Warsmith - History: During the Great Crusade era, within the Iron Warriors Legion, the Primarch Perturabo's word was law. To him there was never any differences between Terran and Olympian Astartes within the IVth Legion; all were his Iron Warriors, grist for the bloody mill of war.Although for many solar decades the IVth Legion had been rigidly dogmatic in its adherence to the patterns set out for the nascent Legion at the start of the Great Crusade, Perturabo's intervention was to write significant and far-ranging changes upon his Legion, but not one that by any means changed it beyond all recognition from what had gone before.It is clear that Perturabo saw his Legion not as a collective of individual members but as a cohesive and unified whole. An army whose task was to overwhelm their foes by the most efficient and direct methods possible, destroy that enemy's ability to resist and, where needed, to exterminate them utterly.More perhaps than any Primarch save Angron, it has been said that no Primarch regarded his own Legionaries with so little respect as Perturabo; to him they were a resource to be spent to achieve victory, a resource which did have undeniable value, but a resource to be expended never-the-less.While honourifics and commendations in general meant little to the Iron Warriors at an individual level, technological skill and the ability to wage warfare in the manner which Perturabo favoured was recognised and rewarded. This was most evident in the rank of Warsmith within the Legion.In Perturabo's Legion, the title of Warsmith grew to largely replace that of Praetor and Lord Commander which were common in the other Legions, and it carried with it much of the role of a traditional Olympian warlord as well as an embodiment of the Iron Warriors' strategic doctrines.A Warsmith was -- as perhaps the title implies -- required to fashion and mould a battlefield to their will, not simply to excel at fighting or indeed leading those who fought. They were expected to have a complete mastery of logistics, siegecraft, ordnance and the cerebral comprehension of war; from planning campaigns of planetary conquest to the rapid calculation of tactical fire zones in a shattered urban ruin.Unlike those of the lower ranks who fought at their command, a Warsmith was an individual in whose hands a battle rested, and the success or failure of the forces under their command was theirs to carry, to the good or ill of their own fate -- Perturabo being renowned as unforgiving of failure.This system made the Warsmiths a grim, self-possessed, often paranoid and highly independent class of savant-warlords within the IVth Legion. It winnowed the weak and the ill-fortuned from their number and left those who remained as the most adept, ruthless and intelligent the Iron Warriors Legion had to offer.The ranks of the Warsmiths, which fluctuated in number and seniority between them, was not clearly defined, leading to rivalries and feuds between them. The majority of Warsmiths commanded Grand Battalions of their own, making up the core of the Legion's strategic command structure, while others had command of specific strategic formations such as the Stor-Bezashk, important garrison posts and splinter expeditionary fleets, or held satrapies of Armoury Worlds and other detached commands.Three Warsmiths, granted particular favour by Perturabo, were exalted to a further rank, that of Triarch. These three senior Warsmiths formed the Trident, who nominally served as their Primarch's council of advisors, but more commonly served to convey his will and direct orders to those below them. Such proximity to the IV Legion's increasingly dark-hearted master, in particularly in later years, is reputed to have held many dangers of its own.