Iron Butchers

Iron Butchers armorial with corrupted warband iconography.

Iron Butchers Khornate Berzerker.

### **Colours**

Not standardized, World Eaters and Iron Warriors members tend to keep their original colours.

The **Iron Butchers** is a Chaos Warband devoted to the Blood God Khorne, formed by members of both Iron Warriors and World Eaters, combining the heavy artillery and tactical approach of the firsts with the unmatched brutality and melee skills of the seconds. The two factions of the Warband are not, however, fully merged, and as such internal divisions and feuds are still common. Despite that, Iron Butchers are known to be uncommonly militarily organized, at least for a Khornate Chaos cult. They are also known to avoid the use of daemonic allies. They prefer employing heavy weaponry and daemon engines to break the enemies’ defense before storming the battlefield with hordes of berserkers.

The Warband once inhabited the Eye of Terror, having its base on the daemon world of Mabelosse, but they left the world after a catastrophic battle against the Black Templars that threatened the Warband with complete extinction. The Iron Butchers are now active near the Screaming Vortex, mainly hunting the Koronus Expanse, and the border of the nearby Calixis, Scarus, and Ixaniad Sectors as a semi-nomadic Warband without a long-lasting base. Always hungry for resources and weapons, they often act as mercenaries for other Warbands or even unscrupulous Rogue Traders and Planetary Governors that seek to expand their powers.

The Warband numbers floated from the peak of more than 700 Heretic Astartes to the lowest of less than a hundred. Iron Butchers are supposed not to count about 300 Heretic Astartes, but they gathered under their banner thousands of men, subhumans, and mutant scum from all over the Expanse.

## Warband History

The Warband birth dates back to M38, when two already existing Warbands, the Iron Doom and the Butchering Beasts, joined forces to face a common foe of a larger Emperor's Children Warband known as Servants of the Clawed Worm. The Iron Doom warriors were initially followers of Chaos Undivided. The alliance with the Butchering Beasts could only be made thanks to their disdain for the psychic powers and their refusal to employ psykers on the battlefield.

Under the leadership and tactical acumen of the Warsmith Vhorrax, the two Warbands succeed in numerous battles, and in the meantime, thanks to the strong influence of the Butchering Beasts leader Azhoth, often seen as a predilect of the Blood God, they continued growing with new recruits from scattered warbands of World Eaters and Iron Warriors. Still, they continued acting as two separate entities with a common goal, never fully becoming a single Warband.

Aware of the rising threat of the two Warbands, Servants of the Clawed Worm tried to maim the enemies’ organization, assaulting their main operative base on a rocky moon. Despite their larger numbers, the assault ultimately failed when both Azhoth and Vhorrax boarded the leading enemy’s vessel, killing their leader and conquering the battleship.

After this event, the Warbands unified again to march to annihilate the Servants of the Clawed Worm on their daemon homeworld.
Combining the Iron Warriors’ numerous sieging machines and their hordes of World Eaters berserkers, they lead an incessant onslaught against the Dark Prince followers.

After the initial orbital bombardment, and countless days of siege, Vhorrax finally broke the walls of the world’s main fortress. Then Azhoth led his berserkers into the citadel, butchering all the remnant forces of the enemies.

Despite the battle having cost hundreds of Astartes lives, the victory granted them an invaluable amount of weapons, armors, vessels, slaves, and even gene-seed collected from the Servants of the Clawed Worm’s supplies. However, the real prize of the loot was the homeworld of the Servants of the Clawed Worm, renamed Mabelosse. Even with a daemon planet to serve as an operational base, the Warband was still divided. Azhoth stepped in to reclaim the role of Chaos Lord for both the Warbands, and while the Iron Warriors were reluctant to accept his leadership, Warsmith Vhorrax convinced them to accept their new leader, and he was named Azhoth second in command.

Actually, Vhorrax was secretly planning to overthrow Azhoth, killing him to seize total power over both World Eaters and Iron Warriors. The right opportunity presented itself after the infamous events on Ghyrax, where a Fra’al incursion cost great numbers of World Eaters' lives and ships. Azhoth's leadership of his own brothers started to fail, while Vhorrax planned to overthrow the World Eaters Dreadnought with the aid of some of his best World Eaters lieutenants. Vhorrax unexpectedly struck directly on Mabelosse, conquering with relative ease the fortress of Arcecalva, the one he himself had built and that was privy of no secret to him.

When Azhoth came in front of the fortress gates, Vhorrax publicly challenged him to a duel to the death, to prove their worth both to their men and to Khorne himself. After a brief, but intense fight, the Warsmith finally succeeded to take down the immense Dreadnought, opening the sarcophagus and taking the skull of his enemy in front of both World Eaters and Iron Warriors.

Showing the World Eaters the only thing they respected: pure strength, he finally won full support from both sides of the faction and was acknowledged as the sole lord of the Warband. He renamed them the Iron Butchers, and a new chorus was raised from the ranks, "*Iron Within, Blood Throughout*!"

## Warband Organisation

The Iron Butchers are unusually well-organized for a Chaos Warband, especially for one devoted to Khorne. Still, the discipline can be maintained only thanks to the strong leadership at the upper level of the organization: as the distance from the top of the pyramid increase, the more lawless and tumultuous the Iron Butchers’ organization become, also due to the friction between the two different factions of the Warband.

At the top of the chain of command rule Warsmith Vhorrax, after him, there are many Chaos Champions in charge of specific tasks, selected between the best Iron Warriors and World Eaters.

While the leadership of the Warsmith and of the Champions it’s out of the question, and they succeed in maintaining the discipline of their direct subordinates, the same it’s not true between the many squads in the lower part of the chain of command. The desire to gain the favors of the Blood God, or the ones of the Champion, or the Warsmith himself, often leads to feuds between the Aspiring Champions, or even between the regular Traitor Astartes, eager to climb the ranks of the Iron Butchers.

This situation’s further exacerbated by the difference between the members of the Iron Butchers that came from various smaller Warbands. The results of these feuds can be a simple duel between two Aspiring Champions, to prove who is the greatest, or a large-scale battle involving dozens of Chaos Marines.

While Vhorrax doesn’t encourage this kind of behavior, he doesn’t discourage it either: even if internal conflicts can cause casualties that will reduce the number of the Warband’s ranks, the constant fight, be it for surviving, gaining power or, simply, to honor Khorne, only strengthen the ones that emerge victoriously.

## Warband Beliefs

Even if the Warband is unified under the Blood God’s vessel, the devotion to Khorne is not evenly shared among the members of the Iron Butchers. While the World Eaters are highly devoted to the Blood Father, Iron Warriors' devotion to the Blood God can vary from one Iron Warrior to another. The most exalted brothers are not too dissimilar to the World Eaters, some of them even undergo the process to implant the Butcher's Nails to enhance their aggressiveness.

Another part of the Iron Warriors is far less zealous, as they refuse to acknowledge Khorne as they prefer to worship Chaos Undivided, or even refuse to worship the Dark Gods at all. The majority of the Iron Warriors, however, recognize Khorne as the mightiest of the Pantheon of Chaos but do not really worship him, killing in his name out of thirst for blood and power.

They shun the stubborn predilection for melee fights typical of the World Eaters, or unnecessary rituals, preferring to concentrate their efforts on waging war and killing in his name to get, in exchange, more and more power. Since Khorne cares only that blood flows, they still went to war relying on heavy weapons and artillery, aware that this is the best way to slay their enemies in the name of the War God and drench the battlefield in blood.

As the World Eaters’ Khornate Cult influenced the Iron Warriors, the sons of Angron have been similarly influenced by the IV Legion: while minor or useful mutations are tolerated, large mutations or, even worse, possessions, are seen as an abomination that should keep away from the Warband. Daemons are considered useful allies only when bound to weapons or machines, and mutations are often cut off and replaced by augmentics. This led the Warband to have an extremely high number of bionics replacements, and veterans and champions usually show powerful bionics or daemon weapons, if not both.

Warsmith Vhorrax, forever sealed inside his armor and turned into a living, hellish machine by Khorne, is seen as the greater example of the power of the Warp linked to the powers of the machine.

## Warband Combat Doctrine

During the centuries, Warsmith Vhorrax transformed the Warband approach to battle from a heterogeneous mix of World Eaters' and Iron Warriors' tactics into a well-blended combat doctrine. Mixing his infantry expertise with the World Eaters' prowess in melee, he organized the Iron Butchers into an army whose core element is a well-organized mechanized infantry that can exploit the Iron Warriors' knowledge of heavy weaponry and tanks deployment with the World Eaters’ predilection to fast and brutal charges of melee troops.

While the Warband still maintains some degree of expertise in more than just one field of operation, its main point of strength is its capability of annihilating the enemy in a small amount of time, deploying the combined forces of fast-striking berserkers and heavy weaponry.

The Iron Butchers take the field with the power of a jackhammer, leveling everything on their way under their tanks and barrage of heavy weaponry until they are close enough to unleash the hordes of berserkers. Yet, a similar onslaught can be maintained only for a short period of time. The Warband always aim to destroy the enemy in the shortest possible time, as a war of attrition will likely see them struggle due to the overall lack of resources to sustain a longer battle, adaptability to face the shifting scenario and, most of all, discipline within the ranks of the Iron Butchers, unable to keep their berserker fury at bay for a long time.

Due to the extremely dangerous combat doctrine of the Warband and the high casualties rates, however, only the most battle-hardened Chaos Marine can survive within the ranks. The final consequence for the Iron Butchers is a constant struggle to maintain their number high but, on the other hand, those who survive rapidly become battle-hardened veterans.

## Notable Members

* **Warsmith Vhorrax**: Chaos Lord of the Iron Butchers and supreme leader of the Warband

* **Culsu**: World Eaters Chaos Lord, second-in-command of the Iron Butchers

* **Skhraal "Skullface"**: World Eater Champion, Warsmith Vhorrax’s personal Champion and Master of executions

* **Armaguerra**: Iron Warrior Berzerker Terminator Champion in charge of the Terminator Squads

* **Varskorian**: Iron Warrior Champion, leader of the Chaos Marine Squads

* **Dhakarion Vhronn**: Iron Warrior Siege Master in charge of siege operations and tanks deployment

* **Bloodrust**: World Eater Champion leader of the Warband Berserkers

* **Razek**: World Eater Champion in charge of ship-to-ship boarding actions and fleet defense

* **Varago**: World Eater Chief Warpsmith, Master of the Hellforge

* **Ecargathex**: Iron Warrior Apothecary, the last surviving Apothecary of the Iron Butchers

## Warband Fleet

* ***Iron Maw* (Strike Cruiser)**: Originally called the *Bloodied Maw*, the vessel was the World Eaters’ Strike Cruiser commanded by Azhoth. After the destruction of the Unyielding Will Battle Barge, Vhorrax claimed the ship for himself as the flagship of the Iron Butcher. Stripped from his former name and renamed the Iron Maw, the ancient Strike Cruise’s main role is to be the spearhead against heavy ships as well as planetary assault operations. Serving as Vhorrax's personal ship, the vessel has slowly reworked to fit the Iron Warrior philosophy of power over swiftness: the ship has been reinforced both in terms of defense and firepower. The modifications have, however, greatly reduced its speed and mobility. The ultimate addition to the Iron Maw is a powerful nova cannon that has been recently repaired and enhanced with dark technology by the New Mechanicum, to create a weapon capable of shooting daemon-infused projectiles, and renamed Wrath of the War God.

* ***Dawn of Blood* (Endorcer-class Light Cruiser)**: An Enforcer Class Light Cruiser formerly known as the *Righteous Fury* and part of a small star system fleet, this vessel was conquered by the Iron Butchers during the first part of the wider war that led to the Burning of Bianes. The ship has been desecrated both in its appearance and structure to fit the brutal approach to battle, especially boarding operations, of its new masters. Mainly hosting Astartes from the XIIth Legion, the *Dawn of Blood* is the personal vessel of Culsu of the World Eaters. Where the Iron Maw and the Hephaestus are powerful but slow, the Dawn of Blood sacrifices its resistance and firepower for better maneuverability and speed. Apart from being the escort to the Iron Maw during harder void battles, this vessel is the speartip of the Iron Butchers' piratical operations that requires a fast vessel to target and board small, but more agile, ships.

* ***Hephaestus* (Unknown Class; Forge-Vessel)**: A powerful and abominable forge-vessel within the Iron Butchers’ fleet, even if it’s commanded and manned by the allied Dark Mechanicum cult of the Triumvirate. Since the Iron Butchers have no stable homeworld where to forge their Daemon Engines, the Hephaestus acts as a forge-vessel for the Warband. The ship was, originally, a Mechanicum light cruiser retrieved from a planet within the Screaming Vortex Warp storm. Little less than a relict, the Iron Butchers sewed together parts of xenos, imperial and chaos vessels to the structure in order to create a functional forge-vessel. To make it fully operative, with the aid of the Triumvirate, they infected the vessel’s many machine spirits with a powerful strain of techno-virus, and ultimately sacrificed hundreds of humans to the living ship to create a self-conscious vessel able to manage the dozens of different technologies used in the construction of the *Hephaestus* the single consciousness of the men and women sacrificed to the *Hephaestus* slowly died and, as the ships’ exterior, the central mind of the *Hephaestus* is now a conglomerate of dozen minds and machine spirits forming a single entity. Still, the strain put on the single minds of the ones consumed is such that their ultimate fate is to be consumed by the vessel. When this happens, the ship simply spits out the corpse of the one whose mind and soul as been consumed and it’s of no use anymore. As such, the Triumvirate is constantly in need of sacrifices to feed the vessel. The *Hephaestus* is now something between a space hulk, a forge-vessel, and a warship: slow and huge, it doesn’t fit well in fast-paced warfare and it’s almost useless for boarding operations, but its heavy armor and weaponry make it a useful support element during void battles against heavier ships.

## Warband Relics and Artifacts

* ***The Skull of Sakravar***: Sakravar was a Black Legion Chaos Lord so mighty and blessed by the Dark Gods that finally gave him the chance to become an immortal Daemon Prince. True to his fame, Sakravar succeeded in the task given and was finally granted the daemonhood. In his race for power, Sakravar had not, however, considered the never-ending bloodlust of his best Champion. Envious of his master's achievement, and eager to prove him superior to the eyes of Gods of Chaos, the Champion, whose name has been long forgotten, blasted Sakravar with his melta gun while he was transforming into a daemon. With the transformation into a Daemon Prince not completed yet, the Chaos Lord was still mortal and so the blast completely burst his body apart. The Black Legion’s Champion collected Sakravar's head, a twisted thing neither completely human nor daemonic, and keep it as a personal trophy. He would meet his fate shortly after, during the Warband internal battle that followed the death of its leader. The *Skull of Sakravar* passed hands many times, valued as a dark relic by the Chaos Legions, always eager to control its power. It finally was conquered by the Acolytes of the Blind Prophet Warband, who venerated it inside their Reliquarium. During the M40, the Iron Butchers finally succeeded to capture the Skull, with Champion Armaguerra guiding his Terminators into the Relics Room of the Warband and killing the Sorcerer Sabaras. Brought to the Iron Butchers flag vessel, the *Skull of Sakravar* was encased in a stele in the trophy room of the Warband, where the skulls of the mightiest enemies are exhibited. It’s said that the skull still contains the soul of Sakravar, forever trapped in a limbo between mortal death and daemonhood. Maddened by millennia of agony and rage, his voice babbles about the Chaos Gods’ untold secrets that were unfolded to him seconds before his death.

* ***The Black Shards***: *The Black Shards* were an extremely powerful relic possessed and venerated on the Daemon World of Greshava, populated by a primitive, yet fearsome, Chaos Cult of mutants and beastmen. It is not known how such a powerful relic ended up in a so barbaric cult. *The Black Shards* were fragments of a hellish blade imbued with the burning powers of Chaos. Said to be the remains of a giant daemon sword, their real nature is not exactly known. Some believe they were once part of a two-handed sword of the Bloodthirster Tarr’karr, containing the essences of an entire legion of daemons, while others even whisper that the fragments are the remains of an obsidian blade wielded by a Daemon Prince of Chaos that will be born no sooner than M43, but that have traveled backward in time, following the Warp capricious tides. Whatever the truth is, and despite being only fragments of a more powerful artifact, *The Black Shards* still contained incredible powers. The Iron Butchers went on a quest to retrieve the powerful artifact, clashing with the bestial population of Greshava and finally conquering *The Black Shards*. Instead of keeping them for useless worshippings, like the Cult used to do, the Shards were used to craft powerful weapons for the Iron Butchers. The two smaller shards were granted to the Warsmith personal Champion, Skhraal Skullface, and used to forge his new weapons, Bone Carver and Flesh Mangler. The second, biggest shard was taken by Vhorrax to personally reforge his thunder hammer, Gate Crasher, into the dreadful chain hammer Corpse Grinder. Finally, the biggest shard was a fragment taller than an Astartes and way too powerful to be controlled by a single mortal. The Warband had to wait for almost a thousand years before they could properly exploit the shard: once they allied with the Triumvirate Cult, the Shard was finally used to forge the core of the unique and abominable deamon engine known as Megatherion.

* ***Wrath of the Wargod***: The *Wrath of the Wargod* is the name given to the original Mars Pattern Nova Cannon of the Iron Maw. Took from the corpse of a ship found on a planet hidden in the Warp, the Iron Butchers allied Dark Mechanicum Cult integrated the cannon into the Iron Maw’s body. The Dark Mech also transformed the cannon’s chamber into a sacrificial temple where hundreds of psykers are immolated to bond their souls to the physical body of the nova cannon’s bullets. The desperation of the dying minds, however, is such that even the containment runes can hold them just for mere minutes, hence the bullets need to be stored in a giant stasis vault after their creation. When the *Wrath of the Wargod* needs to fire, a bullet is taken from the stasis vault and loaded into the cannon’s firing chamber, an incredibly dangerous task during which the trapped souls need to be soothed with rituals to avoid their release. Once everything is set, the bullet is propelled from the cannon barrel and detonated in the void: along with the physical energy released with the bullet, the destruction of the material prison allows the psyker’s souls to be freed into real space. The psychic scream of the dead travels at the speed of light for thousands of kilometers, challenging the sanity of the psychic-gifted minds, and burning the brain of lesser beings. Even when not directly hit by the Nova Cannon, the enemy’s ships can be rendered blind, deaf, and defenseless, for mere minutes or indefinitely, allowing the Iron Maw to board them or just destroy the target with its batteries. The *Wrath of the Wargod* is a weapon capable of turning the tide of an entire void battle. Yet, both the creation of the bullets and the firing process are extremely dangerous and resource-demanding, hence the Nova Cannon is used only in moments of extreme need.

## Warband Appearance

### Warband Colours

Even if Iron Warriors and World Eaters coexist in the Iron Butchers Warband, they are still two very different elements of the Warband. As a result, every Space Marine wears the colors of their original Legion. However, some of Iron Butchers wear the colors of their allies to show their degree of brotherhood toward the other faction. This usually happens for the original Iron Warriors’ that are becoming berzerkers, they use to wear the caedere remissum and paint their armour with red as much as iron.

### Warband Badge

The Iron Butchers badge is a mix of the two symbols from the World Eaters and Iron Warriors Legions commonly called “the Iron Maw”.
This symbol is the iron mask of the IV Legion with the gaping maw of the XIIth Legion. Two axes, or chainaxes, crossed behind the mask complete the symbol. The symbol is not adopted thoroughly within the Iron Butchers Chaos Marines, as it is not required to wear the symbol to be part of the Iron Butchers. Many Chaos Marines still show their old Legion symbols or have even completely erased any symbols from their armor. The Iron Maw is often displayed on vehicles, banners, or huge, metal icons bore on the battlefield by Chaos Marines, mutants, and beastmen.

## Relations

### Allies

*Please feel free to add your own*
* **The Triumvirate**: The Triumvirate is a Dark Mechanicum Cult allied with the Iron Butchers Warband. While the Cult and the Chaos Marine Warband can be seen as sole entities, the two organizations are separated, even if they co-exist in a mutualistic way to allow the survival of both. The Cult is led by three Tech-Witches: Seethra, Therazka, and Cytar-7-Delta. While the Cult counts hundreds of servitors and small automata to conduct menial tasks, the Triumvirate represents the only surviving Hereteks of the, once, vaster organization. The Cult operates within the hellish forge-vessel named Hephaestus, as part of the Warband fleet.

### Enemies

*Please feel free to add your own*

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

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