vizn3r/warhammer40k-lore huggingface dataset:
Iron Snakes - Chapter Combat Doctrine: When a mission, referred to within the Chapter as an "undertaking," is decided upon, the Iron Snakes' Chapter Master announces how many squads he believes are required to ensure its success.All squad-leaders who wish to volunteer their units for the mission then place their tokens into a kylix (a form of drinking cup whose origins lie in ancient Greece on Terra).The Chapter Master then decides which squads to assign to the undertaking based upon which tokens he finds in the kylix.While the squad is the principal tactical unit of the Chapter, sometimes even less manpower is deployed. In cases of responding to general aid requests from the worlds of the Reef Stars, it is customary to dispatch only one battle-brother from the closest squad to investigate.The Astartes chosen is often either the newest member of the squad, or a member being considered for the role of successor by the squad-leader; a one-person undertaking is seen as a fitting challenge for such Space Marines.Historically, only one warrior usually suffices in cases of general aid requests, though it is no shame for the individual to request the presence of his phratry-brothers once apprised of the specific situation.The Iron Snakes' Tactical Squads are unique in the fact that all such squads have an attached Apothecary unlike other Codex Astartes-compliant Chapters who assign only one Apothecary per company.
Iron Snakes - Chapter Wargear: Though the Iron Snakes are able to deploy an acceptable number of vehicles, and also include Dreadnoughts and Librarians amongst their forces, the primacy of the combat squad means that they concentrate on basic infantry tactics in battle.The Chapter's Armoury is able to issue Combat Shields, Warblades (short power swords) and Sea Lances (javelin-type fighting spears commonly referred to as Astartes Power Spears) to all battle-brothers, enabling them to close up and use phalanx (shield-wall) tactics.They are particularly skillful with the Sea Lances, as part of a petitioner's training on their homeworld of Ithaka involves the hunting and slaying of the large, predacious Water Wyrms native to that feral planet.Each Iron Snake is issued with 2 Sea Lances before battle, to be used and disposed of, and phratry battle-brothers are issued fresh lances before the next engagement.
Iron Snakes - Reef Stars: The Iron Snakes were stationed in the sector of Imperial space known as the Reef Stars and charged with its protection as their primary mission many thousands of Terran years ago.The inhabited worlds of the Reef, while varied in their level of technological development, were each given a form of summoning technology for the Iron Snakes that was then ritualised into their society.The Iron Snakes are a myth or legend to some worlds, an awe-inspiring reality to others. Regardless of how they are viewed, the Snakes of Ithaka take their duty to the Reef Stars as seriously as only the Astartes can, and will go to any lengths possible to protect the sector and its citizenry.The actions they have fought in the Reef Stars are numerous, as the whole area appears to be under constant threat by Drukhari raiding parties.As a result, the Iron Snakes have amassed considerable experience fighting the Drukhari, who they (and the people of the Reef Stars) also refer to as "Primuls," a word for these xenos derived from an ancient dialect of High Gothic once spoken in the region.The Iron Snakes also fought a ten-year-long all-out war against a large Ork invasion. The Ork forces, made up of multiple WAAAGH!s, were so large that it was impossible for the Iron Snakes to defeat them by martial means.However, having managed to secure a relic apparently considered sacred by the Orks, the Iron Snakes were able to draw the Ork forces out of the Reef Stars and into unclaimed/xenos territory. The remainder of the Orks were expunged, and the Reef Stars were judged Greenskin-free for over a thousand Terran years.
Iron Snakes - Reef Stars Worlds: Ithaka - Though their fortress-monastery is actually based on Ithaka's moon, Karybdis, the Iron Snakes frequently descend to the surface of the Feral World of Ithaka itself, using its many hostile environments in training exercises to sharpen their battle-brothers and new recruits alike. Ithaka's dangerous oceans are home to the vast reptilian leviathans called the Water Wyrms whose death serves as an Iron Snake Aspirant's final task before being accepted into the Chapter's ranks as a Petitioner. A krareter, or mature male Water Wyrm, can grow up to three hundred metres in length. The Chapter uses these Wyrms for hunting exercises for its Initiates, and in the oethanar, the Trial by Wyrm which is used by the Chapter and the Ithakan people to determine guilt or innocence in certain cases. These marine serpents can cause retyarion (or Wyrm-storm); ferocious squalls that seem to follow their movements. A retyarion also causes seunenae, the "folding walls of iron", which are giant tidal waves that would rise out in the deep waters and come crashing in kilometres high to wipe away Ithakan settlements on the myriad islands that dot the world's deep seas. The water from Ithaka's oceans is considered sacred by the Iron Snakes, and is carried by the Chapter's Astartes to anoint every planet that they step foot on. This ritual is called the Rite of the Giving of Water. When Iron Snakes return home, what remains of the water they took with them is given back to Ithaka.Baal Solock - A sparsely populated world which has occasionally come under attack from Drukhari raiders whom the locals term "Primuls," a word used for those particular xenos that belongs to an ancient dialect of High Gothic.Rosetta - A dry, arid world where promethium fuel is drilled and carried off-world to provision the Astra Militarum. Rosetta was subject to an invasion from a warband of Chaos Space Marines named the Dark Tusks. The Damocles Squad of the Iron Snakes was tasked to retake Rosetta's Excelcius Refinery Nine for the Emperor and reconnect the world's crucial fuel supply to Imperial forces. During this battle, Brother-Sergeant Raphon was killed in action but not before passing off squad leadership and the symbolic Lightning Claw he carried to his successor, Battle-Brother Priad. Following the discovery that the Chaos forces were on Rosetta to try and bring forth a dark daemonic power of the Warp that had been imprisoned millennia before deep beneath the refinery, now-Sergeant Priad decided to go against his previous directive and attempt to destroy the refinery and the evil that was awakening below it. To this end, his squad strapped all its remaining explosives to one of the mining drills and sent it straight down into the earth before evacuating the planet. Not long after the initial explosion beneath the refinery, Rosetta experienced a chain reaction of events that culminated in the death of the world as the Warp energies of the Daemon housed beneath its surface were explosively released during that entity's death throes.
Iron Snakes - Chapter Beliefs: The Iron Snakes are a meticulously disciplined Chapter, though they deviate significantly from the Codex Astartes.The water from Ithaka's oceans is considered sacred by its people, and when Iron Snakes battle-brothers are called to go to a distant war they perform one last act before leave-taking, a ceremony known as the Rite of the Claiming of Water.This lifewater is carried in a copper flask by every member of the Chapter, to anoint every planet that they step foot on in a ritual ceremony called the Rite of the Giving of Water.When these battle-brothers return to their homeworld, the remaining water in these vials is given back to the oceans of Ithaka in a rite known as the Rite of Returning.The cremated remains of those Iron Snakes Astartes slain in battle are also returned, in ceremonial copper urns known as eusippus. Usually the senior-most battle-brother in the squad of the deceased performs this last sacred duty.As the Lament of Dysse is intoned, the lid of each eusippus is unscrewed in turn and the grey ash is shaken out. The fallen's remains are sieved away into the wind and returned like the water to the sea.The fallen Astartes' squad leader carries prepared statements written on a scroll of paper about the valiant dead's life, actions and death, sealed and ready to be placed within the archives of the Chapter House.Often these scrolls also contain full orders of merit laying out the full details and particulars of an Iron Snakes Space Marine's service with the Chapter as well as all of the commendations and decorations he has earned.Another common practise of the Iron Snakes is a ritual punishment, used against those Astartes who have committed a terrible crime, known as Oethanar -- or "Trial by Wyrm" in the dialect of High Gothic used in the sector.This is the worst fate a man of Ithaka can undergo. The accused is left alone and unarmed on a stilt rock, forced to face the Wyrms as they are summoned. If the accused man is still alive at the end of 6 solar hours, he is considered guilty of the charges against him.The people of Ithaka believe that the Water Wyrms will not defile themselves by touching a guilty man. If they take the accused, he is one of Ithaka's chosen children and his innocence will be celebrated in funeral songs and grief-rites forever after.
Iron Snakes - Chapter Colours: The Iron Snakes' power armour is painted gunmetal grey with a golden Aquila.Their shoulder plates are trimmed in red as a standard colour scheme but otherwise are painted in the hues of the Chapter's varying squad colours.The blue squad specialty symbol -- battleline, close support, fire support, Veteran or command -- is displayed on the right shoulder guard, with a white High Gothic numeral, indicating company number, stenciled in the centre of it.Squad designation is displayed as a blue High Gothic numeral on the white left knee-plate.If a Veteran, this knee plate would instead be red with a white skull.
Iron Snakes - Chapter Badge: The Iron Snakes' Chapter badge is a coiled blue snake on a white background.
Iron Snakes - Chapter Inspiration: The culture, martial organisation and traditions of the Iron Snakes Chapter are based upon the culture of the ancient Greeks, more specifically upon the Age of Heroes as recounted in Homer's great epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, composed around 800 B.C.In real history, this legendary period coincides with the Greek Bronze Age and the Mycenaean Era of ca. 1900 - ca. 1100 B.C.
Iron Snakes (Novel Series) - Iron Snakes (Novel Series): Iron Snakes is a Warhammer 40,000 novel series written and edited by Dan Abnett and published by the Black Library. The Iron Snakes series follows the adventures of the Iron Snakes Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes as they protect the area known as the Reef Stars from Xenos incursions their role in the ongoing Sabbat Worlds Crusade. The series also includes works by other Black Library authors. As of March 2018 consists of 1 novel with 4 additional short stories.
Iron Snakes (Novel Series) - Titles: The following is a list of the current titles in the main Iron Snakes series:Series NumberTitleYear1Brothers of the Snake 2007
Iron Snakes (Novel Series) - Synopses: The official Synopsis for all Iron Snakes main series novels are as follows:1. Brothers of the SnakeBrothers of the Snake is the first novel in the Iron Snakes series and is written by Dan Abnett. In the grim darkness of the 41st Millennium, the Space Marines are the supreme defenders of humanity, the Emperor's ultimate shock troopers. The Iron Snakes Chapter has sworn a pledge to protect the Reef Stars from ruin, whatever the cost. Brothers of the Snake follows Sergeant Priad and the Damocles Squad as they battle to preserve humanity against the myriad foes that threaten to destroy it, from the depraved Dark Eldar to a vast Ork Waaagh!.
Iron Snakes (Novel Series) - Short Stories: This list includes all Iron Snakes short stories that were first published as stand alone quick reads, e-shorts, novelettes, or are included in special edition releases or exclusive timed releases. Short stories that were released as part of an anthology, or ones that are prose versions of original audio dramas, are not listed here.1. Kill HillKill Hill is the first stand-alone short story in the Iron Snakes series and is written by Dan Abnett. Priad of Damocles, of the Iron Snakes of Ithaka, reaches the end of a long and gruelling campaign against Orks. All he has to do is survive to reach Kill Hill...2. The Third Wise ManThe Third Wise Man is the second stand-alone short story in the Iron Snakes series and is written by Nik Vincent. The senior officers of the Iron Snakes unite in judgement of one of their number. As his victories and failures are weighed up, his fate will be decided.
Iron Snakes (Novel Series) - Other Releases: This list includes all Iron Snakes short stories that were first published as part of a non-Iron Snakes centric release.1. The Blood BoundThe Blood Bound is a short story in the Iron Snakes series and is written by Rob Sanders. The Blood Bound was first published as part of the Sabbat Crusade anthology novel. A strike force of the Iron Snakes Chapter investigates the disappearance of an Archenemy general who had been taken prisoner and was being transported. When the force arrives at the last known location of the frigate transporting the general they find a ship graveyard circling a world that is no longer responding to any hails.2. The FissureThe Fissure is a short story in the Iron Snakes series and is written by Nik Vincent. The Fissure was first published as part of the Sabbat Crusade anthology novel. In the depths of an Imperial Hive City an evil is unwittingly unearthed, a fissure that bleeds the un-light of the Warp and provokes only madness and death. When ignorant hive workers seal up the rift behind a wall of rockcrete, it appears the darkness has been stymied... But Chaos is not so easily undone and as the fissure's insidious influence spreads it falls to the Iron Snakes of Ithaca to end a threat most foul.
Iron Talons - Iron Talons: The Iron Talons is a Loyalist Space Marine Chapter raised during an unknown Founding as a successor of the White Scars.The Iron Talons are members of the Astartes Praeses -- one of the 20 Chapters of Astartes mentioned in the ancient tome known as the Mythos Angelica Mortis -- that were created to defend the regions surrounding the Eye of Terror in the Segmentum Obscurus from the forces of Chaos.
Iron Talons - Chapter Colours: The Iron Talons wear predominately black power armour. The Aquila or Imperialis on the chest plate, as well as the arms, are silver.The yellow squad specialty symbol -- battleline, close support, fire support, Veteran or command -- is indicated on the right shoulder guard.A black High Gothic numeral centred on the squad specialty symbol indicates squad number.This fearsome Chapter is noted for appearing barbarous-looking as its battle-brothers have a morbid tendency to drape their enemies' flayed skin on their battle plate.
Iron Talons - Chapter Badge: The Iron Talons' Chapter badge is a stylised metallic silver raptor's talon, outstretched to grasp its prey, centred upon a black roundlet on a field of yellow.
Iron Warriors - Legion History: For solar decades the Iron Warriors Legion was the battering ram of the Great Crusade, a maul used to tear down every impregnable fortress or unassailable citadel that dared to stand in the path of the Emperor's will.The IVth Legion became a byword for punishing warfare and for mastery in siege craft, both in defence and assault.Its Primarch Perturabo was likewise known as a ruthless and effective warlord; a master strategist whose razor-edged mind could fathom the hidden weakness in any foe and exploit it with savage and decisive action -- a general to whom defeat was anathema and victory worth any price paid in blood to gain it.This lauded record masked a long-simmering discord within the IVth Legion itself, however. A discord bred by ill-use and slights both real and imagined which, as time went on, was given outward sign by a marked distance and growing distrust between the Iron Warriors Legion and the Great Crusade it served. A growing bitterness festered in the hearts of its increasingly paranoid and withdrawn primarch.When the treachery of Horus was revealed at Isstvan III, the Iron Warriors were already a Legion in crisis, scattered over the stars, divided between a hundred different deployments and still reeling from a brutal act of savage suppression carried out against their own homeworld of Olympia, but they answered the call to punish the Traitor without hesitation.But when Perturabo, the Iron Lord of the IVth Legion, led the bulk of his Legion to Isstvan V, it was to unleash the Iron Warriors' fury not against the Traitors, but against those who had remained loyal to the Emperor.The poison that had long festered within the Legion's soul had at last borne its bitter fruit and in the dark years that followed, billions would suffer for it.
Iron Warriors - Iron Within, Iron Without: After a brief period in the Emperor's company, fighting alongside Him and consuming knowledge of the Great Crusade, its history, war machinery and operations, Perturabo was handed the command of the IVth Legion which bore his gene-seed, and the transition of authority to him was swift and absolute. At the time, around 35,000 Astartes of the IVth Legion had been mustered to create his independent command, with perhaps half that number again scattered across the conquered domains of the Imperium in smaller independent garrisons and detachments bound to their watches and their duties.Having instituted a full review of the IVth Legion's war record, doctrines and practices and having compared those with the other Legions, Perturabo found his sons wanting and acted accordingly. His punishment was decimation. For the Legion's failing all would suffer, as all were guilty. As the edict of decimation would state, "War is unequivocal, uncaring, unforgiving and blind. Blind also will be the selection of those who will pay the blood price for the greater failure of your record."One in ten of the Legion, determined by lottery, was put to death without honour, a deed carried out by each Legionary's own comrades with their bare hands. At this bloody edict some within the Imperial Court protested, believing that the Emperor had given absolute power of a Space Marine Legion to a madman, while others, more guarded in their criticism, opined only that command had been given too soon to the Primarch -- unused as he was to the ways of the Imperium.Loudest of these critics was Roboute Guilliman, Primarch of the Ultramarines, who bridled at the ignominy of the deaths to which valiant Astartes -- warriors alongside which his own Legion had often fought -- had been thus consigned. It was a spur of discord between the two Primarchs that, though later eclipsed by other rancours and feuds among the Emperor's sons, would be one that neither would ever forget. All such criticism the Emperor silenced.To those who survived the IVth Legion's self-decimation, the lesson was plain: such was to be the rule of Perturabo, ruthless and unforgiving, and without favour or preference. Death would be the price of failure in Perturabo's service and war was to him a binary equation. Their sin was not that they had failed in the Great Crusade's service -- for by no measure had this been the case, but instead that they had not reached their full potential.It was not enough for Perturabo that they were merely superior, their fault lay in that among the Legions they were not already supreme. Perturabo demanded that his Legion would be a peerless engine of war, and he immediately set about fashioning it into the weapon he desired it to be, a weapon whose edge he would first test against the rest of the Meratara Cluster at whose edge the Olympia Majoris star system sat.
Iron Warriors - Conquering the Meratara Cluster: After Perturabo overthrew the vaunted "Black Judges" and claimed their once-held domain for the Imperium, he purged the xenos Ecto-Saurids of Verikhonia and subjugated the Renegade Knight-fiefdom of Lyxos, completing his conquest of the cluster. In this last conflict, Perturabo's Legion ended by force a schism that had lasted for millennia back into the Age of Strife between the fragmented empire and its former masters in the Mechanicum, winning the Legion much favour with the lords of Mars.This period was for the IVth Legion a winnowing; a time of trials and testing at their Primarch's hand. With calculated forethought and savage experiment, Perturabo remade the Legion to his own image -- an image not echoing the Olympian or Terran ideal -- but one fashioned purely from his own bleak and unflinchingly ruthless psyche. At the end of the Meratara Cluster campaign, the IVth Legion of old was no more, and the Iron Warriors had been forged from blood and fire in their place.By the time Perturabo returned again to Olympia with his renamed force, the machinery of his plans was well into effect. In alliance with the Mechanicum, new orbital shipyards and foundries burned with frenetic activity. Many had been torn from dead orbits around conquered stars, dragged to Olympia and refitted and expanded to his Legion's purpose. The worlds of the Meratara Cluster too now paid their tribute of flesh and blood to the Lord of Iron to feed his Legion's hunger for fresh warriors, weapons and munitions.All was by Perturabo's hand and design. In the crucible of war, the Iron Warriors had undergone its reshaping, with the changes that had occurred seen in many ways to have amplified what was already present in the IVth Legion rather than changing it beyond recognition; where once the Legion had been ruthless in its willingness to accept losses in return for victory, now it was utterly driven to the point where such considerations were as beneath it as mortal fear. War had become a deadly equation which the Iron Warriors were supremely suited to solve; a relentlessly unyielding engine of war, a beast of steel and fire which swept worlds clean and devoured whole armies.At the head of a newly constituted force, the 125th Expeditionary Fleet, into which Perturabo drew the bulk of his Legion's strength, the Primarch had command of a force which quickly became the battering ram of the Great Crusade.As they fought alongside each of their fellow Legions in turn, they gained an unmatched reputation for brutal efficiency in battle, mastery of armoured warfare and as artillerists without peer among the Legions. It was said of the Iron Warriors that there was no fortress built by the hand of humanity or that of the xenos they could not smash down, no stronghold they could not storm and no army they could not drown in its own blood through shot and shell.
Iron Warriors - The Hollow Crown: More so than many of those who would eventually turn Traitor and side with Horus, the motivations and path of damnation pursued by the Iron Warriors remains perhaps the most unknown and uncertain, save perhaps that of the history of the Alpha Legion around who little but lies circle.Once faultlessly loyal, they did not bend but seemed to outsiders instead to suddenly and inexplicably shatter in their allegiance. Many who view the matter with enough dispassion see, rightly or wrongly, a Legion eroded by too much horror, too much attrition and death in the service of a cause to which they went unheralded and unthanked. They see a Primarch and his sons who were slowly laid low with suspicion, malcontent and a growing madness.But here remains scant evidence of wholesale corruption of the body or the insidious hand of the Ruinous Powers at work among them, let alone any actual traffic with dark forces before the cataclysm of galactic civil war engulfed the Imperium. For others the answer is more simply that there grew in the IVth Legion a savage, jealous arrogance born of nothing more than base bloodlust and malcontent which led the Iron Warriors down the path to their ruin.There have been some who have contended that the Iron Warriors' fatal flaw was instead a lack of faith at a fundamental level, that they did not truly believe in the cause of the Great Crusade or the Emperor that they served, or that they themselves were anything more than machines built to kill. It might then be viewed that ultimately they were undone by the very pragmatism and logic that had made them such ruthless and effective soldiers, but left them ill-equipped to fight an enemy as existential as doubt and mortal terror.If this is true then for Perturabo, his Primarch's mantle became nothing but a license for slaughter without a higher purpose, his conquests empty and victories hollow. It has been further contended that this was what ultimately deranged and destroyed them from within, leaving nothing but empty vessels to be filled with the uncaring savagery and the mirror of the horrors they had borne.
Iron Warriors - Hydra Cordatus: As Horus' rebellion ground on, the Iron Warriors took the time to humble their great enemies, the Imperial Fists, upon the isolated world of Hydra Cordatus that the Sons of Dorn had recently brought into Imperial Compliance. The Iron Warriors made planetfall in the wake of a saturation bombardment that reduced the valley where the planet's lone formidable fortress, known as the Cadmean Citadel, was situated and the agri-settlements filling its fertile deltas to ash.Magma bombs and mass drivers boiled away the rivers and reduced fecund earth to arid dust. The Cadmean Citadel was left untouched, and the small garrison of Imperial Fists Legionaries that Rogal Dorn had left behind still found it difficult to believe that such a precise bombardment was possible. But the Iron Warriors had purposely done this in order to show the Imperial Fists that they were superior to them in every way.The technological cunning of the ancient fortress builders, married to the artfully wrought geography and the courage of the defenders, proceeded to keep the Iron Warriors at bay for almost three solar months. Every day the Loyalist warriors stayed alive kept the enemy from redeploying and bringing their strength to bear elsewhere against the forces of the Imperium. Yet, when the Iron Warriors finally overcame the citadel's ancient defences and broke open its walls they ran amok.They slaughtered the remaining Imperial Fists Legionaries, the heroic men and women of Hydra Cordatus that had chosen to stand with them, and the refugees from the devastated fields below the fortress. Fifty-two Imperial Fists and thirteen thousand men, women and children were crammed within the citadel's walls. When the final assault came, the Lord of Iron himself spearheaded the audacious attack upon the citadel's defenders, and slaughtered over thirty Imperial Fists Astartes in a span of only a few minutes.The rest of the Cadmean Citadel's defenders were slaughtered to a man and the surviving mortal refugees were enslaved by the Iron Warriors before they moved on to their next objective. Hydra Cordatus was reduced to a barren desert world by the Traitor Legion's assault.
Iron Warriors - Empire of Iron: Following the Drop Site Massacre, the IVth Legion transformed Olympia and its surrounding star systems into a so-called "Empire of Iron." On a dozen worlds, an Iron Warriors Warsmith replaced the Loyalist Imperial Planetary Governor and tithes were paid to the new rulers under the shadow of fortified battlements.Following the massacre on Isstvan V, the next major action of the Iron Warriors was the ambush of the Imperial Fists fleet at the Battle of Phall, in which the Imperial Fists fleet that had been becalmed in the Warp on the way to the Istvaan System was assaulted by the vessels of the Iron Warriors but managed to successfully escape and make its way back to Terra.
Iron Warriors - Sisypheum: Unknown to both the Emperor's Children and the Iron Warriors, they were being pursued by a ragtag group of Loyalist Astartes who were survivors of the Drop Site Massacre of Istvaan V and were determined to stop the Traitors at all costs. These Loyalist Space Marines were gathered from survivors that had fought their way out of the killing ground of the Urgall Depression on Istvaan V. They had managed to escape the Istvaan System aboard an Iron Hands Strike Cruiser known as the Sisypheum.Iron Hands Astartes and their mortal serfs formed the bulk of the warship's crew, but surviving warriors of the Salamanders and a single Raven Guard Astartes were also counted among their number. In the wake of the slaughter, escape from the Istvaan System had been a nerve-shredding series of mad dashes under fire and silent runs through the Traitors' orbital blockade, culminating in a final sprint to the gravipause, the minimum safe distance between a star's mass and a vessel's ability to survive a Warp Jump also known as a Mandeville Point. The Sisypheum had escaped the trap, but not without great cost.The months that followed saw the Sisypheum embark on a series of hit-and-run attacks on Traitor forces on the northern frontiers of the galaxy, wreaking harm like a lone predator swimming in a dark ocean. Traitor forces seeking flanking routes through the Segmentum Obscurus were their prey; scout craft, cartographae ships, slow-moving supply hulks heavily laden with mortal troops, ammunition and weapons.Disruption and harassment were the Sisypheum 's main objective until contact had been established with disparate groups of Loyalist forces that had also escaped the massacre, and a stratagem of sorts agreed upon. With the Xth Legion too scattered to function in a traditional battlefield role, its surviving commanders found their own way to fight back: as the thorns in the flanks of the leviathan that distract it from the swordthrust to the vitals.At Cavor Sarta, an Iron Hand known as Sabak Wayland and the lone Raven Guard survivor Nykona Sharrowkyn had captured an Unlingual Cipher Host -- one of the so-called "Kryptos" -- a hybrid abomination creature of the Dark Mechanicum that had previously made the Traitors' code network a cryptographic impossibility to break. With the Kryptos, Loyalist commanders were able to finally access the Traitors' coded communications.And with this knowledge, the Sisypheum 's Captain, the Iron Hand Ulrach Branthan, had ordered the Sisypheum to make the circuitous journey to Hydra Cordatus and the meeting of the Traitor Primarchs that had been indicated by the cracked communications. After learning of Fulgrim's intentions to enter the Eye of Terror and recover the Angel Exterminatus, the crew of the Sisypheum made their way towards the Warp Rift, aided by a mysterious Eldar guide with the intention of thwarting the Traitors' plan to acquire the unknown xenos weapon.
Iron Warriors - Crone World: The destination of the joint fleet of Iron Warriors and Emperor's Children vessels was the lost Aeldari world of Iydris, a world said to have been favoured by the goddess Lileath. Iydris was one of the legendary Crone Worlds, which once formed the heart of the ancient Aeldari Empire before they were consumed by the creation of the vast Warp rift that was the Eye of Terror following the birth of the Chaos God Slaanesh.The Crone World was located at the heart of the Eye of Terror, somehow remaining in a fixed position keeping it from destruction in the gravitational hellstorm of a supermassive black hole that lay at the centre of the eternal Warp Storm. It was from this epicentre that the galaxy vomited unnatural matter into the void, a dark doorway to an unknowable destination and an unimaginably powerful singularity whose gravity was so strong that it consumed light, matter, space and time in its destructive core.Their ultimate goal was within the Primarchs' grasp; the Sepulchre of Isha's Doom, which sat at the centre of the citadel of Amon ny-shak Kaelis. The citadel stood astride the entrance to the prison tomb of the Angel Exterminatus. Before launching a full planetary assault, the Iron Warriors launched a preliminary orbital bombardment around the citadel, a standard practice when preparing to assault a potentially hostile environment.A cone of fire gouged the surface of Iydris, burning, pounding and flattening in the blink of an eye structures that had stood inviolate for tens of thousands of Terran years. A barren ring of pulverised earth encircled the citadel of Amon ny-shak Kaelis, leaving its walls, towers and temples an isolated island cut off from the rest of the planet's structures by a billowing firestorm of planet-cracking force.In the wake of this orbital bombardment flocks of Thunderhawks, Stormbirds, Warhawks and heavy planetary landers launched from crammed embarkation decks. Bulk tenders descended to low orbit and disgorged thousands of troop carriers, armour lifters and supply barques. Titanic, gravity-cushioned mass-landers moved with majestic slowness as two Titans of the Legio Mortis took to the field, and this was but the first wave of the invasion. Another eight would follow before the martial power of two entire Space Marine Legions and their auxiliary Imperial Army forces had made planetfall.
Iron Warriors - To the Siege of Terra: Fulgrim had spoke true, for Perturabo and his Iron Warriors emerged intact from the Eye of Terror and were transported through the singularity within the Eye far across the galaxy to the Tallarn System. Once arriving at Tallarn, Perturabo was made aware of the Chaos relic known as the Cursus of Alganar hidden beneath the planet, and he immediately drew up plans to acquire it and its power for the Traitors.The intended raid unexpectedly turned into the protracted conflict known as the Battle of Tallarn, as both the Traitors and the Imperium poured war material to their respective allies on the verdant world, neither willing to admit defeat. The Iron Warriors ultimately responded by unleashing a virus-bomb attack on the planet, which transformed it into a harsh Desert World. Over a million armoured vehicles fought across that newborn desert, which is reckoned as the largest tank battle in Imperial history, until eventually the Iron Warriors were forced to retreat without the Cursus.After their retreat from Tallarn, the Iron Warriors were assigned to guard worlds to the rear of Horus' front that following the weakening of the Ruinstorm following the Second Battle of Davin were now threatened by the advance of the Ultramarines. Many of these worlds served as the Traitor's chief supply line.The Iron Warriors were among the forces of the Traitor Legions who fought for control of Yarant and the Forge World of Vanaheim during this period.By late in the Heresy, the Iron Warriors found themselves overextended, under-supplied, and engaged in thankless, bitter sieges against the forces of Roboute Guilliman. The Iron Warriors took heavy losses during these conflicts and once more found themselves in a situation of being used piecemeal across the galaxy similar to that of the Great Crusade. This course of events was finally interrupted when Perturabo received orders to find his brother Primarch Angron of the World Eaters Legion and muster with them at Ullanor in preparation for the Siege of Terra.Despite having to abandon the sacrifices made by many of his Iron Warriors on worlds across the galaxy where they were already engaged, Perturabo dutifully obeyed the command of the Warmaster. Though many Iron Warriors were lost in the fighting retreats that resulted from the ensuing redeployments, Perturabo succeeded in arriving at Ullanor with his Legion as well as Angron and his World Eaters.After seven standard years of bitter civil war following the Drop Site Massacre, a large contingent of the IVth Legion accompanied Perturabo himself to Terra, where he supervised the siege of the Imperial Palace during the Battle of Terra. The Iron Warriors found a sublime pleasure in tearing the edifices of the Imperium down.
Iron Warriors - The Iron Cage: It cannot be known whether Dorn's masterfully constructed defences would ultimately have proved the undoing of the Iron Warriors, for Horus was slain by the Emperor aboard his Battleship in orbit of Terra before the matter could be fully decided. Those Iron Warriors who had taken part in the Siege of Terra fled to the Eye of Terror with the remainder of the Traitor Legions, but not before fighting a long rearguard action against the Loyalist forces of the Imperium during the Great Scouring in an attempt to hold on to the pocket empire they had forged out of the star systems surrounding Olympia.During this period, the sons of Perturabo found themselves finally free to test themselves against those of Rogal Dorn. Before his Legion followed suit, Perturabo devised and enacted the one real victory for the Iron Warriors in the aftermath of the Horus Heresy.He crafted a trap on the world of Sebastus IV designed to ensnare Rogal Dorn and the Imperial Fists, with whom Perturabo and his warriors had long harboured a bitter rivalry that had stemmed from each Legion claiming to be the best force in the Imperium at laying and defending against sieges.The trap was known as the Eternal Fortress, a keep centered within twenty square Terran miles of bunkers, towers, minefields, trenches, tank traps and redoubts. Upon hearing of this, Rogal Dorn publicly declared that he "would dig Perturabo out of his hole and bring him back to Terra in an iron cage."Rogal Dorn expected an honourable battle, but this was not to be. Beginning by isolating the four companies of the Imperial Fists that made planetfall from their orbital support, Perturabo began to carefully divide his enemy and destroy them piecemeal.Some Imperial Fists Astartes managed to penetrate the defences and reach the center of the Eternal Fortress, only to find there was no central keep -- simply an open space watched by yet more defences. The fortress was a decoy of no real value. By the sixth day of the siege, Imperial Fists Astartes were fighting individually, without support, using the bodies of their own Battle-Brothers for cover.The siege of the Eternal Fortress, later referred to simply as the "Iron Cage" by the Imperial Fists, lasted for a further three solar weeks. Relief came in the form of Roboute Guilliman and the Ultramarines, but the siege left Dorn a broken man, rendered the Imperial Fists Chapter unable to fight for nineteen standard years until they had made good their terrible losses, and paved the way for Perturabo's ascension to the rank of Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided, after the sacrifice of over four hundred Loyalist Space Marines on the bloody landscape of Sebastus IV. This most infamous of campaigns was the deed that earned Perturabo the dark blessing of apotheosis to become a Daemon Primarch.
Iron Warriors - Scouring of Olympia: Under the command of their new Daemon Prince, the majority of the Iron Warriors fled to the Eye of Terror and secured the Daemon World of Medrengard after the battle of the Iron Cage, from where they could brood on the turn of events and plot vengeance on the Imperium. Those Iron Warriors who had established their own empire around Olympia prepared themselves for the inevitable assault by the Loyalist Legions.There was to be no refuge from the retribution of the Loyalists during the campaigns known as the Great Scouring. The Imperial Fists supported the Ultramarines in a campaign to liberate the subjugated worlds. In a reversal of fortune typical of the grim epoch that ushered in the Age of the Imperium, the Imperial Fists were amongst those who laid siege to these remaining Iron Warriors strongholds, and while the Traitors were eventually dislodged, it was only after a decade-long campaign that culminated in the Iron Warriors detonating their nucleonic stockpiles and reducing Olympia to a radioactive waste.The Iron Warriors' former homeworld was left as a blasted wasteland that was quarantined by the Imperium and listed as Perdita by the Inquisition, and no further mention of Olympia has been found in Imperial records for more than 10,000 standard years.
Iron Warriors - Second Siege of Hydra Cordatus: During Abaddon the Despoiler's 13th Black Crusade in 999.M41, the Iron Warriors, under the command of the Warsmith Barban Falk, attacked once more the Adeptus Mechanicus Forge World of Hydra Cordatus which supplied weapons and other war materiel to the Imperium of Man at large, and was one of the few locations in the galaxy where the Mechanicus secretly stored its tithes of Space Marine gene-seed.Alongside his chief rivals Forrix and Kroeger, of the 1st and 2nd Grand Companies, respectively, Honsou was one of three champions of the Warsmith that laid siege to the large citadel and manufactorum complex known as the Tor Christo. Deep within this formidable Imperial citadel lay the stasis vaults which contained the genetic material drawn from the Iron Warriors' most hated and ancient rivals, the Imperial Fists.The Iron Warriors desperately needed the Astartes' pure gene-seed to reconstitute their numbers as the corrupting power of Chaos tended to mutate their own gene-seed to the point that it was unusable to replenish their ranks with new Chaos Space Marines. Honsou was often belittled by his fellow Iron Warriors for having mixed gene-seed which consisted of spliced Iron Warriors and Imperial Fists genetic material.He was referred to by his fellows as a "half-breed," due to his gene-seed's mixed heritage. Despite the Imperial forces arrayed against them, including a large garrison of Astra Militarum troops and even a small detachment of Titans of the Legio Ignatum protecting the complex's precious contents, in the end the Iron Warriors emerged triumphant. They defeated the Imperial forces defending Tor Christo as well as an entire company of Imperial Fists who had arrived as reinforcements to try and prevent the theft of their genetic legacy.Having greatly pleased the Chaos Gods through his monumental victory over the Imperium, the commanding Warsmith was allowed to ascend to become a Daemon Prince. Before his final ascension to daemonhood, the Warsmith appointed Honsou as his successor, handing him command over his Grand Company. He then commanded Honsou to take the stolen Imperial Fists gene-seed back to the Iron Warriors' Daemon World of Medrengard within the Eye of Terror. After the Iron Warriors withdrew from Hydra Cordatus they bombarded the remains of the citadel to dust, leaving behind a lone Imperial survivor to tell the tale of what had occurred.
Iron Warriors - The Grand Siege: Having studied the Imperial defences of Segmentum Obscurus in detail via a combination of remote scrying, methodically applied torture of captive Loyalists and a network of techno-cultist informants, Perturabo learned much of their capabilities and limitations.When Cadia finally fell to the Warmaster Abaddon during the 13th Black Crusade and the Cicatrix Maledictum split the galaxy from end to end, the Daemon Primarch mobilised a thousand armies and coordinated them in a grand strategy that targeted the most heavily defended Imperial worlds in the Segmentum.So began a brutal blockade of the Imperium itself. As Perturabo's embittered armies marched forth, menageries of Daemon Engines and batteries of artillery machines at their side, a dozen fortified worlds previously thought inviolable were brought to the edge of total disaster by the Iron Warriors' merciless siege tactics.
Iron Warriors - Notable Bonded Formations: The Iron Warriors notoriously field large amount of expendable human troops to satisfy their needs, this has seemingly always been the case, even well before the events of the Horus Heresy. Some of these allied forces served for considerable time alongside the IVth Legion and would gain much glory at the sides of the sons of Pertuarbo. The following are some of the more notable bonded formations:17th Company, 81st Galibed Oathsworn - The 17th Company was a tank formation of the Imperial Army drawn from the 81st Galibed Oathsworn which had served at the side of the Iron Warriors for two decades before following them on the path to damnation. While still engaged in the Great Crusade the company had distinguished itself by storming the dreaded Laccomil Gap on Tarnic IV. Impressed by their heroism and willingness to sacrifice all, it was Pertuarbo himself who ordered the company reconstitution after its destruction on the world of Necibis. Easily identifiable for the coal-black livery of their engines of war -- Malcador Heavy Battle Tanks, Leman Russ Demolishers and Thunderer Siege Tanks -- the 17th company was destroyed again on the sandfields of Tallarn when leading the assaut on the Sapphire City bunker complex.Selucid Thorakite - The Selucid Thorakite was composed of Imperial Army regiments raised from natural-born, mortal Olympian soldiers who had joined with the Iron Warriors in the genocide of their homeworld in the days just before the IVth Legion went over to the cause of Horus. The Thorakitai were grim-faced men and women who wore faded khaki, scaled breastplates and combat helms fashioned in the image of the helms used as part of the Astartes' suits of Mark IV Maximus Power Armour.Pneumachina - The Tech-priests of the ancient Mechanicum that attended the Iron Warriors Legion were known as the Pneumachina and crafted hybrid machines fashioned from the wreckage of damaged vehicles and strange machinery torn from the citadels of conquered foes. The Pneumachina constantly worked with feverish intensity in their sealed forges, crafting ever-more lethal machines, some blatant in their purpose, but others less obvious. They also performed most of the laborious functions required for the construction of citadels on newly conquered worlds as well as general repair and maintenance functions for the IVth Legion as a whole.
Iron Warriors - Post-Heresy: The Iron Warriors Legion of the 41st Millennium is organised into a number of large warbands known as "grand companies," each commanded by a Chaos Lord who bears the title of "Warsmith."Originally each grand company would have been similar in size and organisation, totaling approximately a thousand Space Marines, but now they vary in size enormously after ten millennia of battle and losses. The Warsmiths themselves are all extremely gifted in combat engineering, many maintaining a large contingent of slave-mechanicians to perform the more menial work.It is uncertain how many grand companies there are in the Legion at any given time. At the time of the Horus Heresy, the IVth Legion had an added layer of organisation known as a "grand battalion," which contained several grand companies and was commanded by a senior Astartes captain who bore the honourary rank of Warsmith. At the time of the Drop Site Massacre on Isstvan V there were at least twelve grand battalions in the IVth Legion, although with the widespread deployment of many garrison forces in that era, it is impossible to be sure.Like many of the Traitor Legions of Chaos Space Marines, the Iron Warriors' current organisation in the 41st Millennium is completely non-standard. A grand company will often be divided into component warband detachments led by lesser Chaos Champions. There is a tendency to operate in multiples of three. Suitable recruits are taken (willingly and unwillingly) to Medrengard where they are selected periodically by various Warsmiths for their grand company and subjected to ordeals until they prove themselves worthy of being implanted with the Legion's Chaos-corrupted gene-seed or with the rare stockpiles of uncorrupted Astartes genetic material the Iron Warriors have been able to steal from Loyalist Space Marine Chapters or bargain for with newly Renegade Chapters.
Iron Warriors - Pre-Heresy: Olympia was, before the time of the Great Crusade, a rugged and mountainous world, its population concentrated within a multitude of city-states. The ready availability of quarried stone and the terrain made the control of strategic passes and high ground the key to military security, which in turn helped develop Perturabo's -- and his Legion's -- later focus on siege warfare.