Tyrant's Fists

Tyrant's Fist armorial with Legion iconography.

Tyrant's Fists Legionary in Mk IV variant armour

Crushing the Imperium's enemies with remorseless force of arms, the XVIth Legion - the **Tyrant's Fists** - is the relentless might of the Imperium's war machine made manifest. Originally recruited from the child orphans of the Unifications Wars, its cold, yet unquestionably loyal Astartes have long fatalistically accepted that their sole purpose for existing is to prosecute bloody war in the Emperor’s name. Carrying the light of the Imperium throughout the galaxy not as a beacon of hope and enlightenment but as a torch of merciless subjugation, the Sixteenth is known for the cruel and callous brutality with which they bring the Emperor's wrath upon those who would insolently reject Unity, well deserving its name, the '*Tyrant's Fists*'. With the Emperor's absence and His Imperium devolving into civil war, the enslaved Primarch Ur-Suresh, the Captive King, sees opportunity to break free from his bondage and lead his sons to a new future decided for them by none but themselves.

## Legion History

### Origins: The Children of War Broken and Remade

In the lost annals of human history, there exists a saying, attributed to a once-beloved savant: “there are no mistakes, just happy accidents.” While this may have once held true in the elysian times of mankind’s youth, the barbarity and suffering endemic in the Old Night guaranteed that such sentiments were nothing but naive delusions. Between the mad ambitions of power hungry tyrants and the mindless anarchy of perpetually warring techno-barbarian tribes, all accidents were tragic and cruel. From the flames of such misery and strife was the XVIth Legion born.

The XVIth Legion was founded, like the rest of its brother legions, in the later stages of the Unification Wars as the Emperor of Mankind began to look past Terra and towards the stars. Imperial records and speculation by savants purport that most, if not all, legions, save for the prototypical Ist Legion, were created to fulfill a specific purpose chosen by the Emperor. For some legions, like the voidborn IVth and unwavering Vth Legions, their purposes were unmistakable since inception, while for others, like the esoteric IInd Legion, their purposes were less apparent and would only become more recognizable as the Great Crusade progressed. Yet for the XVIth Legion, neither was to be the case, and even into the Great Schism, its true purpose and whether it fulfilled that purpose, remained unclear to all, except perhaps the Emperor.

By almost all accounts, the legion’s genetic heritage was initially considered quite standard among the legiones astartes. Gene sequencing analysis and initial trial tests predicted that apart from a noted adaptability that yielded low implant rejection rates in implantees, the legion’s gene-seed differed little from the baseline Astartes template. On a behavioral level, implantees displayed increased aggression, but this, too, was not beyond the scope of normal expectations, especially when compared to the ferocity of IIIrd or VIIth Legion implantees. A certain mental hardiness was also noted in the implantees, but this was considered a minor trait. Given this level of comparative normality, it would not been out of question to say that at the very beginning of its founding, the XVIth Legion was to be a workhorse legion and an understudy to the Ist Legion, not specialized for any particular purpose or role.

Records indicate that the XVIth Legion had no specific muster ground from which it recruited, and instead, it drew initiates solely from the multitudes of orphans and refugees displaced during the numberless conflicts of the Old Nights. Many of these wretched souls had once belonged to the many warlordships and petty kingdoms that bitterly resisted the Emperor’s calls for Unity and the end of the Old Night. Their homes taken from them and their families and friends crushed before the might of the Emperor’s armies, these orphans and refugees were the leftover dregs of countless peoples that had to be broken and dragged into the light of humanity’s enlightened future. Though this unusual recruitment pool hinted at the existence of some specific purpose, to all but the closest of his confidants, it was difficult to tell what the Emperor intended for the XVIth Legion that required such lowly initiates.

The first recorded deployment of the XVIth Legion was in the subjugation of the E’tiopan Synod of Ostafrik on Terra during the latter stages of the Unification Wars. Engaging the techno-barbarians in a series of shock assaults, the Astartes overwhelmed the Synodite defenses and pushed them dozens of miles back into their own territory. Yet despite the successes of the early offensives, the E’tiopan Synod campaign would prove to be a humiliating black stain on the legion’s honor. Shortly after the the XVIth Legion’s Astartes gained their first taste of combat, including all the brutality and horrors of war, numerous incidents of severe insubordination began to break out through the legion’s ranks. Quickly conflagrating into wholesale mutinies, it was clear to Imperial High Command that if not swiftly quelled, the situation would devolve into a full scale military revolt. A task force composed primarily of the Ist Legion and headed by several squads of Custodes was sent to suppress the mutinies and complete the Imperium’s subjugation of the E’tiopan Synod.

After the E’Tiopan Synod incident, the XVIth Legion was removed from active combat and herded back to the Emperor’s gene-laboratories. Subsequent genetic analysis and behavioral tests suggest that despite the apparent normality of the legion’s gene-seed, there were signs of a unique psychological profile that went overlooked in the initial batches of implantees. Almost as if in response to the trauma of combat, the mental and psychological resilience common among implantees hardened into an indomitable willpower and fiercely individualistic spirit. Apocryphal accounts claim that this was intended by the Emperor of Mankind, as the XVIth Legion was one of several legions in which primal human instincts were retained, or in some cases selected for, in an attempt to replicate the baser ferocity of the Thunder Warriors. With the benefit of hindsight, it should have been no surprise that when implanted in the dispossessed and orphaned sons of the Emperor’s former enemies, the gene-seed of Ur-Suresh preserved the embers of lingering animosity through the psycho-indoctrination process, and fanned it into abject hatred and hostility. While it is impossible to say whether the Emperor anticipated the near-insurrection of the XVIth Legion, it is clear that he decided against the legion’s liquidation, as some in Imperium’s military leadership advocated for. Rather, he ordered that the legion’s Astartes be subjected to further regimens of psycho-indoctrination that were much harsher than the standard programs used for other legions, and that such measures would continue to be used for the legion’s future initiates. Thus, the sons of the Captive King were broken and remade for humanity’s purposes.

### Deliverers of Wrath

When the XVIth Legion rejoined the Unification Wars in its closing years, it was as if it had become a completely different legion. The once-untameable spirit of its Astartes, now subdued and reforged, became an unquestioning single-mindedness and surety of purpose that bordered on what observers could only describe as a cold-blooded fanaticism. Judged to be once again ready for active combat, the legion’s warriors repurposed the hatred they once held for the Emperor into merciless animus as the legion was frequently utilized as a heavy linebreaker force to destroy enemies in extraordinarily fierce assaults.

Evidence of this newfound role would be seen time and again during the closing years of the Unification Wars and into the Liberation of Sol. When the perfidious cantons of the Sud Merican Plateau, long delaying Unity negotiations in bad faith, rose up against the Imperium and rallied to the banner of Hy Brasil, it was the XVIth Legion that was unleashed against them. Breaching the redoubtable fortresses of the Panmakal Pass where countless Imperial regiments had failed, the legion utterly shattered the combined armies of the cantons and left no doubt as to the futility of their continued resistance. Similarly, on the Saturnine moon of Iapetus, it was the XVIth Legion that was called to eradicate the defiant Ringers. In a highly contested battle, the legion scattered the Ringer astral-hordes across the darkness-shrouded plains of Cassini Regio, demonstrating the might of the Imperium and earning the favor of the Saturnyne Ordo.

As the Great Crusade extended the Imperium’s reach to the boundaries of the Segmentum Solar and beyond, the XVIth Legion continued to find itself filling the same strategic role as it had on Terra - that of a final assault force. Even as its ranks grew with the bereaved orphans of obliterated foes, thus diluting the legion’s Terran composition, it appeared to change little in character, especially compared to other legions that had already been reunited with their primarchs. To be sure, the increase in manpower allowed the legion more options to expand its repertoire of battlefield tactics, but instead of introducing new cultural practices from their native worlds as was expected in other legions, initiates assimilated quickly and completely into the legion’s Terran culture after being subjected to the harsher psycho-indoctrination processes mandated by the Emperor. As such, it was often said during the Great Crusade that the XVIth Legion remained the most distinctly “Terran” of the Legiones Astartes and the one that most carried with it Terra’s ancient military traditions into the stars.

In the first decades of the Great Crusade, the XVIth Legion became increasingly singled out among the other legions by the Emperor. Deployed to decisively end stalled-out campaigns and to crush the most intractable of enemies, the legion appeared to be held in great esteem by the Master of Mankind. Though no clear, satisfying explanation for this apparent favoritism existed, especially considering the legion’s troubled start, various theories abounded, ranging from the legion’s unquestioning loyalty to the perceived Terran character of its martial traditions. Whatever the reason, during this period, the Emperor would call upon the legion more than any other to fight alongside his personal warhost. His sacred heraldry and iconography flying beside their own legion banners, the XVIth Legion toppled numberless savage empires, corrupt theocracies, and vile xenos domains, earning great prestige and in some cases, envy, among the other legions.

Over the next dozen years, the XVIth Legion’s role would evolve further past being merely the Emperor’s favored heavy assault force. The Great Crusade was meant to unite and reclaim the worlds of mankind that were lost during the Age of Darkness, and this meant that even when a human world rejected offers of a peaceful compliance, its civilization, once conquered, was meant to be kept intact for smooth integration into the Imperium, with a few exceptions. However the Imperium sometimes encountered worlds that would reject unity in such a manner as to deeply offend the Emperor. On Telura, wicked hierophants denounced the Emperor as a daemonic deceiver and sacrificed innocent souls to profane idols for protection, while on Rorghurst, Imperial emissaries were barbarically tortured and flayed before having their desecrated remains sent back to Imperial space. For such depraved peoples, the Emperor could tolerate nothing less than annihilation, and the XVIth Legion was the hand that delivered his wrath.

By this time, the XVIth Legion had developed a notable heavy-handedness in its approach to war. Overwhelming and unrelenting force of arms became the hallmark of the legion as it sought to cripple enemies in hammerblow assaults that left them helpless before mercilessly grinding them into the dirt until nothing remained. Proportionality and collateral damage seemed to be of no concern, with the legion favoring mass deployments of durable infantry and heavy armor formations that bludgeoned enemies into submission with brute force. The legion’s Astartes, with blind loyalty, offered no quarter and executed their master’s vengeful will without hesitation. In the greater context of the countless conquests of the Great Crusade, such eradication campaigns were relatively few in number, but for each one waged by the legion, a civilization was obliterated from history and a world was razed to ashes, adding to its growing reputation for remorseless and unrestrained brutality. For these fell deeds, the XVIth Legion would gain many names - the Worldbreakers, the Emperor’s Myrmidons, the Hands of Destruction, to name a few. None stuck so well as what the doomed people of Sarneya IV called them - the Tyrant’s Fists.

### The Burdens of Glorious Purpose

For all the apparent favor showered upon the Tyrant's Fists by the Emperor of Mankind, there was something amiss in the legion that would never be quite understood until many decades after the Schism of the Empty Throne. The campaigns led by the Emperor were among the fiercest fought and most costly of the early Crusade period. Implicit in the legion’s role as the Emperor’s Hammer was the fact that it would be called again and again to break his most stubborn foes - and the expectation that they would overcome every obstacle set before them, no matter how many Astartes’ lives needed to be spent to achieve victory. In nearly every campaign, the legion’s apothecarion records reported staggeringly high attrition rates as many thousands fell in service to the Emperor. Though the establishment of forward operations and recruitment worlds like Praxes and Sirac helped to somewhat stabilize the legion’s manpower with a steady flow of new initiates, it was clear that the nonstop warfare was gradually draining the lifeblood of the legion, with a particular toll being inflicted upon its Terran veterans who were frequently tasked with storming the most fortified enemy positions. That the Emperor took personal command in many of these campaigns made it impossible to criticize the strategies the legion employed, but even if this were not the case, the Tyrant’s Fists Astartes would have never questioned his leadership. Conditioned by the Emperor’s enhanced psycho-indoctrination methods and girded by pride in their belief that they were his chosen warriors - the only ones he could entrust to undertake such herculean tasks, they continued to bear the burdens of their glorious purpose without question or doubt.

Despite the many glories won in the Emperor’s service, depletion and attrition would continue to be the usual state of affairs for the XVIth Legion for many years until things reached a breaking point in the Conquest of Morsvregad. Deployed by the Emperor to eradicate the powerful tech-clans that jealously hoarded the planet’s wealth, the legion found the Morsvregadi well-prepared for the coming invasion. Holding position in nigh-impenetrable mountain fortresses, the Morsvregadi refused to meet the Astartes in open combat, denying the legion its preference for a massed assault. Moreover, tectonic instability and unpredictable pyroclastic flows near the Morsvregadi strongholds made protracted sieges all but impossible while the resulting fluctuating magnetic fields disrupted long-range communications and air support. Despite the rapidly deteriorating situation, in which entire marine companies and battalions found themselves isolated and cut off from support, the Astartes would not relent. The legion demolished each fortress, one by one, relying on nothing but pure grit and tenacity to weather the storm of incoming fire as they ground the enemy down through ugly attrition. In the final battle, in which the Emperor, himself, led an assault on the last and greatest of the Morsvregadi bastions, countless marines fell as they stormed breaches in the exhausted enemy defenses.

By the end of the campaign, nearly 8,000 Astartes were lost in the Extermination of the Morsvregadi - the largest single-conflict loss suffered by the Tyrant’s Fists in its history. The Astartes, though exhausted and worn down by the grueling conflict, did not attach any particular significance to it, instead proudly considering it another illustrative example of their honored service under the Emperor’s command. Unbeknownst to them, however, much would change after Morsvregad. Without announcement or explanation, the Emperor and his personal warhost suddenly departed from the XVIth Legion. Though it was not uncommon for him to part ways with the legion after a successful campaign, only to reunite with them at a later time, the abruptness of his departure after Morsvregad caught the Astartes off guard and for the first time in a very long while, doubtful of their place in the Great Crusade.

The decades that followed would be a period of great uncertainty for the Tyrant’s Fists. Though the Emperor continued to call upon the legion to destroy particularly intractable foes, affirming the legion’s role as one of the battering rams of the Great Crusade, he never personally led them in battle again. That honor, once so frequently lavished upon the XVIth Legion, would instead be bestowed on other legions, making it clear to all that the fortunes of the Tyrant’s Fists waned while others rose to take their place. From this, the insecurity and uncertainty that had been first sown at Morsvregad began to eat away at the Tyrant’s Fists. Some of the legion’s Astartes refused to accept their fall from favor and held tightly onto their past victories under the Emperor’s command, displaying a stubborn and bitter pride that was as much meant to delude themselves as it was to convince others. Others resigned themselves to their new situation, sullenly accepting that they had never been more than tools of conquest that the Emperor, as their creator, was free to use and then discard as he wished. Others still embraced the notion that war was their sole purpose, taking a perverse comfort in the legion’s destructive way of war as they balefully visited destruction upon the Imperium’s enemies. Though the legion would maintain its facade, continuing to externally appear as the proud, inexorable engine of destruction that the rest of the Imperium knew it to be, on the inside, its apparent esprit de corps rang empty and hollow. Lost and abused, many in the legion longed for reunification with their Primarch, expecting the return of their gene-sire to restore the sense of purpose and identity that they now lacked. Tragically, this innocent hope could be nothing further from what would transpire on Ki-Shar’a.

## Legion Organisation & Structure

The Sixteenth Legion, like the other legiones astartes, was organized along the principles of the *Principia Bellicosa*, but where others diverged from the founding guidelines, often in the wake of their reunion with their respective primarchs, the Tyrant's Fists, with its ever-distant Primarch Ur-Suresh, changed little in organizational structure since its earliest days as a proto-legion on Terra. Perhaps, then, that as one of the dreaded battering rams of the Great Crusade, it is fitting that that the legion strayed little from its original design, demonstrating the might of Terra's ancient military traditions as it crushed mankind's enemies.

In nearly all regards, the Tyrant’s Fists legion was built to be a mighty war machine. From its clear-cut and straightforward command structure to its streamlined orders of battle, every facet of the legion’s organization was planned with practicality and efficiency in mind. Aging traditions of glories past were casually discarded, and frivolous concessions to vanity were shunned, as the legion committed itself solely to the prosecution of brutal and bloody war. With legion divided into divisions, divisions into battalions, battalions into companies, and companies into squads, strict discipline and control pervaded the legion’s structure, ensuring that in any situation, the Sixteenth Legion operated at peak efficiency.

Adhering to the guidelines of the Principia Bellicosa, the Tyrant’s Fists maintained a well-rounded capacity for a variety of forms of warfare. Organized to fight using combined arms, nearly every standard type of squad, equipment piece, and vehicle could be found within the legion. Despite this, the Tyrant’s Fist’s predilection for heavy assaults and close-ranged firefights was evident in its combat formations. Shield-bearing breacher squads were found in abundance alongside tactical squads, while terminator plate was distributed extensively to heavy infantry units across the legion. Similarly, the legion’s large motor pool, containing vehicles of every make and variant, boasted disproportionate amounts of heavy armor, including the venerated Land Raider Spartan, the awe-inspiring Fellblade, and the dreaded Typhon Siege Tank. Relentless and overwhelming firepower was the cornerstone of the Sixteenth Legion’s way of war, and its officers took great care while organizing it to ensure that it would never be found wanting.

Yet, as implaccable a war machine as the Tyrant’s Fists was, it, like any other machine, was only so good as its constituent parts. In this regard, the legion strove for a unique pragmatic modularity that not only dictated the configuration of each formation, but also its relation to its parent formations and its subformations. At the company level and above, Tyrant’s Fists formations were designed with their own native motor pool and support elements. As much as this enabled them to engage in independent operations, this also allowed each formation to “plug in” to the support elements of a parent formation for smooth integration into larger combat networks well suited for complex, coordinated assaults. As an outgrowth of this modular design, every major formation, from the largest divisions to the smallest companies, was viewed as much in terms of its constituent subformations as as its own entity. For example, armored battalions were denoted as such for their higher than average composition of armored and mechanized companies, while air assault companies contained more squads in thunderhawk and storm eagles than companies of other types. With the purposeful organizational independence of formations and the malleability of parent formations based on subformation composition, reassignments, restructurings, and consolidations were seamless and simple, making the legion reminiscent of a robust, but versatile machine that was easily modifiable as circumstances dictated.

This focus on modularity even extended above the level of the divisions. For the Tyrant's Fists, designed as it was to fight high-intensity conflicts over broad geographical areas, even the roughly ten thousand-Astartes divisions proved too small to fight on the large scale they were accustomed to. To maintain clear chains of command, the Front was devised. Unusual in that it was an ad hoc organizational element, a Tyrant's Fists Front focused on geographical and strategic objectives and was composed of several divisions commanded by Sixteenth Legion Marshals - the legion's most senior non-specialized officers. At the start of a campaign, Legion high command commissioned chosen marshals to form their own fronts and assigned the legion's divisions to the various fronts. After a campaign's conclusion, the fronts would be disbanded and divisions would once against be the largest formations. With the typical campaign involving three or more fronts, this organizational structure afforded more control and better coordination amongst constituent formations in very large battle spaces, better enabling the Tyrant's Fists to prosecute the heavy assault deep warfare operations they were known for.

Only the legion’s First Division seemed to exist outside of the command structure’s modular design. Comprising most of the legion’s veterans, including the baleful Praesidium Terminators and the elite Harrow Veterans, the First Division was the legion’s specialized shock assault division. Though divided into sub-formations like the other divisions, those sub-formations in truth only held administrative purpose. Rather, given their unique mission profiles, the veterans of the First Division fought mostly as independent special operations companies that were dispersed across the battlefield and reported only to Ur-Suresh, their First Division officers, and front Marshals. Tasked with handling crucial objectives and spearheading assaults, the fierce warriors of the First Division commanded respect and wielded authority that greatly exceeded that of their formal ranks

### Legion Command Hierarchy

The Tyrant’s Fists’s command hierarchy, following the models set forth in the Principia Bellicosa, was like nearly every other aspect of the legion’s organization: straightforward, clear, and pragmatic. At the apex of the hierarchy stood Ur-Suresh. Though the circumstances of his reunion with the legion irreparably damaged the relationship between him and his gene-sons, as legion master, the primarch was nonetheless invested with complete authority over the Tyrant’s Fists. Even if he rarely exercised this authority, Ur-Suresh commanded total obedience from every Tyrant’s Fists Astartes, from the newest recruit to the most experienced officer. Immediately beneath Ur-Suresh were the legion’s Marshals. Forming a circle of advisors to the primarch, each marshal was the ideal battlefield commander. Veterans of countless battles and skilled tacticians and strategists all, the marshals executed their primarch’s commands and directed the legion. Further below the marshals, commanders led divisions; senior captains led battalions; captains led companies; and sergeants led squads. Control flowed down this chain of command, and an officer’s authority over his formation was absolute.

Yet behind its apparent simplicity and mundane nature, the command hierarchy had an even greater significance. Of all the legions, it is said that the Tyrant’s Fists were perhaps the most unified, being of one mind and one purpose in serving the Emperor’s will. The chain of command was the central pillar of the legion’s unity, and through it, every Astartes knew where he stood in relation to his superiors, his subordinates, and his peers. By knowing his place in the hierarchy, the Astartes understood his role within the legion and instinctively aligned himself to further its effective prosecution of war, demonstrating the command structure’s emphasis on the success of group efforts over individual heroics. Even when an Astartes officer fell in combat, the command hierarchy held firm, and his subcommander took his place smoothly without the dissent that might be expected in other legions. To this end, the command hierarchy was the sole system of rank permitted in the legion, besides the specialized ranks of the apothecarion, librarius, and techmarine brotherhood. Unsanctioned distinctions, collateral fellowships, and secret fraternities were all disdainfully viewed as breeding grounds for arrogance and division and were shunned. Though healthy competition was welcome, the leaders of the Sixteenth Legion tolerated no rancorous rivalries to exist within its ranks. Simple and robust, this command hierarchy cemented the Tyrant’s Fists’ reputation as a relentless and monolithic engine of war.

### Specialist Formations

* **Praesidium Terminators** - Drawn from the most relentless and baleful of the legion's veterans, the Praesidium Terminators of the First Division were the ultimate expression of the legion's heavy assault strategies. Originally the legion's terminator armored honor guard, the role of the Praesidium Terminators was greatly modified after Ur-Suresh's reunion with the legion. Coordinating with the Harrow Veterans, these elite warriors teleported into combat right into the midst of the enemy. With their close combat weapons, they were tasked with smashing the strongest points of enemy resistance and precipitating the collapse of enemy line.
* **Harrow Veterans** - Chosen from among the legion's most tactically skilled, independent, and disciplined veterans, the First Division's Harrow Veterans formed the legion's lead elements of the penetration phase of combat. An innovation introduced by Ur-Suresh based on his native approach to war, the Harrow Veterans were shock troops, rangers, and deep-striking raiders, all in one, tasked with penetrating enemy weak points, destroying high value targets, and encircling enemies. Armed with combi-weapons and chainaxes and equipped with nuncio-voxes , Harrow Veterans struck mercilessly and viciously to create havoc behind enemy lines while coordinating with fire support and terminator veterans to outflank the enemy.
* **Steelcrushers** - Few formations in the Tyrant's Fists exemplified the legion's unrelenting spirit as the Steelcrusher terminators did. An outgrowth of the legion's combat pioneer companies, the Steelcrushers were repurposed to fight at the forefront of the deadliest conflicts as transhuman battering rams. Clad in terminator armor and armed with heavy graviton guns, they were called to crush the thickest of armor and the most formidable of structures, removing any and all obstacles to the Sixteenth Legion's implacable advance.

## Legion Combat Doctrine

### Offensive Doctrine

Broadly speaking, the Tyrant's Fists' approach to war revolves around heavy assault and overwhelming firepower. Favoring sustained high-intensity conflicts across broad warfronts, the legion uses highly coordinated combined arms, battlespace control, and judicious shock assaults to methodically engage enemies before crushing them in brutal combat. Beneath these general-level descriptions, the Sixteenth Legion's offensive doctrine can be broken down in more detail into several phases that each have their own methodologies and objective priorities. These phases, far from being individual systems of warfare to be used in isolation from one another, are instead unique but complimentary pieces in a highly organized doctrinal framework, with the execution of each phase organically setting up for the success of the next. Regardless of the phase, however, Tyrant's Fists combat doctrine is known for its mercilessness and heavy-handedness as the legion seeks not just to simply defeat its enemies but to beat them down and dominate them, breaking both body and spirit.

Assuming the straightforward application of brute force alone is insufficient to defeat an enemy, the offensive doctrine is split into phases.

* **Control Phase** - The main priority of this phase is to engage the enemy and hold them in place in order to allow the legion to seize the initiative and dictate the flow of battle. Independent commands headed by legion officers will simultaneously engage different operational objectives, but they all contribute to the formation of geographically broad warfronts designed to keep the enemy confused and unable to concentrate their forces. While Legion line units contest objectives to force the enemy to meet in pitched combat, artillery and air support, often in overwatch capacity, actively deny the enemy freedom of movement, disrupting their maneuver tactics and obfuscating attempts to retreat and regroup. With the enemy pinned in place, the control phase sets up for the next phase.
* **Breakthrough Phase** – With a distinct battlefront established and the enemy engaged and locked into combat during the control phase, weak points in the enemy lines are identified. Heavy assault formations, well-equipped with terminator plate and armored vehicles and supported by dedicated mechanized artillery, penetrate through enemy lines at these weak points all across the warfront in well-coordinated instances of localized superior firepower. By opening up these gaps, they create beachheads for the next phase.
* **Exploitation Phase** – Immediately at the heels of the heavy assault formations of the breakthrough phase come the more units of the exploitation phase. Tasked with pushing deep into the enemy rear echelon through the gaps created in the breakthrough phase, the forces of the exploitation phase are comprised of more mobile mechanized and airborne units and spearheaded by elite Harrow Veteran shock troops. Seizing territory where they can hold it, and performing devastating raids where they cannot, the troops of the exploitation phase are marked by particular independence, flexibility, and initiative as they disrupt enemy command, logistics, and communication elements far behind enemy lines. When the enemy’s ability to continue fighting has been sufficiently reduced, the Astartes of the exploitation phase might begin to envelop the enemy main line, preparing for their inevitable collapse in the next phase.
* **Overrun Phase** – Best exemplifying the Tyrant’s Fists’ reputation for relentless heavy assaults. Once the enemy's support elements have been sufficiently disrupted, the legion's mainline forces from the control phase will begin a final surge or push to force a collapse all across the entire battlefront and overrun enemy positions. Cut off from support, most enemies fall apart before the surge of heavy units, while remaining enemy strong points are systematically surrounded, isolated, and mercilessly picked apart as they are caught in the wake of the advancing battle lines of the Tyrant's Fists. Particularly crucial or resistant enemy positions will warrant the deployment of the legion's elite Praesidium Terminators. Coordinating with Harrow Veterans and homing in on their nuncio-vox signals, the terminators teleport into the midst of the enemy to deliver a devastating fatal blow. More often than not, the enemy is left broken and scattered by such overwhelming displays of Imperial might.
* **Consolidation Phase** – While not typically considered a distinct phase of combat, the Consolidation phase refers to the Tyrant’s Fists’ efforts to ensure that scattered enemy troops do not rally and, more importantly, that the Legion does not lose the initiative. Legion outrider and speeder troops hunt down enemy survivors and prevent them from rallying, while troops from the Exploitation phase, already deep in the enemy rear echelons, continue to push and seize objectives, allowing room for the main line of Tyrant’s Fists troops to consolidate forwards. Maintaining offensive tempo is a key consideration in the Consolidation phase, and success in this phase lays the foundations for the next warfront so that the cycle of phases may begin again, if necessary.

### Defensive Doctrine

Defensively, the Tyrant's Fists are consistent with their preference for deep operations warfare, with doctrine revolving around defense in depth. The legion makes heavy use of fortifications and entrenchment, but unlike some other legions, they will only very rarely obstinately commit to holding a particular defensive position. Rather, the legion prefers to use secondary and tertiary defensive positions and will abandon defensive lines when they are no longer of value. Constructed so that they will no longer possess defensive value when abandoned, Tyrant's Fists' defenses are intended to blunt enemy advances through repeated frustration and exhaustion as the enemy seeks to conquer each echelon of defensive positioning. Likened to letting the enemy tighten their own nooses, the legion's defensive doctrine seeks to draw in the enemy and cut off support elements while isolating hostile attacking elements from one another, if possible. Once the enemy is sufficiently spent, fresh legion mobile reserves move to encircle the enemy and annihilate their forces.

### Tactical Preferences

The Tyrant's Fists' preferred way of fighting at the tactical level is based on the fast paced and aggressive use of firepower to neutralize enemies in close-ranged firefights. Favoring the use of flanks and encirclings, Sixteenth Legion Astartes are well versed in fire saturation techniques and seek to apply suppressive gunfire from many different angles in order to thin the enemy and keep them off balance. Once an enemy has been sufficiently picked apart, the legionnaires often close in for a brief but ferocious moment of melee combat to terminate them with extreme prejudice before quickly regrouping and moving on to the next target.

Much as the legion's organizational structure and culture emphasizes flexibility and coordination between units, Tyrant's Fists Astartes are trained to fight not as individuals, but as teams. From their flanking maneuvers to their disciplined application of fire saturation against a target, everything is viewed as a group effort where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Regardless of the situation, Tyrant's Fists instinctively seek to organize themselves so as to not merely fight together, but rather to fight in coordinated mutual support of one another. It is said often said that a Tyrant's Fists Astartes never fights alone and where there is one, there is always at least another nearby, and this is true at all levels of combat and organization.

## Notable Tyrant's Fists

* **Ur-Suresh, "the Captive King"** - Primarch of the Tyrant's Fists
* **Ataash Sal** - Second legion master of the Sixteenth Legion
* **Serdak Tor** - Praefect-Captain of the Praesidium Terminators after the rediscovery of Ur-Suresh
* **Khazran Naxos** - Commander of the Harrow Veteran Shock Troops
* **Hansadd Pulcher -**
* **Radek Kahn -**
* **Aurius Ruhr -**
* **Imrahn Rasha** -

## Notes

The Tyrant's Fists is a heavy assault legion that has diverged little from its original Terran structure. Though it draws significantly upon the Soviet Union’s Deep Operations warfare of Kursk, Vistula-Oder, and Cold War fame for its combat doctrine, the legion lacks a real-world influence for its culture in the way that the Space Wolves draw upon the Norse, the White Scars draw upon the Mongolians, and the Ultramarines draw upon the Greco-Romans. This is intentional, as I want the story of the legion to go from being an army of unquestioningly loyal myrmidons into a brotherhood of warriors caught up in the nonstop warfare of the Great Crusade and the treachery of the civil war, leading them onto a path to discover for themselves their place in the galaxy.

Some of you may wonder as to the legion’s name, particularly how by calling themselves the Tyrant’s Fists, they seem to be offensively implying that the Emperor is a tyrant. While the story of the name will be discussed in greater detail later, essentially, the legion’s name was given by the subjugated peoples of a non-compliant world who had not only reject Unity but also dared to most gravely offend the Emperor, earning his rare wrath and abject hatred. When all was said and done, the Emperor, rage still burning, let the name stick as a tacit example of what happens when one offends the Emperor.

The Tyrant's Fists aren't always as callous and cruel as they were during the campaign that gave them their name. In fact, in a normal compliance, they might try to minimize casualties. However, those battles are the less interesting ones, and Imperial Remembrances who seek to chronicle the deeds of the legions might focus only on those that particularly stand out, namely ones where the Fist’s myrmidon-like loyalty made them prime candidates to carry out bloody compliance campaigns or acts of reprisal against particularly intransigent foes. In this way, the legion’s dark reputation, deservingly or undeservingly, builds upon itself, leading them to be increasingly slated for such campaigns, much like how the Iron Warriors began as just a normal legion who happened to be good at siege warfare being increasingly shoehorned into that role.

- Created by FunkyMonkey

## Gallery

Tyrant's Fist color schemeTyrant's Fist Shade (senior officer) clad in artificer-wrought Mk IV 'Maximus' pattern power armour.Praesidium Terminator clad in Cataphractii Terminator Armour.Tyrant's Fist Steelcrusher veteran legionary clad in Tartaros Terminator Armour and armed with a heavy Grav-Cannon.

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