House Blinstrubas

**House Blinstrubas** is a Knight House sworn directly to the service of Tricendia, enmeshed within the tribal structures by which that realm is governed. They are one of the Iron Bears' closest and most constant allies.

### **History**

A relatively young House, as the Knights measure such things, Blinstrubas emerged approximately two centuries before the Unification of Terra. Their origins are lost with so much of Tricendia’s history, but they rose steadily through the years to stand as one of the planet’s most powerful Houses, albeit one with deadly enemies. Their history from this point onwards is bound up with the tale of Daer'dd Niimkiikaa, but it is worth noting here that in his wars for Tricendia, Blinstrubas and its vassals were ever at the forefront.

By the time that the Emperor found Tricendia, Blinstrubas was one of a handful of Houses which had endured and grown stronger. Absorbing the broken remnants of their fellows, they had reaped great dividends from the newborn Realm and their household leaders were prominent among the Bear’s generals. The reunion of the Primarch with his Legion would do nothing to alter this. House Blinstrubas would march into the fires of the Great Crusade beside their Lord, and behind that, they would be forced to weather the Insurrection in his absence.

House Blinstrubas were still recognised by Daer'dd as his own kin, and so when the VIth Legion was first divided after the reunion, it was Blinstrubas that remained with him while House August followed Damon Redd. Over the following decades their roll of honour grew to rival the ancient Houses of Mars, though they were dogged by whispers of dependence on the Legion’s commanders. They built links with several fellow houses, including the famed House Taranis of Mars and House Zivich, sworn to the Halcyon Wardens, some of these cemented by inter-House marriages. Others, particularly those who prized their independence or were especially devout vassals of the Mechanicum, considered such close ties to the Iron Bears to be unseemly.

Daer'dd's power ensured that such resentments were rarely voiced in public, much less acted on, and Blinstrubas’ large and growing reel of victories served to silence most of their remaining detractors. Nonetheless there were still those who believed that Blinstrubas had allowed Daer'dd to appropriate glory meant for the Mechanicum. Even their role in such victories as the Iron Citadel and Craftworld Melanaath was not enough to stop the whispers.

The House’s finest hour of the Crusade came with the pursuit of the Wraekan Dreor, a Knight House which had turned to a reaver’s existence in the north-eastern fringes. The Imperium, pressing outward, had suffered the loss of both colonies and small expeditionary fleets, their technology seize and their people enslaved. While the Qarith Crusade, Koloss Syntheticide and other campaigns had delayed any meaningful response, with the Emperor’s withdrawal Daer’dd vowed to end their depredations. Resisting calls from the Mechanicus to bring them into the fold, he made clear his intention to defeat them in battle, and House Blinstrubas were to be his main instrument in the prosecution of the conflict. He would not deliver such marauders into Imperial service, but he would seize their sacred armours.

Accompanied by the Scions Hospitalier’s Second and Seventh Battalions and a detachment of House Toho, the First Grand Wartribe engaged the Wraekan Dreor across a swathe of worlds. Without fail the grim, ebon-clad walkers singled out the proud armours of Blinstrubas and Toho as singularly worthy foes, but while they fought with fiendish zeal, their slave armies were a telling weakness. Supported by the Iron Bears and their powerful armoured companies, Blinstrubas prevailed time and again despite the brutality of these battles.

It swiftly emerged that the enemy were not a unified force, but a collection of bands who vied with one another for glory and resources. Daer’dd exploited this to the hilt, carefully dividing his forces so that continuous advances would leave the Wraekan Dreor reeling. The broken remnants of their homeworld were identified, and with this came the suspicion that if it could be conquered, it would break the spirit or reason of the defenders.

Daer’dd’s main force, comprising three Clans of the First Wartribe, a Demi-Legio of the Winter Wardens and two Army regiments, as well as a hundred and twenty Knights of Blinstrubas, broke the veil and scoured the shards of the world. Knowing that the Wraekan Dreor would likely withdraw if confronted with Titans, eighty of the Knights were required to form the first wave. Deploying with the Iron Bears’ mightiest armoured companies, they weathered a gruelling battle against a foe which, while less well-equipped and lacking their cohesion, more than matched them for numbers and had the advantage of fighting on home ground.

Surrounded by the pillaged Knights and hordes of slave-soldiers, the Iron Bears and Blinstrubas endured, giving ground reluctantly and suffering heavy casualties. Finally, with the enemy converging almost completely on their position, the first wave was joined by the second: the rest of their kindred, Daer'dd's elite companies and the Titans of the Legio Auris, falling like an executioner’s axe upon an exposed neck. Whatever cohesion the Wraekan Dreor had possessed was broken, and they fled their domain in disarray. The Imperials finished the hunt with remorseless fury. A year later the Wraekan Dreor were pronounced destroyed, their salvageable walkers gifted to the Mechanicum or appropriated by Blinstrubas and Toho.

In a grimly ironic postscript, Kelbor Hal would issue these sacred armours to his own vassal Houses, including the dreaded House Morbidia, who duly followed him into rebellion. It is entirely possible that in the Schism of Mars, the valiant Knights of Blinstrubas gave battle against machines they had cast down once before, Daer’dd’s gift to the Mechanicum turned against his warriors.

### **Material Strength**

At the time of the Insurrection, House Blinstrubas sat firmly within the second rank of Knight Households, with roughly 300 walkers in war-ready condition. Of these nearly half would be lost in the Kataii Ambush, leaving the House grievously diminished indeed even before they took to the battlefields of Mars. The House's Sacristans would restore some two dozen war-spoil Knights during and after the Schism to bolster their strength.

Blinstrubas did boast in impressive variety of armours, tending towards Questoris patterns but also fielding an impressive proportion of Dominus pattern walkers. One such example is the Knight Dominus-Justiciar, conceived by Daer'dd himself and one of the most powerful close-combat Knight patterns.