Emperor's Children - Notable Campaigns: Proximan Rebellion (ca. 829.M30) - The Proximan Rebellion is one of the earliest recorded engagements of the as-yet unnamed IIIrd Legion. Assigned to the Imperial Compliance ceremonies and as the Emperor's honour guard for Proxima's formal accession into the Imperium, an insurrectionist trap was sprung which resulted in the IIIrd Legion's XVIth Cohort (Chapter) fighting and dying to the last warrior alongside the Legio Custodes, never giving ground during the insurrectionist surprise attack on that world's ceremonial plaza. By their sacrifice was the wounded Emperor, who had suffered injury through the use of a Vortex weapon by the enemy, bought time to recover and fight his way clear of the Proximan insurrectionists' trap. In recognition of this sacrifice, the standard of the Palatine Aquila so fiercely fought for that day was given to the Astartes of the IIIrd Legion by the Emperor's own hand, to be their relic ever after, along with the right to end the Proximan revolt by Exterminatus and so repay the blood that was owed them. While the great Aquila in its variations signified both the Imperium of Humanity and loyalty to the Emperor as its master, and there is much allegory bound up in its form, for the IIIrd Legion it also now represented their own deeds as well, an honour never given to another Space Marine Legion before the Great Betrayal.Praxil Compliance (Unknown Date.M30) - The Praxil System was settled by humanity in the distant past and had remained isolated for millennia. Even without Warp-capable starships the people of Praxil had still managed to flourish instead of regressing to barbarism. Though bringing Praxil into Imperial Compliance would bring the Imperium great renown, this formidable civilisation refused to bend the knee to the light of the Imperial Truth, and instead were prepared to fight to maintain their independence. Their warfleet was formidable, and managed to push back the initial invasion of the Imperial Expeditionary Fleet. But if the Praxil warships proved formidable, their warriors proved to be downright deadly. Drawn from the system's prison colonies, each was already a formidable killer and survivor. Implanted with drug glands, vat-grown muscle and bone grafts, mind-wiped and conditioned with battle-memes, they were lethal and dangerous, even to Astartes. Armoured in partially powered battle plate, bearing high penetration laser weaponry and fractally sharpened blades, they posed a grave risk to the Imperial forces. The Imperium wanted Praxil's wealth and resources to harness to the needs of the Great Crusade, and so the securing of Praxil fell to an Army-Group-sized force of the Emperor's Children, supported by selected elements of the Imperial Army and the forces of the Mechanicum. Despite meticulous planning, the campaign did not begin well as substantial losses were inflicted upon the Imperial forces. Changing their strategy, the Emperor's Children decided that instead of focusing on a systematic conquest of the system's void stations, moons and planets, they would instead focus upon Praxil's fleet. Without the ability to redeploy their strength, each of the Praxil domains would become a closed tactical problem. But the Praxil had anticipated such tactics, and instead deployed multiple strike fleets to attack the Imperial fleet. Substantial losses were incurred during this initial engagement as the Praxil took advantage and attacked the Imperial toehold on their outer moons and stations. A representative of the War Council of Terra observed that the Emperor's Children's Lord Commander Iddinam, who was charged with the command of the Praxil Compliance, would never willingly admit that he needed assistance, and therefore issued a request to Terra for reinforcements. Soon elements from the Blood Angels Legion under the command of Chapter Master Raldoron and Marshal Cazimus of the Imperial Fists arrived in-system to augment the beleaguered Imperial forces. Despite his misgivings and slight to his personal honour, the Lord Commander accepted his cousin Legions' assistance and immediately drew up plans for prosecuting the second offensive against the Praxil. Utilising the strength of the Blood Angels and Imperial Fists Legions, the Emperor's Children launched a successful second offensive against the Praxil that soon saw an Imperial victory. When the Imperium claimed its victory, however, Lord Commander Iddinam refused to acknowledge his role in effecting the Compliance of Praxil, and would later have a hand as a prime conspirator of his Legion's treachery during the Istvaan III Atrocity.Defence of Tranquility (Unknown Date.M30) - The Defence of Tranquility was a protracted and vicious engagement fought by the Emperor's Children on the periphery of the Dalinite Nebula region during the early phase of the Great Crusade's progress into the Galactic East. This volatile of region of space would have been bypassed by the Crusade's forces altogether, leaving its vermin inhabitants to kill themselves in their bloody internecine conflicts, but there was something present in the region that drew the conquering armies like insects to light -- the Dalinite Gates. The Dalinite Gates were part of the mysterious series of Warp Gates scattered across the stars that had been crafted by ancient and forgotten intelligent species of the Milky Way, which allowed starships to cross the vast distances of space more safely than even the finest Navigators could achieve. This particular Warp Gate, however, was believed to be a nexus point that could allow access to other Warp Gates across the galaxy, greatly increasing the ability of the Imperium's fleets to reach new targets and expand the reach of the Emperor's forces. Under the overall command of Horus of the Luna Wolves Legion, several Imperial Expeditionary Fleets were combined to prosecute a campaign to purge the Dalinite Nebula. Amongst these Imperial forces were the Emperor's Children, although at this time their fighting strength was still very limited, comprising a single Cohort of barely 500 warriors. Nevertheless, the Emperor's Children were given the important role of securing the world of Tranquility on the trailing edge of the Imperial advance. The world was utterly worthless except that a Warp Gate, designated the Tranquility Gate, hung in high orbit above the planet's pole and a forward Imperial navigation and signal relay had been constructed there. The Emperor's Children would stand vigil in case the gate was used to threaten the Imperial advance. Without warning a fleet of xenos warships emerged from the gate. Outmatching the Imperial vessels in orbit, the xenos fleet soon mounted a ground assault against Tranquility's surface. Outmatched by the numbers of xenos committed to the assault, the Emperor's Children were forced to make a tactical withdrawal into the surrounding maze of Tranquility's fissures and stacks, although in retreat the Emperor's Children were far from beaten. As the xenos advanced, the Emperor's Children pulled them onwards, striking back, feigning flight and then punishing the foe at every turn. As the xenos' losses mounted with gathering speed, they frantically attempted to sweep the surface with fire from their orbiting warships in an attempt to gain an advantage. In response, the Imperial warships executed a rapid, desperate counterattack -- a murderous, pre-planned engagement at point-blank range as the xenos directed their weapons downwards, rendering themselves vulnerable. Seven of the nine alien warships were destroyed in a matter of minutes. Unable to sustain their crushing losses, the remaining xenos craft fled back through the Warp Gate, leaving their surviving fighters on the planet's surface, dooming them to annihilation at the hands of the Emperor's Children.The Fall of the Lords of Gardinaal (Unknown Date.M30) - During the Great Crusade there were many human worlds, indeed in some cases petty interstellar empires, who resisted the Imperial Truth through fear, fanaticism or arrogance, and of these some number possessed considerable might of arms, enough to give even the Expeditionary Fleets of the Great Crusade pause. One such was the Gardinaal; a solar empire at the edge of the Dominion of Storms to the galactic east. Comprising eleven inhabited worlds, grown strong on industrial power retained through the Age of Strife and a warlike military aristocracy, it was deemed an ideal prize well-worthy of inclusion intact for the Imperium. In particular, Gardinaal's extensive and well-equipped armed forces would make ideal inductees into the ranks of the Imperial Army. As such, negotiations for the inclusion of Gardinaal in the Imperium were deemed the first course of action, and a full delegation with an honour guard drawn from the Thousand Sons Legion was sent to meet with the lords of the pocket empire. At first, the talks proved promising, but soon degenerated when the Lords of Gardinaal's position became laboured and obstructive, believed to be an attempt to forestall an invasion while the Gardinaal covertly readied itself for war. When the Thousand Sons detachment detected a psychic attempt to subvert the Imperial emissaries, they intervened, slaughtering the Gardinaal delegation, enabling the Imperial Expedition to flee, bringing news of the treacherous attack to the Imperium. The nearby 413th Expeditionary Fleet, under the command of Master Ulan Cicerus and his XVth Chapter of the Ultramarines Legion, a strong Imperial Army core of Marnean Armsmen and Serranic Peltasts and a demi-legio of the Titan Legio Atarus were dispatched. Initially, the Imperial forces overcame the defences of Gardinaal's outer worlds and established a blockade in space. The Ultramarines' attempt to take Gardinaal Prime with minimal collateral loss would prove disastrous, as the Gardinaal utilised powerful STC weaponry and vehicles never before seen by Imperial forces. The Ultramarines and Titans were hurled back and forced to retreat off-planet rather than fight on with no possibility of victory. Nearly half of the demi-legio was lost and the Ultramarines' casualties were just as severe, but worse, over 500,000 troops of the Imperial Army lay dead or dying on Gardinaal Prime. Repulsed and bled dry, the 413th Expedition was unable to launch another assault. Breaking from the Warp to answer the Ultramarines call for aid, at the head of a new war-host, Ferrus Manus led an armada comprised of both the Iron Hands and the Emperor's Children Legions. The Emperor's Children contingent led a diversionary attack, sowing panic and death across the world but leaving its infrastructure intact. Descending at the height of the diversionary attacks, the Iron Hands divided the task of taking Gardinaal Prime's main industrialised zones between the Iron Hands Clans. The assault of the Xth Legion was relentless and tireless, a battle fought across a thousand engagements spread over an entire world. With their domains fallen about them, the Lords of Gardinaal offered unconditional surrender to the Imperium. Ferrus Manus refused and the Iron Hands led the final attack on the capital city. The Ultramarines, desperate to reclaim their honour from their earlier defeat, requested the honour of crossing the breach into the enemy citadel. The Gorgon acquiesced to the Ultramarines' request, but the price the warriors of the XIIIth Legion paid was high, for the defenders' counterattack was powerful, sparing none of their remaining might. When the last of the Lords of Gardinaal had paid for their intransigence, Ferrus Manus spoke, his orders not a death sentence of a world, but of its reprieve: "It is done." The Iron Hands fleet left the Gardinaal System shortly afterwards, its other inhabited worlds pleased to surrender unconditionally to the Imperium's mercy. Though initially faced with famine and hardship, Gardinaal soon proved a valuable addition to the Imperium and a model of Imperial Compliance.Extinction of the Katara (Unknown Date.M30) - The xenocide of the alien Katara was a brutal campaign of extermination carried out against this insular Abhuman civilisation that had evolved in the Kenuit System during the Age of Strife, turning irrevocably from the purity of the human form and the fellowship of Mankind. When first discovered by an Emperor's Children fleet, the first signs indicated that the system's Imperial Compliance could be achieved without bloodshed. Initially offering no resistance, matters only deteriorated when the Katara were asked directly to formally surrender to the Imperium. Soon a lone Kataran warship arrived and destroyed the Light Cruiser Locrian before sustaining damage itself and withdrawing. So provoked, acting Lieutenant Commander Abdemon ordered the invasion of the largest Kataran city-complex the Imperial fleet's augurs could detect. Commencing an orbital bombardment which cracked open the upper levels of the Kataran city, the Emperor's Children landed, suspecting that they would face mass resistance to their invasion. Instead, they encountered lone Kataran warriors clad in strange armour made from an exotic metal who fought with leaf-bladed ceramic axes, plasma-tipped spears that burned like suns and swords of black glass that could cut ceramite with a delicate stroke. The skill in which the Kartarans wielded their weapons was dazzling even to the Emperor's Children. The Katara's diplomatic representatives came forward again after hundreds of their warriors had died in their seemingly insane, staggered attacks and requested to meet once more under truce. The Kataran diplomat brought a proposal: let the war be decided by a chosen champion from each side. At the end the victor would claim not only victory for himself but for his civilisation. Incredibly, Lieutenant Commander Abdemon agreed and said that he would enter the field as the Imperium's champion. The two warriors fought, until at last both were sheeted in blood. That is when the Imperial champion got under the alien's guard and delivered the killing blow. With their champion defeated, the Kataran representatives ordered that all should know that their people had been defeated by an enemy of equal honour but superior arts. The order given, the Kataran leaders fell on their own swords before the Emperor's Children. Across all their domains every member of the Katara followed their leaders in death and the Kataran cities became massive tombs. Though some advocated stripping the now unoccupied worlds and beginning a process of resettlement, Lieutenant Commander Abdemon and the Emperor's Children refused, decreeing that the Kataran planet would become a Mortuary World. The cites would remain untouched until time remade them, and the corpses of their makers returned to dust. Relics were collected from their dead so that the Katara would be remembered as honourable foes.Pacification of Schravaan (Mid-800s.M30) - This was a joint Imperial Compliance action conducted by the Emperor's Children, Iron Warriors, Imperial Fists, and the Luna Wolves Legions against the xenos Badoon on the world of Schravaan. The Iron Warriors won a great victory when they stormed the final refuge of the Badoon. They breached the defences and held while the other Legions carried the city beyond. During the following victory feast, Horus proclaimed Perturabo the greatest master of siege warfare in the Great Crusade. Fulgrim then inquired to his brother Dorn whether he thought even the defences of the Imperial Palace could resist the Iron Warriors, in which Dorn replied that he regarded the defences as being proof against any assault if well-planned. Perturabo flew into a rage and unleashed unfounded accusations against his brother. After this the two rarely spoke, and neither of their Legions served in the same campaign for the remainder of the Great Crusade.Compliance of Molech (869.M30) - The Compliance of the newly discovered Knight World of Molech was a monumental undertaking. Led by the Emperor Himself, the massive joint-Compliance campaign was conducted by multiple Legiones Astartes, including the Emperor's Children, Luna Wolves, Dark Angels, White Scars and several thousands troops of the Imperialis Auxilia as well as assets from the Mechanicum and cohorts of the Legio Titanicus. Cyprian Devine of House Devine was named Planetary Governor of Molech. In the presence of several of His Primarch sons, the Emperor led them to a hidden Warp portal underground, where He proceeded to enter into the Realm of Chaos to parley with the Ruinous Powers. When He returned, the Emperor appeared aged, but much more powerful. He then suppressed His sons' memories of Molech and stationed a large garrison force comprised of nearly 100 Imperialis Auxilia regiments, three Legio Titanicus cohorts, and detachments from two Space Marine Legions to protect the secrets of the Warp portal on Molech.Pacification of the Cheraut System (Mid-900s.M30) - Following the successful joint-Compliance of the Cheraut System by the Emperor's Children, Imperial Fists and Night Lords Legions, the three Primarchs met in celebration. After the celebration, the Night Lords Primarch suffered one of his violent fits that often plagued him, and Fulgrim rushed to Konrad Curze's aid. The Night Haunter then confided in his brother the dire visions that he had seen; his death at the hands of their father, that many of the Primarchs would die fighting amongst themselves, and that the light the Emperor brought to his homeworld of Nostramo would destroy it forever. Troubled by these dire portents, Fulgrim confided in his brother Rogal Dorn. Dorn took exception to this slight on the Emperor's name and confronted Curze. Shortly thereafter, Dorn was found unconscious and bleeding with great gouges of flesh ripped away from his torso. Crouching above his fallen brother was the pallid form of the Night Haunter, weeping. Wracked with self-loathing and guilt, Curze was taken into custody and exiled to his chambers, while his brother Primarchs discussed what actions to take against their deeply disturbed brother. Hours later, when the council of Primarchs finally disbanded, they found Night Haunter missing and the Imperial Fists honour guard watching over him butchered. By the time the Primarchs gave chase, Night Haunter had already disappeared with his Legion into the Warp.Cleansing of 28-3 (Laeran) (ca. 000.M31) - Shortly after the beginning of their participation in the Great Crusade on their own terms, the Emperor`s Children 28th Expeditionary Fleet encountered a hitherto-unknown serpentine alien race who called themselves the Laer. Analysis of captured scouts and envoys showed the Laer to be concentrated in a single star system on a single homeworld completely covered by a global ocean called Laeran (officially codified as Twenty-Eight-Three). Nonetheless, they had the potential to be a powerful foe. Like the Emperor's Children themselves, the Laer prized perfection in all aspects of civilisation. By the use of chemical manipulation from birth, individual Laer were adapted to their roles, whether they be workers, soldiers, diplomats, even artists. Observers from the Adeptus Administratum wondered if perhaps the Laer might be made a protectorate of the Imperium as conquering such an efficient race could prove to be a long and costly endeavour. Fulgrim refused any notion of co-operation. Only humanity was perfect, he insisted. For an alien race to hold its own ideals to be comparable to those of humanity was blasphemy in its most blatant form, and deserved nothing less than annihilation. He ordered his Lord Commanders to attack immediately, beginning a war that the Council of Terra predicted would last for decades. Fulgrim heard this prediction, and shook his head. In one month`s time, he promised, the Imperium would rule Laeran. The Emperor's Children, in concert with Lord Commander Fayle's Imperial Army regiments of the Archite Palatines, attacked the Laer in space, on the surface of their world, beneath their oceans and over the hulls of their orbital platforms. Laeran itself was a remarkable world in which the serpentine Laer had used anti-gravity technology to float massive coral platforms above their world's ocean where they chose to live after global warming had sunk all of Laer's continental masses. Everywhere the Astartes faced enemies adapted to their conditions by genetic enhancement -- warships connected directly to their crews' minds using cybernetic technology, the Laer's amphibious warriors could breathe underwater through gills, their scouts were capable of moving as fast as a Land Speeder, their gunners possessed eyesight that allowed them to target individual Space Marines miles distant. The casualties on both sides were horrendous -- it is estimated that, if not for the excellence of the IIIrd Legion's Apothecaries, more than half of its warriors would have died from their wounds. The Laer never surrendered -- their last warriors died fighting in the ruins of their capital city to protect their central temple dedicated to the worship of the Chaos God Slaanesh. One month after he had begun the attack, Fulgrim planted a standard displaying the Imperial Aquila over their corpses, leaving it the only thing standing unblemished on Laer. Over seven hundred of his men were dead, six times that number injured, but Fulgrim believed he had kept his promise. Against the most finely-honed alien warriors ever encountered, humanity had proven itself more powerful.Of course, the conquest of the Laer represented the beginning of Fulgrim and the entire IIIrd Legion's damnation and the beginning of their turn away from the service of the Emperor. Yet the Laeran System, for ten thousand standard years now, has been home to three Imperial cities and a dozen mining colonies, and all traces of its former xenos rulers and their corruption are gone.Compliance of 140-20 (Urisarach/"Murder") (ca. 001.M31) - After victory against the Laer, Lord Commander Eidolon departed the 28th Expeditionary Fleet with the elite 1st Company of the Emperor's Children to take part in the reinforcement of the IXth Legion, the Blood Angels, upon the Death World of Urisarach, which was officially codified in Imperial records as One-Forty-Twenty, the twentieth world to be brought into Imperial Compliance by the 140th Expeditionary Fleet. This world was discovered by that fleet, which was commanded by the Blood Angels Legion's Captain Khitas Frome. Unable to translate the warnings from the orbiting Interex satellite beacons that warned approaching starships to stay away from Urisarach since it was a prison world for the dangerous sentient xenos species known as the Megarachnids, Captain Frome ordered the fleet's entire contingent of three companies of Space Marines to begin landing operations to investigate and bring the planet into Imperial Compliance. Due to the extreme atmospheric turbulence, all of the Blood Angels' shuttles attempting to land on the planet became scattered and were thrown far off-course which left the Imperial landing parties isolated from each other. The atmosphere also affected Vox (radio) communications and made it difficult for the Imperial forces to coordinate their movements. Ground teams soon started sending garbled transmissions to the fleet's ships in orbit, reporting that the planet was inhabited by extremely hostile xenos. As the reports continued, the large arachnid-like xenos were described as too numerous and formidable to defeat without reinforcements. Not long afterwards, the Blood Angels made urgent distress calls requesting immediate reinforcements and extraction. The last transmission received by the fleet came from Captain Khitas Frome himself, who noted through clenched teeth, "This. World. Is. Murder." The name stuck and became the Imperium's informal appellation for Urisarach thereafter. A company of the Emperor's Children Legion under the command of Lord Commander Eidolon eventually arrived in response to the Blood Angels' distress calls. They made the same mistakes the Blood Angels had made, and had their landing parties scattered by the planet's powerful atmospheric disturbances. While the company took heavy casualties, one landing party led by Captain Saul Tarvitz discovered a large rock-like structure that resembled a dead tree. This "tree" had the bodies of several Blood Angels Space Marines impaled on its many branches with flying variants of the Megarachnids feasting upon the bodies. After destroying the structure, the sky above where the "tree" had been suddenly began to clear of the violent storms that had afflicted the Imperial forces from the beginning. Captain Tarvitz realised that these structures were actually artificial weather control devices that were responsible for Murder's heavy atmospheric turbulence. The Megarachnids immediately went about rebuilding the "tree" and sent hundreds of warriors to slaughter the last few Emperor's Children who remained. There had been little honour in the initial drop to the planet's surface, amid the death and frantic nature of the combat against the loathsomely quick Megarachnid warriors. It had been brutal, intense and bloody work, and many good warriors had met their end beneath Murder's raging, bruised skies. Thanks to Eidolon's mistakes, there had been precious little glory won until the Luna Wolves had arrived and brought their strength to bear. Just as the Emperor's Children force were about to be overwhelmed, a relief force of newly-arrived Luna Wolves Astartes from theWarmaster Horus' own 63rd Expeditionary Fleet began to land through the breach in the atmosphere. The Megarachnids were scattered and a full-scale assault on the hostile xenos of Murder began in earnest. Ten companies of Luna Wolves, the remnants of the Emperor's Children, tens of thousands of Imperial Army soldiers, and several Legio Mortis Titans proceeded to level entire swathes of the grass stalk forests and destroy every one of the "trees" they encountered, which steadily eroded Murder's atmospheric barrier. Horus, who was commanding the Imperial assault from his flagship in orbit, was very pleased with the progress being made. Some consideration had been paid to initiating a withdrawal from Murder now that a proper landing zone was available to allow an easy extraction of the troops, when an unexpected visitor suddenly arrived. The Primarch Sanguinius had come to the world to inspect the dead of his original Blood Angels landing force that had been wiped out early in the campaign. Adding five of his companies of Blood Angels to the Imperial invasion force, Sanguinius and his forces fought alongside the Warmaster against the aliens. Thousands of Megarachnids poured out of the forests and canyons of Murder in an endless wave. Despite never retreating from the Imperial assault, the Megarachnids only continued to lose ground. By the sixth month of the campaign it seemed the Megarachnids would soon face extinction when the fleet deployed by the Interex arrived in-system to determine who had assaulted the Megarachnids' reservation world. Finding contact with the highly-advanced humans of the Interex to be a more pressing issue that needed to be dealt with, the Warmaster ended the campaign against the xenos of Murder.Diasporex Persecution, Battle of the Corollis Star (ca. 001.M31) - During the latter part of the Great Crusade, the Iron Hands Legion's 52nd Expeditionary Fleet encountered a nomadic, fleet-based civilisation composed of both humans and xenos known as the Diasporex. The Iron Hands shared the Imperial Truth of the Emperor of Mankind and offered the human members of the Diasporex the opportunity to separate from their alien allies and to join the newly forged Imperium, but they declined the Astartes' offer. Their offer rejected, the Iron Hands passed judgement, and in the following months the Iron Hands fleet attempted to annihilate the Diasporex, but they proved to be highly skilled and experienced in the realm of naval warfare, and managed to easily evade crucial battles and even to severely damage the Iron Hands' Strike Cruiser Ferrum. The Emperor's Children of the 28th Expeditionary Fleet were called in as reinforcements, and so, a joint Imperial strike force composed of both the Iron Hands and forces from the Emperor's Children Legion prepared to launch an all-out assault against the willful Diasporex. Though the Diasporex knew that a powerful fleet of warships was hunting them and sought their destruction, they refused to leave the sector and move on to someplace safer. The Iron Hands' scout ships soon discovered the truth -- the Diasporex used hidden solar collector arrays hidden near the Corollis Star to collect fuel for their vessels. This was the reason why the Diasporex remained within the sector. Attacking these vital fuel stations, the two Imperial Expeditionary Fleets drew the Diasporex fleet out into open battle as the human-alien alliance sought to avoid utter annihilation at the Imperials' hands. During the massive naval battle that ensued Fulgrim's personal gunship, the Firebird, came under heavy attack and soon found itself in trouble. Rushing to his brother's side, Ferrus Manus' flagship, the Battle Barge Fist of Iron, came rushing to the rescue of his beleaguered brother. To restore his wounded pride, Fulgrim led a brief shipboarding action where the Emperor's Children wreaked bloody havoc on the troops of the Diasporex. But ultimate victory was robbed from him when the enemy ship's bridge was taken by one of his subordinate commanders. For months thereafter, Fulgrim would resent The Gorgon's actions, unable to truly understand the altruism of Ferrus' deed and the loss of life his selfless act had incurred on his Legion. Under the malignant influence of the daemon-possessed Laer blade that he wore at all times, Fulgrim could only see self-aggrandisement in his brother's action, instead of the the heroic deed it had truly been. Ferrus's critical comments, the wounding darts that Fulgrim believed were meant to undermine him, were in actuality only jests designed to puncture Fulgrim's self-importance and restore his humility. What Fulgrim perceived as Ferrus' prideful boasts and rash actions had been deeds of courage that he spitefully dismissed as the influence of Chaos began to claim the Phoenician's soul.Battle of Tarsus (004.M31) - Primarch Fulgrim met with the renowned Eldar Farseer Eldrad Ulthran of Ulthwé Craftworld on the Maiden World of Tarsus, on which the Farseer attempted to warn Fulgrim of the Warmaster's corruption after being wounded by a malefic Chaos blade known as the Kinebrach Anathame at the hands of the traitor Eugen Temba upon Davin's Nurgle-corrupted moon. Temba had been the former Planetary Governor of the Feral World of Davin who had fallen under the influence of the Plague Lord Nurgle. The injury caused by the poisonous blade had allowed the Chaos Gods to gain a purchase on the Warmaster's soul. Fulgrim reacted with violent outrage at the Farseer's accusations due to his close kinship with his brother Horus, as his bond with the Warmaster was second only to that shared with Ferrus Manus, the Primarch of the Xth Legion. This outrage was further enhanced by the corrupting influence of Fulgrim's Laer daemonblade, which darkly influenced the Primarch to reject the Eldar's truth and provoked Fulgrim into launching an unprovoked and furious attack on Eldrad and his retinue alongside his Emperor's Children Captains and his personal Phoenix Guard. In the battle that ensued, the Emperor's Children slew both the revered Eldar Wraithlord Khiraen Goldhelm and a potent Avatar of Khaine, which forced the Farseer and the other Eldar troops to sorrowfully withdraw, as they realised that Chaos had already claimed yet another of the "Mon-Keigh's" Primarchs. Yet they had succeeded in killing all of Fulgrim's elite personal Phoenix Guard before their departure. Believing the Eldar had proven themselves a treacherous xenos race that sought to divide and conquer the Imperium by spreading such lies about its leaders, Fulgrim, again under the increasing influence of the daemonblade, ordered the destruction of several other beautiful Eldar Maiden Worlds using hideous virus bombs.Battle of Deep Orbital DS191 (ca. 004.M31) - Weeks later, following the campaign on Tarsus, Fulgrim's fleet was ordered by the Council of Terra to rendezvous with the Warmaster's 63rd Expeditionary Fleet to inquire about reports of the their recent conduct and acquire information in regards to Horus' grave injuries acquired on Davin's feral moon. Most unusual, was that the IIIrd Legion's Lord Commander Vespasian was excluded from this delegation to Horus, which demonstrated an ever-growing rift between the Lord Commander and his Primarch. Following this delegation to the 63rd Expeditionary Fleet, Fulgrim announced to his senior commanders that he would lead a small force to join Ferrus Manus and his Iron Hands at Callinedes IV in the Callinedes System under the pretense of clearing it of an Ork infestation. The Primarch spearheaded the assault during the pacification of Deep Orbital DS191, leading the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Companies. During the assault, Captain Solomon Demeter, commander of the Emperor's Children's 2nd Company, found himself unsupported by the 1st and 3rd Companies as the battle-plan had laid out. Overextended and in real danger of being cut off and destroyed, the 2nd Company was only saved from certain destruction by the unplanned and timely arrival of the 10th and 13th Companies under the commands of Captains Saul Tarvitz and Lucius, two junior officers that Demeter had found himself associating more and more with as he was systematically frozen out by the IIIrd Legion's high command. A dark shroud hung over Lord Commander Vespasian after witnessing these dishonourable actions. He felt obliged to act after he observed Solomon Demeter's 2nd Company being intentionally abandoned by both Captain Kaesoron's and Vairosean's companies. It was a decision that would cost the honourable Astartes his life when he was murdered by Fulgrim himself.Battle of Istvaan Extremis (005.M31) - The elite 1st Company of the Emperor's Children fought in concert with the Death Guard Legion's 7th Company under the command of Battle-Captain Nathaniel Garro against traitorous forces on Istvaan Extremis, the outermost planet within the Istvaan System. Whilst fighting against a powerful Slaaneshi psyker known as a Warsinger, Garro sustained serious injuries; crushing damage to his torso, arm and the loss of his right leg from the mid-thigh down. He was only saved from certain death by the timely ministrations of the Emperor's Children Chief Apothecary Fabius. Taking stock of the desperate situation, Lord Commander Eidolon made use of a hitherto unknown ability -- a modified tracheal implant bonded with his vocal chords, that allowed him to produce a nerve paralysing shriek similar to that employed by certain warrior breeds of the alien Laer. This powerful ability killed the Warsinger and helped the Astartes carry the day.Istvaan III Atrocity (005.M31) - The terrible campaign that marked the start of the Horus Heresy and was known to later generations as the Istvaan III Atrocity began when the Imperial Planetary Governor of Istvaan III, Vardus Praal, had been corrupted by the Chaos God Slaanesh whose cultists had long been active on the world even before it had been conquered by the Imperium. Praal had declared his independence from the Imperium, and had begun to practice forbidden Slaaneshi sorcery, so the Council of Terra charged Horus with the retaking of that world, primarily its capital, the Choral City. This order merely furthered Horus's plan to overthrow the Emperor. Although the four Legions under his direct command -- the Sons of Horus, the World Eaters, the Death Guard and the Emperor's Children -- had already turned Traitor and pledged themselves to Chaos, there were still some Loyalist elements within each of these Legions that approximated one-third of each force; many of these warriors were Terran-born Space Marines who had been directly recruited into the Astartes Legions by the Emperor Himself before being reunited with their Primarchs during the Great Crusade. Horus, under the guise of putting down the rebellion against Imperial Compliance on the world of Istvaan III, amassed his troops in the Istvaan System. Horus had a plan by which he would destroy all of the remaining Loyalist elements of the Legions under his command. After a lengthy bombardment of Istvaan III, Horus despatched all of the known Loyalist Astartes down to the planet, under the pretence of bringing it back into the Imperium. Initial attacks on the Choral City had washed away any feelings of unease, the release of the Loyalists' anger and hurt in bloodshed reassuring them that things were as they should be, and that their earlier misgivings were no cause for concern. But then Captain Saul Tarvitz of the 10th Company of the Emperor's Children had arrived with an incredible tale of betrayal and imminent attack. Many had scoffed at Tarvitz's warning, but some had immediately known the truth of it, and had fought to make their brothers realise their danger. As the monstrous scale of the betrayal sank in, the Loyalist Sons of Horus, World Eaters and Emperor's Children had raced to find shelter before the deadly viral payload struck the world intended to be their tomb. The Loyalists on the surface watched in horror as the first streaks of light lit up the sky and the detonations covered the skies in thick starbursts of deadly viral agents. The screaming of the city as it died haunted them, as they couldn't even begin to imagine the horror that must have filled the minds of those who watched as the Life Eater devoured the flesh of their loved ones, before reducing them to disintegrated hunks of rotted, dead matter. Many within the Loyalist ranks knew what the deadly the Life Eater was, and they knew that within hours the entire planet would be a charnel house. Then the firestorm had come and razed the surface bare of any signs of its former inhabitants, burning them to ashen flakes on the wind as it destroyed all in its path and howled across the surface of Isstvan III in a seething tide of flame. The Primarch of the World Eaters, Angron, realising that the virus-bombs had not been fully effective at eliminating all the Loyalists, flew into a rage and hurled himself at the planet at the head of 50 companies of World Eaters Traitor Marines. Discarding tactics and strategy, the World Eaters Traitors worked themselves into a frenzy of mindless butchery fed by their growing allegiance to the Blood God Khorne. Horus was furious with Angron for delaying his plans, but Horus sought to turn the delay into a victory and was obliged to reinforce Angron with troops from the Sons of Horus, the Death Guard, and the Emperor's Children. Fortunately, a contingent of Loyalists led by Battle-Captain Garro escaped Istvaan III aboard the damaged Imperial frigate Eisenstein and fled to Terra to warn the Emperor that Horus had turned Traitor. On Istvaan III, the remaining Loyalists, under the command of Captains Tarvitz, Garviel Loken and Tarik Torgaddon, another Loyalist member of the Sons of Horus, fought bravely against their own traitorous brethren. Yet, despite some early successes that delayed Horus' plans for three full months while the battle on Istvaan III played out, their cause was ultimately doomed by their lack of air support and Titan firepower. During the battle the Sons of Horus Captains Ezekyle Abaddon and Horus Aximand were sent to confront their former Mournival brothers, Loken and Torgaddon. Horus Aximand beheaded Torgaddon, but Abaddon failed to kill Loken when the building they were in collapsed. Loken survived and witnessed the final orbital bombardment of Istvaan III that ended the Loyalists' desperate defence. To prove his worth and loyalty to Lord Commander Eidolon of the Emperor's Children -- and thus to his Primarch, Fulgrim -- Captain Lucius of the 13th Company of the Emperor's Children, the future Champion of Slaanesh known as Lucius the Eternal, turned against the Loyalists that he had fought beside because of his prior friendship with Saul Tarvitz. Lucius slew many of them personally, an act for which he was then accepted back into the Emperor's Children Legion on the side of the Traitors. In the end, the Loyalists retreated to their last bastion of defence, only a few hundred of their number remaining. Finally, tired of the conflict, Horus ordered his men to withdraw, and then had the remains of the Choral City bombarded into dust for a final time from orbit.Drop Site Massacre of Istvaan V (006.M31) - The world of Istvaan V was the location of the infamous Drop Site Massacre where the Traitor Legions of the Warmaster Horus redeployed following the virus-bombing of the Traitor Legions' own Loyalist members at Istvaan III at the start of the Horus Heresy. Upon learning of the terrible atrocity Horus had committed, the Emperor deployed seven Loyalist Legions of Space Marines to bring Horus to account for his actions. The Iron Hands, Salamanders and Raven Guard made up the first wave of the attack, but were pushed back by the superior tactics of Horus's maddened Chaos Space Marines. The Loyalist reserves were called in, but the four Space Marine Legions comprising them -- the Iron Warriors, the Alpha Legion, the Word Bearers and the Night Lords -- had also secretly betrayed the Emperor and were prepared to follow Horus and swear themselves to Chaos. Evidence indicates that much of the preparations for the defence of the Urgall Depression fell to the Primarch of the Emperor's Children at Horus' direct command, with the Emperor's Children themselves charged with manning the central outermost defence lines where the fighting would be at its fiercest during the initial Loyalist attack. Whether this was intended as a slight or punishment is a matter of conjecture, but regardless, the cunning, speed and skill that were invested into what must have been a breakneck series of preparations to raise up the ruins of the ancient fortress was formidable. When the Loyalists came to attack, they were met not just with fortified xenos ruins, but cunningly interwoven fields of fire, lethal kill zones, interlocking trench works, hidden approaches and all manner of ruse de guerre as deadly as any encountered during the Great Crusade. As for the Legion who manned those defences, though a brief time had passed since the Battle of Istvaan III, already many had succumbed to marked psychological changes, stigmata and deliberate mutilation, foreshadowing what was to come. The three Loyalist Legions were almost annihilated in the resulting crossfire, but several thousand survivors from each Legion managed to escape off-world, though they were too decimated to play much of a further role in the defence of the Imperium from Horus' betrayal. During the ensuing slaughter, Fulgrim came face-to-face with his former brother and closest friend, Ferrus Manus. The two Primarchs engaged in a titanic struggle, but in the end The Gorgon was mortally wounded, and with the urging of the Laer daemonblade that he always carried, Fulgrim beheaded the Iron Hands' Primarch. The civil war unleashed at Istvaan V pitched the whole Imperium into anarchy and chaos.Assault on Iydris (006-007.M31) - In the wake of the terrible slaughter of Loyalists at the Drop Site Massacre on Istvaan V, a small fleet of Astartes from the ravaged Iron Hands and Raven Guard Legions managed to flee off-world. Among these vessels was the Sisypheum, a Strike Cruiser commanded by the mortally wounded Iron Hands Captain Ulrach Branthan. Determined to continue to strike against the Traitor Legions wherever and whenever they could, the crew of the Sisypheum eventually manged to intercept the encoded communications of the Traitors and learned that the Traitor Primarchs Fulgrim and Perturabo were leading their Emperor's Children and Iron Warriors Traitor Legions, respectively, into the Warp Rift later named the Eye of Terror by Perturabo in search of an unknown Eldar weapon known as the Angel Exterminatus which could decisively tip the balance of the Horus Heresy in favour of the Traitors. The Iron Hands eventually assembled a small fleet of similar Loyalist survivors of the Drop Site Massacre and made their way into the Eye to stop the Traitors from acquiring this weapon. Once within the Eye, Fulgrim led the combined Traitor Legion forces to the ancient Eldar Crone World of Iydris, into the citadel known as Amon ny-shak Kaelis where the Angel Exterminatus was supposedly located. The Traitors were forced to repel countless attacks by the ancient Eldar defense systems and by attacks from Eldar constructs animated by the ountless dead Eldar souls of the Crone World. In truth, the entire quest for the Angel Exterminatus had been a ruse perpetrated upon Perturabo and the Iron Warriors by Fulgrim and the Emperor's Children. Fulgrim, now a Champion of the Chaos God of Pleasure, Slaanesh, sought apoetheosis to become a Daemon Prince of the Prince of Chaos. But he needed the power provided by the life force of a Primarch and the sacred energies of a place like an Eldar Crone World that was sacred to Slaanesh to complete his ascension to daemonhood. Fulgrim had given to Perturabo a cloak, to which was affixed a skull-shaped pin carrying a relic known as a maugetar stone. As long as Perturabo was within the confines of the Eldar citadel the stone slowly absorbedhis life force and fed these energies to Fulgrim. Once Perturabo discovered his brother's perfidy, the Iron Warriors launched an assault upon the Emperor's Children, and a three-way battle soon developed as the Iron Hands from the Sisypheum and its small flotilla of Loyalists entered the fray against both Traitor forces, unaware of what was truly happening. In the course of the combat that followed, Perturabo slew Fulgrim's mortal body with the great warhammer Forgebreaker, which ironically had originally been forged for Fulgrim by Ferrus Manus. But this action was only the final component in Fulgrim's ritual of apoetheosis, and his body remade itself into the twisted, serpentine form of a Slaaneshi Daemon Prince. Fulgrim became the first of the Traitor Primarchs to ascend to daemonhood, but he would not be the last. His goal achieved, Fulgrim had teleported his Emperor's Children away from Iydris and the Crone World began to collapse as the potent life forces of the dead that had long sustained it were drained away by Fulgrim's ascension. The Iron Hands and Perturabo's Iron Warriors successfully fled the crumbling planet, though Perturabo escaped by taking his fleet deeper into the black hole that lay at the centre of the Eye of Terror. For the first time, one of the Traitor Legions had turned on another, a situation that was to become all too common as the Dark Gods of Chaos tightened their grip on Horus' followers.Siege of the Perfect Fortress (ca. 007.M31) - During the Great Crusade, under guidance of their Primarch, the IIIrd Legion had erected the so-called "Perfect Fortress" on the world of Narsis. The "Perfect Fortress" was a military base, but also a Hive City of outstanding beauty, harbouring millions of inhabitants. Its elegant buildings and colonnades hid both administrative buildings as well as tanks and weapon depots, and every balcony was placed into a perfect firing position on pre-planned kill-zones. Taking the "Perfect Fortress" would be an arduous task, and therefore, the Emperor's Children left only a small garrison under Captain Luthris to protect Narsis. It thus came as a shock when the severely depleted Raven Guard Legion and its allies from the Therion Cohort not only attacked, but seized the "Perfect Fortress" after only four solar days of battle.Fall of Batzel III (008.M31) - The Legion's 39th Millennial was destroyed by elements of the Space Wolves Legion during the storming of the Vykstag Winter Palace.Battle of Terra (014.M31) - As the events of the Horus Heresy neared their tragic conclusion seven years after the fateful betrayal at Istvaan III, those Loyalist Legions not committed to the defence of Terra raced through the Warp, converging on the homeworld of Mankind. The Traitor Legions also massed above Terra to assault the Imperial Palace. The Battle of Terra was the final confrontation of the Horus Heresy that raged on Terra itself between the Forces of Chaos led by the Warmaster Horus and the Loyalist armies of the Imperium of Man led by the Emperor of Mankind Himself. When Horus laid siege to Terra itself, the Emperor's Children were at his side, but they took little part in the slow process of whittling down the massive defences of the Imperial Palace. Instead Fulgrim turned his Legion loose on the uncontested areas of the planet, where billions of terrified humans cowered at the sight of the followers of Chaos, suddenly stripped of the protection they had counted on from the Palace. The brutality and slaughter of Istvaan repeated itself, but on a far, far greater scale. With the concentration of Chaos around Terra, the Apothecaries and Sorcerers of the Emperor's Children drew on the power of Slaanesh to enhance their pleasures, wantonly desecrating not only their minds and bodies, but now their immortal souls as well. Daemons were summoned and set loose among prisoners, feasting on their flesh as they died, while the Space Marines themselves sought even greater excesses of carnage and carnality. Fulgrim directed the slaughter with glee, believing that his Legion were setting their victims free from the chains of the Emperor's rule, and allowing them to feel true Humanity at the limits of experience. In that time, as the Siege of Terra raged around them, the Emperor's Children are reckoned to have murdered more than forty times their number of unarmed, defenceless people in their efforts to create new stimulants to feed their addiction to pleasure. How many more died simply to sate the bloodlust of their killers cannot be guessed at. The Loyalist forces ultimately proved victorious in their defence of the Imperial Palace, though only just barely, and Horus was ultimately slain by the full psychic powers unleashed by the Emperor on the deck of his massive Battle Barge the Vengeful Spirit, though the Master of Mankind was mortally wounded and had to be interred within the cybernetic life support mechanisms of the advanced psychic augmentation technology known as the Golden Throne. Those Imperial vessels which pursued Fulgrim's fleet from Terra followed a trail of devastated worlds, where corpses were piled high, survivors pleaded to be allowed to die to escape their nightmares and, ominously, thousands more were simply missing, never seen again. Eventually, after countless atrocities, the Emperor's Children reached the Eye of Terror where they and their fellow traitors hid from the vengeance of the Imperium. According to the Inquisition's Hades Oracle, the Emperor's Children quickly exhausted their supply of slaves and playthings, and began to prey upon the only victims available: the slaves and servants of the other Traitor Legions. The resulting wars were terrible and bloody, but there could be only one eventual result, and finally the once-proud IIIrd Legion was shattered into multiple warbands, each pursuing their own self-obsessed perversions. The outcome of the Battle of Terra shaped the destiny of humanity for the next 10,000 standard years and began the Long War of the Forces of Chaos to overthrow the Corpse Emperor.Slave Wars (Unknown Date. M31) - The first major conflict between the most powerful servants of the Dark Gods following the Horus Heresy was started by the Emperor's Children Legion, that Traitor Legion dedicated to the service of Slaanesh, whose excesses grew more wanton and uncontrollable in the days after the Heresy. As the supply of slaves the IIIrd Legion had acquired on Terra and other Imperial worlds as they fled to the Eye was exhausted, the Emperor's Children began to assault the positions of the other Traitor Legions within the Eye of Terror, plundering their own slave stocks for use in satisfying their perverse, hedonistic whims. It is for this reason that these campaigns are collectively called the Slave Wars. One of the actions known to the Imperium that occurred during these conflicts was the Battle of Skalathrax between the Emperor's Children and the World Eaters that saw the World Eaters finally shattered as a unified Space Marine Legion. The Emperor's Children also destroyed the fortress of the Sons of Horus Legion on the Daemon World of Maeleum, leading to a failed attempt by the corrupt Emperor's Children Apothecary Fabius Bile to clone Horus and provide a new leader for the Forces of Chaos. Abaddon the Despoiler led the Sons of Horus to reclaim Horus' corpse, and destroy the primary fortress of the Emperor's Children. Abaddon returned it to Maeleum where he had it destroyed so that no further attempts to clone Horus could ever be attempted. Following this triumph, Abaddon declared himself Horus' successor as the Warmaster of Chaos and the master of the XVIth Legion. At the same time, he came to the epiphany that Horus was dead because Horus had been a weak fool, unable to complete his task of slaying the Emperor and taking control of the galaxy in the name of the Dark Gods. Abaddon swore that he would succeed where Horus had failed in overthrowing the "Corpse-Emperor" and proclaimed himself the new Warmaster of Chaos. He had the Sons of Horus repaint their viridian Power Armour black, the colour of mourning and of vengeance, and cast-off the XVIth Legion's former moniker of the Sons of Horus. From then on, they became known as the Black Legion. The Black Legion then abandoned the ruins of the Sons of Horus' fortress and left Maeleum behind, choosing to become a fleet-based Legion with scattered holdings all across the Eye of Terror. Though long, terrible, and bloody, in the end the dwindling Emperor's Children Legion faced their inevitable defeat at the hands of their fellow Traitor Legions. The Emperor's Children, like the World Eaters before them, were finally shattered as an organised Space Marine Legion and broke up into hundreds of disparate and often opposed Chaos Space Marine warbands. It is said by the adversaries of those who serve Slaanesh that during the Slave Wars the Daemon Primarch Fulgrim was himself killed by Abaddon and the Black Legion, but the Emperor's Children counter that he was given lordship by Slaanesh over an unknown Daemon World of unending pleasure, its location unknown even to many of their own ranks.Flesh Meets Steel (Unknown Date) - The Sensorians, a newly-formed warband of Slaanesh-worshipping Chaos Space Marines, treat with the Dark Mechanicum in an attempt to pioneer Daemon Engines equipped with suites of Sonic Weapons. In doing so they learn of the sombre Skitarii of the Forge World of Agripinaa, ancestral enemies of the Eye of Terror's machine-Hereteks. Appalled by the notion that the Skitarii voluntarily exchange their flesh for cybernetic replacements, the Emperor's Children stage a grand raid upon the planet under the cover of a Dark Mechanicum invasion. They capture several maniples of Skitarii, overloading their circuits with barrages of intense noise and deafening scrapcode, before bearing them back to the Eye of Terror. There they cut out the Skitarii's bionics and replace them with fleshy equivalents taken from mutants, from corpses, even from fallen Chaos Spawn, until barely an ounce of metal is left. These Fleshlings of Sensoria, though driven mad by the process, prove a potent asset for the Emperor's Children in the Long War.The Eternal Duellist (Unknown Date) - Lucius the Eternal leads a motley warband across the galaxy on the trail of the deadliest opponents his network of admiring torture-cultists can locate for him. He intends to hunt down the best melee fighters in the galaxy and beat them in one-on-one combat or die in the attempt. Over the course of several Terran centuries he defeats the Dark Eldar Archon Vraesque in cursed Shaa-dom, the Emperor's Champion of the Black Templars at Veilfate, and the Ork Warboss Two-klaws at Octarius Sigma. Eventually, on a nameless moon near Damnos, Lucius is cut down by the shape-shifting Necron duellist known only as the Phasing Sword. Not even the Necron's body of living metal can prevent the Slaaneshi Champion's strange possession-curse from taking hold, however, for the undying Necron takes a cold pride in its victory, and that is the seed of its undoing. Lucius is reborn inside his killer within solar days, the xenos warrior's necrodermis body drizzling away like molten metal to reveal the twisted swordsman, as arrogant and maniacal as ever.The Cacophonicum of Knaus Lambda (Unknown Date) - The warband of Revellian Thrice-Burned captures the Basilica Morbidus, centrepiece of the Shrine World of Knaus Lambda's majestic Faithful City. Six Dreadclaws slam through the cathedrum's stained-glass ceiling and disgorge their battle-hungry passengers. The Sonic Weapons of the hedonistic killers shatters priceless glass sculptures and a king's ransom in jewels. The barefoot Imperial supplicants and pilgrims that were making their devotions are shredded body and soul by the deafening cacophony, which is enhanced by the basilica's perfect acoustics. In response, the nearby Schola Progenium complex scrambles its Tempestus Scions to the site, and a gun battle takes place that sees the city filled with terrified screams. The cacophony grows so intense that reality itself shimmers and convulses, and a carnival of Slaaneshi Daemonettes joins the feast. The Faithful City is eventually reconsecrated as the Cacophonicum, becoming a base of operations that sees Revellian Thrice-Burned and his Emperor's Children reduce every one of Knaus Lambda's fortified settlements to rubble.Revenge of the Silver Prince (Unknown Date) - After a long and difficult journey through the Warp, the Khorne Daemonkin warband known as the Skullsworn overtake their Emperor's Children rivals on the approach to the Civilised World of Hunter's Haven. The Skullsworn launch a bloody strike three solar days before their fellow Chaos Space Marines arrive. When the Emperor's Children make planetfall, there is little left of the capital city's populace but dismembered corpses and decapitated heads stacked in pyramidal piles. Enraged by the Skullsworn's actions, the daemon overlord known as the Silver Prince leads his bodyguard of Chaos Terminators in a sorcerous strike directly at the Khornate warband's commanders. The sudden conflict escalates into a grinding war of attrition that sees both warbands sustain grievous losses; however, both sides revel in the carnage to such an extent neither will back down. The remaining citizens of Hunter's Haven make use of the reprieve to evacuate, leaving the Chaos Space Marines to fight amongst themselves.The Primogenitor Primaris (Unknown Date.M42) - The deranged fleshmaster Fabius Bile is upon the world of Agrathane Excellia when he witnesses a strike force of Primaris Space Marines in action. Attacking from above, a strike force from the newly founded Nemesors Chapter captures a fortified Black Legion bastion complex in the space of a solar hour. Impressed despite himself, Bile develops an obsession with the capture and dissection of these new, statuesque transhuman warriors. His intent is to blend them body and soul with the dark energies of Chaos in order to breed his own twisted versions of Primaris Space Marines.