Blood Angels - A Legion Reborn: The newly titled Blood Angels did not return en masse to Baal -- that blistering wasteland had little to teach them that the ruins of Terra and a thousand other dead worlds had not. Instead, Sanguinius sought the aid of his brother, Horus, who had been his mentor and friend during his first years as part of the Emperor's grand army.Dividing his Legion, its heraldry now changed both to honour the Primarch and to match the new name they had been granted, he set each company to fight alongside one of Horus' own Luna Wolves companies. At the side of these renowned warriors, the Blood Angels would fight for the next solar decade, seeing the fall of countless worlds and the prosecution of campaigns of every kind, from the brutalsimplicity of wars of extermination to the deadly subtlety of quiet campaigns of strike and fade. In the shadow of the Luna Wolves and the greatest of the Emperor's Primarchs, the once-outcasts of the IXth Legion would gain stature in the eyes of their peers and a newfound sense of decorum.Each of the campaigns was a new trial, a subtle test selected with keen insight by the two Primarchs to salve the wounds inflicted by time and fate upon the Blood Angels. Sanguinius instilled in his sons a new sense of pride, not in simple carnage and the blood-soaked eternity of melee, but in a future in which they stood as exemplars of the Imperial creed, equal even to Horus' own warriors.In the year-long siege of Anaxis XII, they grasped the value of brotherhood as they stood shoulder to shoulder with the Imperial Fists against a tide of Hrud that seemed without end; on Cambriole and Prehalt they were taught discipline as they matched blades with inscrutable Aeldari reavers; while on Kentaurus Beta they learnt something of mercy as Sanguinius led them on the bloodless pacification of the Kentauran colonies. With each battle, the Legion shook off part of the stigma of their past and took their first faltering steps along a new path.Eager to prove worthy of the oath Sanguinius had made to them, the warriors of the IXth Legion strove to put aside the gore-soaked solitude that had once been the armour of their pride and to embrace the new virtues Sanguinius had shown them. Fury temperedby wisdom, blood-hunger chained with discipline, when the IXth Legion finally came to Baal, they were no longer that rough beast which had once stalked Terra, but were now a Legion reborn in form more fitting of their angel-winged sire.There, on the sands of Baal, they were met by the newly-raised and trained contingents of Astartes drawn from The Blood, the native people of that rad-scoured system, whom Sanguinius himself had raised up and schooled in the arts of war. The two halves of the Legion were joined, warriors from both Terra and Baal spread across the many companies of the Blood Angels that they might strengthen each other and weaken the hold of the IXth Legion's Terran past.The hunger remained of course, a shackled beast that lurked ever ready at the edge of madness, waiting for the chance to be set free once again, but by the faith of their Primarch they had a firm hold of its fetters. The Blood Angels honed their minds and wills, devoting themselves to the study of wisdom as well as war.They became scholars as well as warriors, and under the approving gaze of their winged Primarch, they put aside the barbarism they had once embraced and sought to prove themselves a force worthy of the future for which they fought. As time passed and the Blood Angels' past slipped from the memories of those they fought alongside, the blood hunger became little more than a myth, a half-remembered ghost story of ancient ghouls once bound in service to the Emperor.Those few among the Legion that succumbed once more to its thirst or to the black fury that followed on its heels were quietly concealed, granted the Emperor's peace or sealed away on Baal. The Blood Angels and their Primarch joined the Great Crusade as equals, looked down upon by none and followed the call of war to the stars.The new crimson-clad IXth Legion was both familiar and yet fundamentally changed in character. It still waged war with a fury to shake the heavens, but now it was leashed to a deep well of discipline and keen intellect. Still they favoured shock assault, a falling upon the foe suddenly and without warning, but now with a Primarch's will at their back they made use of the full panoply of Imperial technology.Now, when the angels came, they fell from the sky like a rain of fire, a thousand burning lights against the dawning sky, the wrath of the Emperor Himself given crimson form. Nor was this the extent of their skills, for though the sudden onslaught was their preference, they knew now full well the value of the feigned retreat, the gun line and a hundred other stratagems besides.They were a Legion fully formed, so much more now than the simple bludgeon they had once been, and this is perhaps the truest evidence of the Emperor's plan for His Legions, that with their Primarchs they became whole -- far more than the sum of their genetic legacy and the harsh lessons of Unification.So it was that the Great Crusade surged onwards as never before. New battlefronts opened up under the Primarchs' direction and worlds were reclaimed by the thousand. Throughout it all, the Blood Angels and their Primarch, Sanguinius, fought at the Emperor's side, serving as honour guard to their beloved creator. Driven by their still-fiery temperament, the Blood Angels' fearsome reputation as shock troops came to feed a rivalry between them and the equally assault-oriented World Eaters Legion.Yet, in truth, the Blood Angels were never as ferocious as the World Eaters, for the wise influence of Sanguinius tempered their bloodlust. Of all the Primarchs, Sangunius formed the closest bonds to Horus, Leman Russ and Jaghatai Khan. Though he was yet in the early days of his legend, Sanguinius was thought to be the noblest of the Primarchs and was ever deep in the Emperor's counsel.Even Horus, later the proud Warmaster of the Great Crusade, sensed a purity of spirit in Sanguinius that he could never match, a oneness with their father that no other Primarch could ever hope to approach. Whilst many of his brothers fought the Great Crusade solely out of the joy of battle, Sanguinius fought to secure the golden era of peace and prosperity which would surely follow. His vision was the Emperor's, a hope of Mankind united in peace and prosperity. Alas, it was not to be.