the Wars of Unification of both Terra and the Sol system, Arvem has seen more than his share of battles and has the scars to show it, his face a mass of knotted scars and cybernetics, his brain augmented with complex cogitator banks, boosting his already prestigious intellect and tactical acumen.

As such, Arvem fully remembers the days before the geneseed Crisis, fighting in the Unification Wars as the Imperial Wardens grew as any other, rivalling even the largest legions of the time, before those hopes were forever dashed. Over the course of decades, Arvem watched as his legion dwindled in size, ever hopeful that the next battle would be the one to reunite them with his lord and save the IInd, a fate that would never come.

In these days, the Imperial Wardens came to rely more and more upon the strength of the Imperial Army, and as their numbers finally dipped below the threshold of a crusading force, Arvem was the one to make a plea to the Emperor. It was he who pleaded that his warriors not be retired, but instead allowed to continue to serve in any fashion, citing their years of loyal service, the Emperor agreeing, naming the IInd as unique amongst the *Legiones Astartes*, forever granting them the right to directly lead and command not other Astartes, but mortals of the Imperial Army. For some, this would have been an insult, to be linked to such lesser soldiers, but Arvem quickly jumped at the chance, the Founder-pattern of Imperial Army Regiments created shortly afterwards, the forebears to the eventual Ulysses-pattern.

While most legion masters are paragons of the Imperium for their combat ability, reknowned for their skill with a blade or accuracy with the many ranged weapons of the Imperium, Arvem is known instead for his mind, eclipsing any in his own legion and indeed many beyond it, and it was readily apparent that he was gifted with a brilliant tactical mind that enabled him to assess and adapt the movements of mortal forces under his command on the fly, allowing them to conduct complex military manoeuvres few outside the Legions would be able to match, securing many heroic victories on the cutting edge of the Great Crusade.

When called to war, Arvem does not wear the mighty battleplate of many of his fellows, or even the cumbersome terminator armour some of the slower legions wear to war. Instead, he wears simple carapace armour, fashioned after the armour of the *Ulysses* regiments, the weight nothing to one such as him, allowing him to boast a vast communication array on his back, keeping his forces well coordinated as they advance. It is rare that Arvem will directly engage the enemy, but when duties called, he is more than capable of doing so, a great power axe clasped in his hands and a battlecry upon his lips, the sole time his composure slips and he vents his rage at the injustices the galaxy has heaped upon him and his brothers of the IInd.

**Centurion-Colonel Naathar Orioctus**

Of all the Astartes of the Imperial Wardens, not that it is the largest pool to draw from, Centurion-Colonel Naathar Orioctus is by far the most belicose, some may even call him cruel as he throws those men under his command at the enemy again and again, using superior numbers to batter through enemy forces that a more cautious general may refrain from engaging.

These draconian tactics have earnt him no small amount of hatred from those who serve under him, those few that survive at any rate, giving rise to nicknames such as “Corpse-Grinder” and “Butcher” most common amongst them as his men died in droves for seemingly little gain.

However, just because he maintained a draconian attitude towards combat did not mean that he did not care, and as he famously said, he would ask no man to do what he himself would not, ensuring that he and his command squad were always wherever the fighting was thickest, taking forlorn hope actions that most within the Imperial Wardens saw as foolhardy, something their diminutive size could ill afford. It was this that stopped Naathar from rising beyond Centurion-Colonel, the rank of Praetor-General denied him for as long as he took to the such risky frontlines himself, but for Naathar, he would rather turn down a promotion from the Emperor of Mankind himself than allow those who served his will to take to the field under a commander who did not share any of the same risks as they did.

As such, Naathar took to the field of battle bearing a battered but powerful boarding shield, it’s reinforced surface proof against all but the most hellish of fire, while around his chest was clamped a void-shield harness, projecting some modicum of protection out to those who fought alongside him, allowing him to reach the foe, and bring his might powerfist, *Tyrant’sbane*, to bear against the foes of mankind.

**Centurion-Colonel Roland Wolfe**

The former Second in Command of the 1st Terran Army Group, committed suicide at Unimatrix in the wake of the discovery of what the legion had unwittingly done to the remains of their Primarch.

**Surgeon-Apothecary Segemund Fehr**

The highest ranking Apothecary of the 31st Heavy Ranoxian Regiment, and indeed the most well respected Apothecary within the IInd Legion. Segemund has vowed to never stop until he discovers a way to cure his beloved legion, though few, including himself, believe he will ever succeed where the Emperor or the Primarch Lacona of the Immaculate Sons failed.

**Tank Ace Romelia Leuze**

While the Imperial Wardens worked in tandem with the *Ulysses*-Regiments of the Imperial Army, there was always still a divide between the Astartes and the Mortals, two institutions intertwined but still separate in many ways. Not so for Romelia Leuze, the famed Tank Ace of the Unimatrix First and Only.

Recruited from the world of Unimatrix as one of the few survivors of the brutal war that took place there, though she did not escape unscathed, partway through the forced servitorisation conscription the Olympians mandated in the final months of the war, the cybernetic implants not interfacing properly with her biology, the Mehcnaicum able to do little to ease the discomfort they caused, forcing Romelia to walk with an extreme limp for the rest of her days.

While her body may have been crippled however, her intrinsic grasp of machines was not, and soon, she had proved that she had a natural affinity with armoured vehicles, able to squeeze far more from the mighty machines than any other pilots, her skill only exceeded by the Astartes of the more mechanically minded legions, such as the Storm Riders.

Trained by the Mechanicum to keep her vehicles running even through the thickest fighting, Romelia’s skills were soon recognised by the Praetor-Militant himself, Arvem already in command of the Unimatrix First and Only now placing her under his direct command. In battle after battle, Romelia proved there was no vehicle she could not bend to her will and master within mere moments, and after the battle of Tryanix III, where Romelia led a desperate armoured charge to break the enemy's flank and saving Arvem’s own life, the Praetor-Militant bestowed the ultimate honour upon Romelia, inducting her as an honorary member of the Imperial Wardens, to be regarded as a favoured soldier amongst the legion, an Astartes in all but body.

## Legion Fleet

### Notable Vessels

* *Phalanx* - Mobile Battlestation and pseudo legion homeworld
* The *Hammer of Mankind* - Gloriana-class Battleship