Angels Exemplar

The **Angels Exemplar** are a deadly and elusive band of Renegade Space Marines first emerging from Sector Alsatia, but have long since spread their vicious claws wide to prey on anything and anyone within the wider Imperium. Once the first and brightest sons of the Optimus Legion chapter, the Angels Exemplar, in their pursuit of becoming the perfect space marine chapter, fell to the temptations of Slaanesh. They have since traveled the void, stealing resources and lives in order to continue their eternal, unachievable goal of perfection.

## Warband History

### A hopeful beginning

as the dawn rose on the 33rd Millennium, the Optimus Legion, founded a mere thousand years prior, was at the height of its success. Victory after victory had allowed them to stabilize their sector and brought recognition to the young, but capable chapter. However, it was clear that the Optimus would not be enough to truly protect the sector, as the dangers it faced only seemed to escalate. Forming a new chapter, from Optimus stock, seemed to be a wise decision, allowing for the further securing of this tumultuous corner of the Imperium, and the Optimus had, in their eyes, more than earned the dignity of fathering a successor.

For a relatively young chapter, there was much pressure on the Optimus Legion to see the task done correctly, and all eyes in the sector were locked on these new Astartes, eager to see what they would become. The Optimus was committed to the task that these marines would not only meet the expectations set upon them but would succeed beyond them. It is a thought and a philosophy that was hammered home to the marines that were chosen for this task, and the recruits drawn in to fill their ranks; you shall be the best, and show the Imperium all you can do. Their name, the Angels Exemplar, was chosen to embody this principle.

Captain Versimillius was selected for the task, for not only did he possess the wisdom of a great leader and the skill of a great warrior, but an internalized drive, a need, to improve himself. Truthfully, many say that, had he not been sent to the Angels Exemplar, he would have become chapter master of the Optimus Legion in time. He knew well the pressure that was placed upon him, and if he was to succeed, he needed to commit himself to the task of creating a better class of marines.

Immediately, the newly found Angels Exemplar set about to becoming the best they could be. They dove into their new task, training and honing their skills, with an admirable level of focus and commitment, even for Astartes.

### The Weight of Failure

"*For all the stories, legends, and history, I assumed they would be...better.*"
— Chapter Master Versimillius, fighting alongside the Ultramarines for the first time
At first, the Angels appeared to live up to every expectation placed upon them; their marines were skillful and capable, their commanders strategically gifted. For a while, they did not fight alone, working in conjunction with their predecessors as their chapter grew and organized. These new marines quickly identified with their chapter, looking at the Optimus as their teachers, though cracks in their facade began to show; they would become dismissive, even arrogant, to the opinions of others, criticizing strategies, tactics, even fighting styles they saw as insufficient, amateurish, or obsolete. Only the Optimus Legion, their primogenitors and teachers, seemed immune to this criticism, by virtue of their privileged position as teachers. This perspective would prove to be...grating, hardly endearing themselves to other Imperials, which only served to further encourage their inward glance and focus on self improvement.

The Angels got their first opportunity to test their mettle unaided on Astargos III. A world besieged by khornate cultists and World Eater berserkers, the Angels Exemplar were dispatched in force to wrench the world from these heretics. There would be no helping hand from the Optimus, nor senior Astra Militarum commander to guide the battlelines; the world was all but undefended, the Angels were on their own. Publicly, the Angels were confident, demonstrating absolute assurance they could execute the campaign with aplomb and without effort, but a tension, a fear of failure, began to seep through the chapter...

What resulted was a painful, delayed disaster. Initial successes were drowned in compounding failures, as their foes simply failed to realize they had been outflanked or outfought, instead throwing themselves with blood crazed glee, until time and again the Angels were forced to retreat, bloodied, wounded, and no closer to succeeding than they started.

The shame of public failure was nothing compared to the internalized humiliation they experienced at the cruel reality that they had failed to live up to their own expectations, that their efforts, their support, had not been enough. They were furious; at themselves, for failing, at the Imperium, for setting them up to fail, at their primogenitors, for not preparing them properly. They would do anything to right this wrong, to punish those that had humbled them...and it's then, an answer was given.

### An ultimate temptation

The figure that arrived was hooded, but beautiful, graceful, serene. They expressed vile, vitriolic hatred for the khornate heretics that burned this world, and sycophantic admiration for the Angels and their quest to perfection. It began to show them ways, spells to draw power from the warp that would enhance their strength further, or augment their gene-seed to new heights. Every new technique brought with it rousing success, as the Angels finally got what they believed they deserved; victory, and dominion over others.

By the time they came to realize the source of these boons, it was too late. They had fallen for the obsession, fueled by this new knowledge, and while the Imperium had left them in failure, knowledge of the warp, had brought them power. They crushed the World Eaters, and emerged, transformed.

The fall of the Angels Exemplar would gradually become evident, as they would begin to abandon their duties, and tales and rumors of the corrupt and heretical actions performed on their homeworld. But the Optimus Legion refused to believe that their beloved first born would or could have fallen, and forgave discrepancies and turned a blind eye to heretical actions. But when accusations of heresy became undeniable, including evidence that they had massacred loyal guardsmen, the Optimus Legion had no choice but to intercede.

### The Burning Of Louvra

Louvra was a world, carefully selected as the perfect world for the Angels Exemplar. Sparse and hostile, the denizens of the world had chosen to focus its limited resources on a small, but hardy and prosperous population, rather than allow their numbers to expand to the natural limit of what the world could contain. Those that fitting their interpretation of excellence are weeded out early, lest resources be wasted on someone mediocre. It was a perfect place to build a perfect chapter, drawing from the pool of elite recruits, refined in Louvra's demanding environment.

By the time the Optimus Legion arrived, they discovered a world now fully dedicated to the Angel's twisted ideals, and a chapter, lost to chaos in the pursuit of perfection. The Optimus Legionnaires, often focused and calm, descended upon Louvra in a rare and harrowing rage, backed by the full might of the Sector. Outnumbered and overwhelmingly outgunned, the world was scoured, but the Angels escaped, disappearing into the night.

### Reavers in the void

Deprived of their world, the Angels became a true Chaos Warband, at first relying on raiding and piracy to sustain themselves as they fled their hunters. But as the millenia passed, the warband slowly evolved, delving deeper into unholy perfection, and soon garnered a reputation for efficiency and lethality. Raiding gave way to mercenary work, hired off to warlords and rebels alike, all to feed their every growing, and ever unobtainable, obsession.

## Warband Organization

The Warband remains a fairly centralized organization, even as different elements within the warband divide and spread out in pursuit of their own ends or resources. The Ascended, a warband within the warband, acts as their heart and soul, directing the actions of the various sub-bands, and handing out boons - such as chaos gifts, demonic possession or ascension - to those that please them.

### The Ascended

The central leadership of the Warband, and the cruel, beating heart of this fallen chapter. While time and again the Imperium, particularly the Optimus Legion and their successors, have succeeded in virtually obliterating the chapter to a man, the Ascended have survived, and always, rebuilt the warband. The Ascended is composed itself of a collection of Sorcerers and Apothecaries who maintain the warband's most ancient and vile traditions, as well as the gene-seed and processes for their creation. Rarely do these ancient and dangerous individuals see battle anymore, and never as a collected whole, lest they risk the continuation of their kind. The lone exception to this is the leader of their Warband, Versmillius The Perfection. A figure of untold beauty, this silver-skinned angel has slain countless lives, and it is unclear if he is still Astartes, or even human. What is known is that he seems to have garnered some favor with Slaanesh himself, as he has a peculiar habit of not dying, or perhaps remaining dead.

### Warlords

Beneath the Ascended are the various warlords, who command individual warbands. It is a position achieved through unequivacable demonstration of one's superiority over all others within that warband, as a warrior, as a commander, and as a sophisticate. These warbands are then given room to strike and act as they please, pursuing individual agendas, with the expectation that their allegiance returns to the Ascended, as needed. This allegiance is demanded through, quite ironically, a gene-seed tithe, in order to make them further dependent on their dark masters.

### Warbands

Each Warlord commands an independent, lesser Warband, the size and strength of which is relative to the amount of force he can acquire and meaningfully control; Angels will, seeking the best for themselves, tend to gather with the Warband that they feel best suits them or offers the most opportunities to succeed, and as such their numbers are necessarily limited around the capabilities of a few exceptional individuals. Each is equipped with whatever it can get its hands on, ranging from a few ships and enough armor for each marine to sorcerers, demons, and advanced war machines. These Warbands operate independently, though are quick to follow orders handed down from above; the Angels Exemplar still consider themselves a chapter, in a sense, and are able to maintain that hierarchy of authority.

## Warband Culture

Even as loyalists, the Angels Exemplar were keenly and vigorously devoted to the goal of perfection, bettering themselves through any means necessary. This was not simply a pursuit of more strength, more skill, more power, but instead a total improvement, an elevation of the self into a better form of themselves. They would be the finest sons the Imperium ever produced, the most skilled, the most dangerous.

Now devoted to Slaanesh, the chapter has only taken this further, driving itself to an extreme. Anything less than a league above their foes - and their peers - is a failure to themselves, their culture, and their patron god. They must be beautiful, cultured, intelligent, graceful, charismatic, but, most of all, deadly. This pursuit of perfection applies not only to themselves, but the others that call themselves Angels; they will accept nothing less than the best from those they take into their ranks, and this vigorous, painful - and regularly deadly - weeding process leaves behind only the most capable of warriors to guide the chapter forward.

The Angels, for all their beauty, live comparably miserable lives. There are few chances for joy, indulgence, pleasure, or any other vice that would seem to make their cursed lives somehow worth it. Every waking moment not serving the will of their superiors or the needs of the warband is instead dedicated to the further mastery of the arts of death. It is a grueling, exhausting life that only the fanatical devotion an Astartes can demonstrate could sustain. But to ask them, it is all worth it for the sheer bliss of slaying a proud foe in battle and witnessing the realization of how thoroughly they have been bested.

## Warband Beliefs

To the Angels, The chaos gods are little more than a means to an end, and Slaanesh is merely the embodiment of what they long for. They have no interest in destroying the imperium or seeking revenge for past slights, do not waste their time with base acts of cruelty that serve them no purpose, nor do they have any interest in Abaddon's crusade or the great game. They seek nothing but selfish perfection; it's no wonder Slaanesh dotes on them so thoroughly.

In the minds of the Angels Exemplar, they never ceased to be a space marine chapter. While they are obviously renegades and traitors, their internal structure and belief hold that the chapter remains, and the perfection of the chapter is an elevated expression of the perfection of the individual, these goals are one and the same. As such, lessers obey their superiors, and may even sacrifice for the good of the Warband as a whole. This makes them unusually well organized and coordinated for traitor marines.

But make no mistake; the Angels Exemplar lack none of the viciousness and cruelty of their kind. They hold in contempt anyone and anything that fails to meet their standards of quality and beauty and enjoy demonstrating their superiority where they can and reveling in their victim's realization of their relative inability.

## Recruitment

The Angels Exemplar recruit from worlds they pillage and raid, their gene-seed taken from their old loyalist stock and carefully maintained through the millennia, supplemented by what can be stolen from loyalist chapters. When possible, the Angels rely on sophisticated divination to find rare and exceptional individuals to recruit, offering up thousands of lives to reveal the name of a single individual worthy enough to join their ranks. However, the need for bodies often requires more direct methods of maintaining their ranks.

Those chosen few selected via divination are coddled and spoiled - even through the harshness of their training - often creating entitled, albeit deadly, chaos marines, who are typically fast-tracked to positions of leadership. The rest are submitted to a cruel twist on the Optimus Legion weeding methods, submitted to varied and often times seemingly random tasks and challenges, for which failure means death, often at the hands of their fellow recruits.

## Warband Gene-Seed

While the Angels traditionally use the gene-seed descended from the Optimus Legion, and thus the Ultramarines, they have long since tinkered and mutated the gene-seed in an attempt to improve the design, or remove perceived defects. This has produced a gene-seed with much more variance of style and with a menagerie of strains. As with all things Angels, some emerge with renewed perfection, and others become twisted monstrosities, the latter of which are casually exterminated for their failure.

## Warband Combat Doctrine

As sons of Slaanesh, the Angels Exemplar seek perfection in single combat, and speed and precision are of more importance than force or resilience. The goal of the Angels Exemplar is to, as thoroughly as possible, humiliate and best their foes. This means not only defeating them in a contest of martial skill but laying their strategies and tactics bare as the amateurish acts of war they are. They revel in this moment of superiority, and when battle is drawn, demonstrate a coordination and precision rare among the Chaos Space Marines. They move quickly, often in small, highly mobile strike teams, following sophisticated and thoroughly agonized and practiced battle plans, all carefully and obsessively prepared and often drawing on sorcerous divination. There, they aim to outmaneuver and shock their foes, drawing them into swift and decisive hand-to-hand combat, where their unparalleled speed and skill allow them to enjoy the finest pleasure of watching their foes realize their inferiority.

## Notable Warband Members

* **Versimillius the Perfection** - First Chapter Master of the Angels Exemplar and now their eternal master, Versimillius is no longer human, in any conventional sense. His body is as polished silver, as the body of a man but shaped as if an artist's rendition of a statue or trophy. Behind him are two pairs of great, glorious silver and porcelain wings, which carry him aloft with supernatural force. His voice is music, his movement like quicksilver, and every cut of his demon blade brings with it a moment of intense humiliation for whoever is struck, giving them a glimpse of their ugly imperfection in the face of such beauty.

* **Chaos Lord Alios Numerian** - Warlord Alios Numerian was an ambitious but supremely capable Chaos Warlord, that led a band of Angels Exemplar during the Second Defense of Egya. Following a prophecy that he would achieve blissful perfection in that battle, he committed to the battle personally, bearing a heavy toll on the loyal astartes that he would personally slay with his sword, "Gildtouch." He would die, far from his allies and surrounded by his foes, as he achieved a perfect death, cut down in his prime.

## Warband Fleet

The Warfleet of the Angels Exemplar is a mix of warships, of those stolen from the imperium, bargained for from Dark Mechanicum forge worlds, recovered from demon worlds, or even a few they have shaped themselves. Invariably small and nimble, they prefer instead to rely on many, quick ships to outmaneuver their opponents, cutting in close to board or barrage from point-blank range.

## Relics & Artifacts

* ***Zenith*** - The personal sword of Versimillius, said to be shaped by his own hand, guided by Slaanesh herself. Bound within is a Greater Daemon, a Keeper of Secrets that he personally bested. This being feeds off him and his successes, and suffuses any victim with the crushing sense of failure, moments before their death.

## Warband Appearance

The Angels Exemplar wear the colors of their loyalist days, only further stylized in their pursuit of beauty. The color of cut marble or polished porcelain is accentuated by graceful, hateful lines of gold. The Angels covet Auramite most of all but have never acquired it.

Many within the chapter opt to hide their faces and appearance at all times, taking upon themselves carefully crafted silver masks, not unlike a death mask of their own making. This is done in imitation of their master, Versimillius, and as much as to hide the scars and injuries of a life of war.

## Relations

The Angels Exemplar have no true allies, only foes and clients. Preposterously arrogant, they are convinced of they are better than others, and are not shy about letting them know, as well as criticizing every detail that displeases them. Only the most desperate, or patient, of chaos warlords can suffer them for long, and so once their usefulness has passed, they are cast off, often into open violence for slights and disrespect. Still, a few savvy servants of chaos have learned to look past their disagreeable nature, and have managed to take advantage of this useful band of warriors; they are organized, focused, and undeniably skillful in their execution of war. Even the gravest of insult or mockery of their character, skill, or appearance can be overlooked after watching them in battle...though generally not for long.

While the Angels Exemplar are enemies of the entire Imperium of Man, they possess a special antagonistic relationship with the Optimus Legion and their successors. The Astral Dragons, in particular, have been a noted thorn in the Angels side, perhaps believing that the destruction of the prodigal sons is their path towards redemption. Given that the Astral Dragons are, often, exceptional warriors in melee, the Angels enjoy the exchange, and their battles are notably legendary.

Otherwise, it has been noted that the Angels prefer to hunt and attack at Black Templar crusades, where it can be found. They find the act of slaying an Emperor's Champion particularly sweet, and to take, and corrupt, a Black Sword and Armor of Fate for one's own use is a sign of prestige.

## Quotes

### By the Angels Exemplar

"*Your armor is gauche and poorly maintained; you clearly have no understanding of how to maintain it or how to find a suitable slave to do so. The wear on your sword's hilt shows that you distribute pressure incorrectly; I can only imagine your bladecraft is similarly awful. Your strategies are brutish and unimaginative and simply assume your own rage will carry you to victory, without once considering other possibilities; how you have managed to lead a warband i'll never know. And worst of all, you've let your body crumble and fall to ruin, showing no care at all for its maintenance. Now, why again should I follow your orders?* "
— Illar The Beautiful, three seconds before he was punched in the face.
### About the Angels Exemplar

"*It's strange, I think I fear these Angels most of all. See, the others, I know they will kill and torture me, and there's some surety in that fact. So, if I know my time has come, I can simply take the Emperor's Mercy and send my soul to his side. But, I can't say for certain if they will kill me, torture me, or simply ignore me, and that slightest sliver of hope is the most damning poison of all.* "
— Sergeant Torrik Gane, 43rd Alsatian Mobile Infantry, at the Siege of Gallianos
"*For all their talk of perfection, I do find they are shockingly unimaginative in their execution.*"
— Captain Duas Crenalian, 3rd Company Captain of the Optimus Legion

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

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