Brazen Bulls

**This article, Brazen Bulls, was written by Cyren1. It may be linked to any page without asking for the author's permission.**

## Brazen Bulls

Brazen Bulls armorial with Chapter iconography.

Brazen Bull Battle-Brother of the 4th Clan Company, 3th Clade (Battleline).

## Space Marine Chapter

### **Allegiance**

Imperium of Man
(*Fedelitas Totalis*)

### **Successor of**

Iron Hands
(Ferrus Manus lineage.)

### **Allies**

DeathwatchImperial Angels

Fell Hands (Formerly)

### **Number of Marines**

15, all folded into other Iron Hands chapters or the Deathwatch to their deaths.

### **Specialty**

Shock Assault, Close-Quarters actions (Boarding Operations, Line-Breaker Attacks), Targeted Decimation, Punitive & Excoriation Campaigns

### **Colours**

Burgundy and Salmon, Green markings and Bronze trim.

### Successor Chapter(s)

None

The **Brazen Bulls** were a 21st 'Cursed' Founding, *Codex*-compliant chapter founded right before the Age of Apostasy from the lineage of the merciless and unforgiving Iron Hands. Originally meant to patrol an area of space north of the Eye of Terror, the Bulls arrived along with another Cursed Founding chapter, the Fell Hands. The two fleet-based chapters cut down on raiding activity in the region for centuries, even managing to skirmish with forces on the edge of the Eye of Terror itself. However, even the resources of two Astartes chapters were spread thin in several sectors, and with the Age of Apostasy in full force the Fell Hands and Brazen Bulls were largely left on their own. After the Fell Hands eventually turned renegade, the Brazen Bulls fought against their former allies and battle-brothers, eventually scattering them into the Eye of Terror at the cost of their own chapter.

## Chapter History

### Born of Schisms

The Moirae Schism within the Adeptus Mechanicus had infected the Iron Hands and their successors as well. Heated debate soon turned into millenia of conflict and guerrilla actions. The 21st founding occurred in the middle of this potential second heresy, and the Brazen Bulls were formed from gene-stock secured by schismatic biologis elements, inserted into the pool of Founding candidates. When the Brazen Bulls were added to the official register of Astartes Chapters, several schismatics of Ferrus Manus' lineage were gathered to form its high command, creating an entire chapter of Moirae followers.

When the leanings of the Brazen Bulls were discovered, they were sent to a remote posting. With the schism still ongoing among the Mechanicus and Manus' brood, there was no chance that the Imperium would purge 1000 apparently loyal space marines, especially if the schismatics eventually won out over the orthodox Mechanicum. As such, the Brazen Bulls were mostly left alone. Their reputation as radicals and their formation under the "Cursed" founding left them with few allies save for the Fell Hands, a kindred chapter from the same founding sent to patrol the wild space north of the Eye of Terror along with them.

The arrival of two Astartes chapters in the region was a boon for the Orvin, Damacon, and Vaileen sectors they had been assigned to guard. The wild and chaotic warp routes had prevented large-scale movement of ships throughout the three border sectors, and so patrolling and maintaining security in the region was a difficult proposition. If a planet was raided by Xenos or Chaotic ships only a trickle of undefended Imperial Navy ships could arrive at any speed, if at all. It also allowed pirates and cults to set up bases deep within Imperial space, relying on outer asteroid belts and rogue planets as untouchable waystations in the sparsely mapped void around them.

The arrival of Astartes vessels changed the balance of power significantly. A single Battle Barge or Strike Cruiser was worth a strike force in and of itself against these raiders, and could respond with more alacrity than most Imperial Navy assets. In addition, the independent nature of the Astartes allowed them to prosecute sweeping campaigns, seeking and destroying outposts too far for Administratum logistics to handle.

Within five years the amount of raider sightings in the region had dropped by half. Within twenty the outpost worlds of the three sectors were considered "safe" for habitation and commerce. As a fleet-based chapter the Brazen Bulls took recruits from all over the dozens of worlds they protected.

### The Capricious Eye (720.M36)

It was inevitable that the insidious forces in the Eye of Terror would notice their efforts stymied so close to their home. Seven hundred years of pirate casualties had been mounting, and eventually retaliation was on the horizon. Over the course of five years the Brazen Bulls found themselves stretched to the limit. Each detachment of Bulls scarcely had time to deal with one pirate raid before another distress call was received. PDF troops, though built up over the centuries of peace, were under attack, often by daemonic or Astartes vessels now. Newly minted Chapter Master Esigor Saphrap conferred with his strategists and Librarius. The implications were clear. These weren't attacks for resources or slaves. This was war preparation. Arduously, Guard regiments were mobilized and escorted through the increasingly stormy warp around the Eye, moved to form a garrison bulwark against what they assumed would be a tide of traitors and foul warpspawn. Calls for aid were sent out, but with the Imperium rapidly reorganizing itself following the Reign of Blood and the Plague of Unbelief, little help came. A plan was drawn up to break the enemy as quickly as possible, to set up a defense on five vital worlds controlling warp travel in and out of the region.

The following battles stretched the small force of Imperial Guard and Astartes to their limits. With the warp storms closing in around the vanguard worlds of the three sectors. On Damacon and Grypses the Brazen Bulls were deployed in force, acting as rapid dagger thrusts into the hordes of cultists and daemonic troops flooding each hive and trench complex the PDF and Guard held. On these two worlds the line held, barely. Three hundred brothers were killed by the end, with two dozen others interred in the Chapter's Dreadnought collection.

The Five Worlds defense was a success by any margin. Four worlds held, and the last had bloodied the Blood Pact forces sent there that no other sighting of their banners were seen for the rest of the campaign. Even so, as Astartes and Navy ships hunted down cults, purged heretical hives, and destroyed any stragglers who remained to raid after the main force retreated back to the Eye, the Astartes knew this was untenable. Another massed attack could see their domain reduced to ashes. The PDF units involved, gathered from every corner of the three sectors, were near annihilated. The Guard regiments fared little better. Adding garrison duty to their tasks while each planet rebuilt their PDF meant that there were no available forces to respond to piratical threats. And in the wake of the Chaotic invasion of Orvin, those raids were increasing in frequency once more.

Chapter Master Vaydiym of the Fell Hands offered a novel solution. The already fleet-based Astartes would prosecute a raiding war themselves, slipping deep into the wild space near the Eye to buy time for the Imperial worlds to rebuild and resupply their fatigued forces.

After consulting with both the Emperor's Tarot and the Moirae Algorithms, Esigor Saphrap agreed.

#### Reaver Marines

For over two hundred years, the Fell hands and Brazen Bulls prosecuted Master Vaydiym's plan. They ventured out into the eye in their Strike Cruisers and Battle Barges, seeking outposts and pirate worlds that house and organize what is needed for pirate raids. The Fell Hands preferred raiding Chaotic shipyards while the Bulls targeted supply depots and rest worlds for these buccaneers of the void. As the years went by, the Fell Hands focused more and more on attacking the Great Enemy. They focused on Chaotic targets specifically, and ventured deep into the Eye of Terror, often dragging along the Brazen Bulls.

After a narrow call against Drukhari raiders deep in the Orvin Sectors, against which the Fell Hands refused to pursue, the Brazen Bulls ceased the reaver operations put into place by Chapter Master Vaydiym. After they refused to attack a shipyard in the Almos system, so deep into wild space that it was often considered territory of the Eye of Terror, the Fell Hands left without a word. The subsequent downtick in Chaotic activity in the Brazen Bulls' sectors heralded what was to come.

#### Fallen Angels (019.M37)

The re-emergence of the Fell Hands into the Damacon sector was heralded by a threat to the nearest populated planet at gunpoint. The Fell Hands had ventured into the chaotic storms around the Eye of Terror, and had made their home on Almos III. Emerging with almost a dozen brand new strike cruisers from the shipyards of Almos, the Fell Hands declared their dominion over the worlds they had protected and secured for over a thousand years. Once again, the Brazen Bulls consulted the tarot and the Moirae algorithms, and with Chapter Master Saphrap's intution the Fell Hands were refused. Beyond the possibility of legion-building in their idea, the new ships by Vaydiym's side was too suspect for the Brazen Bulls to bear. They were to go to war.

The guerilla campaign by the Brazen Bulls was a long and brutal seven years. Over that time they harried the defenses around Almos, keeping the Fell Hands occupied and slowly bleeding them dry. As the warlord Vaydiym's forces continued to grow around him, Esigor Saphrap's scout elements confirmed the existence of heretic Astartes among the ranks of Fell Hands that faced them on their boarding operations. With this grave fact the Fell Hands were considered condemned and traitors of the highest degree.

With mercenary assistance, the Brazen Bulls were eventually driven out of the system. On inspection by the Apothecarium it was discovered that the gene-seed of each Brazen Bull battle-brother was likely mutated beyond repair. Due to the extended raiding campaigns and the intense guerilla war that followed, the Brazen Bulls had spent far too much time in the corrupting energies of the warp. Esigor Saphrap considered his chapter condemned, but they would sell their lives to damage the Fell Hands as much as possible, to be remembered as heroes. When another chapter of Astartes was found patrolling the Orvin sector, looking for them, Saphrap took his flagship, the *Concord of Steel*, to meet with the newcomers, and enlist their help. With a thousand additional battle brothers, and access to a finally-refreshed Imperial Navy, Saphrap concocted a plan to destroy the Fell hands once and for all.

#### The Battle of Almos III

The Imperial fleet consisted of the combined Astartes fleets, along with four Navy battleship groups each consisting of one battleship, four cruisers, ten destroyers, and a series of refitted arsenal ships. Behind the battle group was a set of Mass Conveyors, to be kept at the back until the defenses could be neutralized, and deployed to destroy the Almos III shipyards.

The translation out of the Warp was smoother than expected, with each ship arriving in formation. First blood went to the orbital batteries of Almos, a series of asteroid belts moved into position and likely kept in place with daemonic engines. This array formed the basis of Vaydiym's defenses, to buy time until the rest of his newly christened Fell Slaughter could arrive from their staging grounds and crush this Imperial fleet. A lance battery tore a Navy cruiser to pieces as it strayed just inside the pre-ranged fields of fire. The full battleforce orbited the defenses, staying in loose formation and focusing fire to destroy each asteroid piece by piece with the Arsenal ships, often suicidally charging into gunfire to let off their payload of torpedoes at the slow-moving armed rocks. Most of the in-system ships were raiders or unfinished prototypes, deployed haphazardly to throw up some kind of defense, to buy more time for more Fell Hands fleet elements to arrive and regain the advantage. At the rate the Imperials carved their way through the defense grids, that seemed like it would work. But Esigor Saphrap had other plans.

With a sizeable escort of destroyers, the *Concord of Steel* fell out of formation, plunging deep into a hole in the defenses strategically carved by the Imperial Fleet. The sudden advance of the rest of the fleet left the local defense asteroids too occupied to stop the Battle-Barge from ramming full speed through the chain of asteroids, headed straight for Vaydiym's central control hub. As a shipyard refitted over centuries to build raiding ships, not enough attention was paid to reinforcing the sphere of mostly dumb turrets in the system. As the *Concord of Steel* ate lance fire and point defense cannons from the shipyard ring around Almos III, it fired torpedoes and lances into the main hub, before ramming it wholesale, burying the Battle-Barge deep into the section of Shipyard that contained Vaydiym's command.

Almost immediately the defense grid's accuracy dropped, and the intense anti-ship fire slackened. Many mercenary or mortal raiders ran from the Imperial fleet that formed up and punched right through the outer defense ring, now able to deploy and fire upon the shipyard itself. Mass conveyors and strike cruisers deposited Guard elements and Astartes directly into the various shipyard sections, while the Brazen Bulls that survive the *Concord*'s sudden insertion into the Almos Shipyards held strong inside the makeshift bunkers and torn decks, hoping to draw out the now-warlord Vaydiym.

And soon Vaydiym showed himself, his Terminator elite appearing in a flash of light. Skulls and helmets adorned their baroque suits of Tactical Dreadnought armour, and they tore a bloody path through the remaining Brazen Bulls. Jumping between stripped decks, ignoring concentrated bolter fire for several crucial seconds to tear out the hearts of another Brazen Bull. As the Imperial Angels led by Jayur Van arrived to turn the tide, the Brazen bulls charged in once more. Power axes making their boarding shields glow a sickly, electric blue, they charged in to finish the decapitation strike upon the Fell Slaughter, and end this force as a concentrated enemy for good.

By the end of the Battle for Almos, the Brazen Bulls had lost their battle barges in the fighting, and numbered only a scant fifteen brothers, the last holdouts forming around their Chapter Master for a sobering roll call. Their deed of going out in a blaze of glory was done. Their brothers had made their lives count to the very end, and now their chapter faced extinction. Their gene-seed was corrupted, and it would take too long to rebuild even with the stores on Terra. The Moirae schism was coming to a close, and not on the side of the schismatics. In general, Chapters of the 21st founding had either bad reputations, traitorous tendencies, or simply mutations beyond salvation. The few remaining brothers disbanded their Chapter, either joining the Sons of Medusa and other like-minded schismatic chapters, or joined the Deathwatch.

## Fortress-Monastery

The Brazen Bulls' Fortress Monastery was the *Concord of Steel*, a battle barge that was eventually retrofitted for long-range raiding and swift combat operations. Designed to house many lance batteries and torpedoes of various types, the *Concord* was used to ambushing vessels, disabling or destroying them in a few quick volleys before unleashing teleportarium units or drop pods onto the subject vessel.

## Chapter Organisation

### Specialist Units & Formations

* **Ablatine Warders** - The specialized Assault marines of the Brazen Bulls were armed with Stalker boltguns and boarding shields, meant for swift insertion and elimination of the closest visible sergeants and line officers. Often secondary were power axes, better than swords for one-handed leverage and cleaving through deck plating and ceramite alike. Operational doctrine used them as tools as well as weapons when inside a stricken vessel.

## Combat Doctrine

The doctrine of the Brazen Bulls is that of rapid assault, inserting marines with Boarding shields and overwhelming firepower to secure beachheads and toeholds for the rest of the chapter to pour through. A thousand years of pirating has made them especially effective in securing supply ships with as little damage as needed, and fighting in ships and without gravity. As raiders their ships are naturally suited to ambushes and hunts more than drawn out line battles.

## Chapter Culture & Beliefs

The Chapter is a Moirae Schismatic chapter of the Iron Hands. A fatalistic approach to combat combined with a deep trust in fortune-telling and the answers of the Tarot and the Moirae algorithms. The Brazen Bulls allow fate to show them their path, and they will follow what is visible with utmost sincerity and conviction. This results in a very stoic combat demeanour, though rooted in faith and certainty more than cold, iron logic of their brother-chapters of the 10th Legion. Often marines will consult the Tarot or the Moirae algorithms recreationally, at least as a measure of security than advice, though the chapter command sometimes uses these portents to make momentous decisions.

## Chapter Recruitment

As a fleet-based chapter, the Brazen Bulls recruited irregularly from their serf-stock aboard ship, and from the hardier planets they may visit in their patrols. As such, pugilism and augment fights are a common sport on board Brazen Bulls vessels.

## Chapter Gene-Seed

The Brazen Bulls had a normal gene-seed for Iron Hands stock, deviating little from the template of Ferrus Manus. However, gene-seed stocks aboard their vessels and within the progenoid glands of battle-brothers at the time of their destruction were all mutated or useless according to tests by their Apothecarion, hypothesized due to warp influence through their long campaigns near and almost within the Eye of Terror.

## Notable Members

* **Chapter Master Esigor Saphrap** - Last Chapter Master of the Brazen Bulls, and eventual perpetually serving Deathwatch Venerable Dreadnought

## Chapter Fleet

* **Chapter Fleet at Almos III**

* **Battle Barges** - *Concord of Steel*, *Anointed Machina*, *Incinerus*

* **Strike Cruisers** - *Indefatigable*, *Impervious*, *Ironhide*, *Idle-Naught*

## Chapter Relics

* ***The Bull's Horns*** - An Omnisissian Axe head that snapped off while buried inside a Fell Slaughter Terminator Librarian, who subsequently died when he attempted to charge a psychic blast and it conducted through the blade and into his hearts, killing him and his bodyguards. Subsequently recovered from the battlefield and worn by Brother Manivar Phaelas during his time as a Deathwatch Blackshield.

## Chapter Appearance

### Chapter Colours

Burgundy and Salmon. Markings are Green, and armour is trimmed with brass. The helmet is silver on the face grill and half bone white on the dexter side.

### Chapter Badge

A long-snouted bull with straight horizontal horns that curve upwards at the end, snorting golden flames.

## Relations

### Allies

* **Deathwatch**

* **Imperial Angels**

## Gallery

Brazen Bulls Ablatine Warder elite assault specialist, armed with a Stalker Bolter and Boarding Shield.

Source]

 White Scars Successors
 Space Wolves Successors
 Imperial Fists Successors
 Blood Angels Successors
 Iron Hands Successors
 Ultramarines Successors
 Salamanders Successors
 Raven Guard Successors
 Unknown Lineage
 Renegades

[Source]