Dark Angels - Of Hosts and Orders: The Ist Legion's hierarchical unit structure was composed of a descending hierarchy of chapters, companies and squads as was any other, according to the dictates of the Principia Belicosa. This was the shape of its overt hierarchy, the uncloaked face it showed to its brother Space Marine Legions and the Imperium at large. Yet each of the warriors of the Legion also held a concurrent position in a second, covert layer of organisation, one they kept hidden from those not of the Legion.This secret strata of organisation was composed primarily of two distinct bodies: the great hosts and the Orders of Battle or Hekatonystika. Both of these bodies served to allow the collection and codification of martial knowledge by the warriors of the Legion and to see that this knowledge was available on the battlefield when it was needed most by the generals of the Great Crusade.The great hosts were the larger of the two covert organisations, numbering at first in the dozens, with each individual force claiming the loyalty of hundreds of individual warriors. The hosts were each dedicated to the perfection of one art of war, as some specialised in siege warfare, others in the art of skirmish and yet more in the brutal discipline of shock assault and many other tactics besides.The hosts did not fight as cohesive formations in most situations, being spread across the various chapters and companies of the Legion. Any given unit might comprise members from a variety of different hosts all working together, lending their experience and skills to their battle-brothers so that the whole had a value far greater than any individual piece.No matter the challenge faced by even the least unit of the Ist Legion it would find at least one expert in its ranks, a distinct advantage when compared to many of the younger Legions, each of which was dedicated to a single brand of conquest and ill-equipped to fight outside its preferred sphere. Only in the most dire of situations did a host assemble en masse, its acolytes called out from the ranks to form a single body of those most skilled in their chosen art. Be it the siege-wrights of the Host of Stone or the breaching clades of the Host of the Void, such a body could be a potent force in its chosen element, more than capable of turning the tide of even the direst battle.Each host followed the same organisational structure, each with its own master, marshals and initiates organised into cells scattered across the chapters of the Legion. These cells were embedded at the very heart of the Legion's core, operating alongside the companies and squads of its open and public hierarchy. Any given squad might very well include members from several cells, each bound in service to different hosts -- they were at once brothers, sealed by the oaths made to Legion and sergeant, and made strangers by the secret ties and mysteries of their host.A warrior owed his obedience to both his commander in the ranks of the Legion's public hierarchy and his superior in the hidden society of his host, with only the subtle context of tradition to tell when one held authority over the other. It is a testament to the fortitude of the minds and the enduring loyalty of these warriors that such a complex system not only functioned on the field of battle, but excelled in bringing triumph to the Ist Legion.The great hosts of the Ist Legion recruited openly and widely among the uninitiated warriors of the Legion. When new intakes of recruits reached front line companies they would find themselves under constant scrutiny from the appointed procurators of the hosts, each seeking signs of the aspirant's worthiness to join their host in their conduct on the field of battle. Those selected by the procurators, having already faced their trials upon the battlefield and in the subtle tests conducted by their battle-brothers and commanders, would be swiftly inducted into the most basic tenants of the host and granted the right to bear its mark upon their power armour.Those warriors initiated into a host met freely within the precincts of the Legion's holdings and encampments to debate strategy and the proper use of arms, with those of the higher ranks responsible for the training of those below them. These gatherings, though not secret, were considered a private matter of the host, a forum where a warrior's standing within his host stood greater than that of his formal rank within the Legion. Members could speak on the business of the host, the practise and protection of their unique rites of battle and tradition, without fear of censure, for it was considered the duty of the hosts to preserve the Legion through their unstinting pursuit of excellence.The Orders of Battle, also known as the Hekatonystika, though more numerous, boasted far fewer adherents than the hosts. Of the hundreds of individual orders, most could count no more than a few dozen initiates, a mere handful of warriors by comparison to the vast hosts and chapters of the greater Legion. Such warrior-fraternities could not disseminate their knowledge across an entire Legion in the same manner as the hosts, and harboured a skill set ill-disposed towards such a use.The Orders of Battle were experts in a single bloody aspect of war, the destruction of a singular foe or the mastery of some aberrant field of conflict. When a battlegroup of the Ist Legion encountered a foe worthy of their hatred or a field of battle whose nature defied their contempt it was to the Orders of Battle that they turned, forming a cenobium, a cadre of the warriors from an order trained to negate the foe, to lead the assault and to turn all their secret knowledge into a weapon to smite the enemies of Mankind.Each Order of Battle maintained a strict hierarchy, though no two were exactly the same, with each organised to best serve the aims and lore kept by that order. For, unlike the hosts, which openly recruited and shared much of their knowledge when called to battle, the orders were of a more secretive nature. The true position and nature of the ranks within a given order were only truly understood by the inducted initiates of that order, with a system of ciphers and cryptic signs unique to each order used to mark them out to those who had been inducted into their ranks.Each tier of the order granted an initiate greater understanding of the mysteries it had been created to preserve and placed upon them a greater burden of responsibility to keep that knowledge ever ready to be called upon at need. The order would meet to affirm their knowledge in the form of rituals and tradition as well as to train in more practical ways -- to keep ready blade and bolt for the day when their knowledge would be required in the name of the Legion and the Imperium.Most orders maintained a sanctum chamber aboard any voidship to which a cell of their members was posted, a private space into which entry was only granted to ordained members of the order and where ritual training and study could be pursued in seclusion. Some of the largest orders controlled space stations, most often based in and around warzones that supported or required their unique skills.The Order of Broken Spears operated an orbital stronghold capable of hosting all 138 known members, set in place above the broken mesas and twisting canyons of Argyel III, a Death World whose rock was laced with traces of heavy metals that countered most active sensor systems. Given that the Broken Spears were masters in the art of ambush and the silent war of wits that prevailed in such dense and confusing terrain, this served as the perfect location for the training of its initiates and as a retreat for those veterans seeking to contemplate the teachings of the order without distraction.These sanctums, whether grand strongholds or spartan chambers aboard a ship of war, also served a crucial role in the recruitment of new members. Such prospective acolytes were identified by the senior members of a cell by the record of their achievements and skill, and were subject to much debate within the cell before any decision was made. Once summoned by the cell a warrior could expect to face a series of gruelling physical and mental trials, administered in the seclusion of the order's domain where these candidates were granted limited rights of entry, though often under binding oaths to hold secret all that was witnessed.Such trials varied widely between orders, though often presented the very real possibility of serious injury or even death for those that accepted the challenge. The exact nature of these rituals was kept secret and even those that failed were bound by the honour of the Legion not to speak of that which they had faced, such was the respect given to the orders of the Hekatonystika by the rank-and-file warriors of the Legion. Only once fully inducted would they receive the freedom of the order's domains and the right to begin study of the first tier of the hidden lore of their new warrior-brotherhood and to bear the mark of its acolyte upon the ceramite of their war plate.To hold a position even in the outer circles of one of the Orders Militant of the Hekatonystika was considered a great honour, and of the entire Legion less than half could claim such an achievement. Though few outside of the ranks of a given order knew the full import of the insignia borne by its adepts, all of the Legion's warriors granted the bearer of such a sigil due respect and few even amongst the most senior of commanders would fail to heed their advice, no matter what formal rank they might hold outside the order. Though it was a rare occurrence, some particularly skilled warriors within the Legion bore the insignia of more than one of the Orders Militant upon their armour.In some cases such warriors had formally departed one order to take up a position in a new brotherhood, sworn to keep the secrets of their old association, while in the most exceptional of cases they might hold rank in two or more orders at the same time. There are only a handful of examples of this, the most well-known being Lion El'Jonson himself, who held the rank of high preceptor of every order within the Legion, and Knight-Captain Atreus Deucalion, bearer of the sword Chrysaor. Knight-Captain Deucalion, who was also a marshal of the Firewing of the Hexagrammaton, was counted one of the finest swordsman in the Legion and held station within three separate orders, blending the blade-techniques of each to form a unique and deadly style of his own.Ultimately, it was this arcane, covert and deeply-layered organisation of the Ist Legion which provided one defence from the corruption of Chaos and the Traitors in the years just before the outbreak of the Horus Heresy. Horus and Lorgar's warrior lodges found no purchase within the ranks of the Dark Angels, as they were shunned by the preceptors of the Orders Militant and the proctors of the wings of the Hexagrammaton as worthless and beneath them.The Dark Angels thus never suffered corruption due to the actions of Horus and his allies among the Traitor Legions, yet even as the Heresy ended, they would face their own betrayal from within, driven by the same flaws of jealousy and vainglory that drove the Warmaster to rebel against the Emperor.