Salamanders - Legion Organisation: When Vulkan took over his inherited Space Marine Legion the XVIIIth had already, in the relatively short time since its departure from Terra and the start of the Great Crusade, developed a distinct character of its own.Although still largely following the guidelines and dispositions laid down by the Principia Belicosa of the Imperial High Command, its scattered deployment and tendency towards asymmetrical engagements (relative to the common operation patterns of the other Space Marine Legions) had created a considerable bias in its structure and tactics.Company level detachments, numbering a nominal 100 to around 200 Astartes under a single captain, were the principal unit of strategic action and logistical support, with larger battalion and Chapter distinctions in practice seldom needed.The Legion's senior command conversely acted as a kind of heavy strategic reserve, weighing in with a concentration of force where it was most needed, and dispatching reinforcements as it could across numerous fronts at any given time.At the battlefield level, circumstance as well as natural temperament focused the Legion's tactics on relatively short-range engagements, where it sought to counteract enemy numbers by the use of confined area engagement or shock assault.Here the individual physical power of the Space Marine, their ability to endure and relentless fury in battle, could be relied upon to inflict disproportionate damage on almost any foe, although the inherent risks were high. Such tactics naturally lent themselves to short-range but devastating arms such as flame, Volkite ray and Melta Weapons being preferred by the Legion.Supporting this tendency was the telling factor that even before the Nocturnean influence came to the fore, the technical aptitude demonstrated by the Legion's rank-and-file further served to allow them to maintain and indeed field-manufacture such advanced weapons, even while subjected to scattered deployments and uncertain supply.One of Vulkan's first actions after taking command was to largely unify his scattered Legion and do away with its ad hoc strategic operations, but he did so in a way that preserved, where possible, the spirit of autonomy and self-sufficiency the component units of the XVIIIth had developed, which he saw as inherent virtues where tempered with purpose.At the strategic level, Vulkan ordered his Legion into the formation of seven "realms", each linked both in name and spirit with one of Nocturne's seven great city-settlements. To each of these he assigned a lord commander, known also as a "protector," as it was their sworn duty, in addition to that of a warrior of the Emperor, to protect the city-settlement in time of attack (the lord commander of the 1st Battle Company being "Protector of Hesiod," and so on).Each Nocturnean city-settlement served as a focus of the Legion's recruitment and their governance of the planet, anchoring the Legionaries to the mortal Humans for whom they fought, and each city-settlement went on to exhibit its own unique influences on the XVIIIth Legion's evolving traditions.The strong links between the Salamanders brethren and the people of Nocturne came quickly to create bonds of kinship and loyalty within each company's ranks. An inevitable degree of competition was also fostered by the nature of this relationship as well which, tempered by Vulkan's teachings, spurred the Salamanders Legionaries to greater heights of achievement and attainment.This too had its echo in the culture of Nocturne, which encouraged conflict to be resolved through a series of often perilous ritual trials and competitions to prove the worthy from the unworthy, and the righteous from the base; a system that was developed so that the wider community was strengthened rather than reduced by bickering, treachery and petty feud.It is worthy of note that this grounded bias towards recruitment on Nocturne did have the adverse effect that it slowed the pace at which the XVIIIth Legion's numbers were increased.Although a proportion of new recruits continued to be fed into the Legion from Terra and Proximal, this was not sufficient in size to significantly ameliorate this problem, nor did Vulkan pursue the rapid-induction techniques favoured in later years by certain Space Marine Legions.The counterpoint to this difficulty was, however, that Nocturne's native population, although relatively small, were hardened survivors all, strong of constitution and psychologically resilient, therefore they made for excellent subjects for initiation into the Legion with a very low rate of gene-seed implant rejection.Vulkan and his Legion also developed the asymmetrical warfare practiced early on by the XVIIIth Legion to an even greater virtue, tempering a willingness to sacrifice with judgement as to the value of the long-term outcome, developing a mastery of close range fire-fights and Zone Mortalis operations, both through discipline and relentless training and through excellence of wargear.This superiority manifested most visibly in the Legion's weapons, as under Vulkan's mastery, the Salamanders became justly famed for superior artifice in the creation of arms, from the bolters carried by its rank-and-file to the savage implements of destruction carried by the Legion's Dreadnoughts. Each weapon was both a thing of lethal beauty and a masterwork of form and function.Accordingly, they maintained a high proportion of special weapon units, in particular Flamer Squads, including the uniquely armed Pyroclast elite who carried prototype and highly adaptable flame-projector weapons.Likewise, their Terminator Armour-equipped forces were also noteworthy and regarded as amongst the most powerful in any Legion, with each armour suit being embellished and modified by its owner, with such innovation that led to the introduction of the earliest Storm Shields in Space Marine Legion service.The Salamanders Legion also maintained and manufactured a substantial armoury of heavy vehicles and other war engines equal in number and diversity to that of a far larger Legion. This armoury showed a bias towards main battle tanks, armoured rams, gunships and mobile support weapons over static artillery, light anti-gravitic skimmers and rapid attack vehicles, although it ensured it did not lack for anything it might need.The reason for this was that the Salamanders Legion, as it had developed, did not favour attritional warfare in its tactics, nor did it favour speed over survivability. Likewise, the Legion's void-going warfleet was not particularly large in number, but it was just as telling to the Legion's character that each warship, be it frigate or battle barge, was itself a work of bellicose art, layered with sophisticated and masterwork weapons and systems that often overmatched similar vessels of their size.During the latter years of the Great Crusade when the XVIIIth Legion was operating at the peak of its power, it was worthy of note that the comparison most readily drawn to it by commentators within the Imperial High Command, both through certain similarity in purview and utter contrast in character was with the Death Guard Legion.While both specialised in fighting in some of the most difficult and dangerous environments, and both were fully capable of remorseless and absolute destruction when unleashed, where one cleansed with purifying fire, leaving a world scoured but one day fit to become a domain of Humanity, the other tainted and eradicated, leaving nothing but poisoned devastation in their wake.This difference led to the two Legions and their primarchs seldom operating together unless expediency demanded otherwise, and indeed created not a little acrimony between the two. The events of the Horus Heresy would see this blossom into the bitterest hatred and rivalry, an enmity between Vulkan and Mortarion that exists unto the present day.