Iron Blood - Iron Blood: The Iron Blood was an Imperial Gloriana-class Battleship that served as the flagship of Perturabo, the primarch of the Iron Warriors Legion, during the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy in the late 30th and early 31st Millennia.At nearly twenty kilometres in length, unbreakable strength and brute firepower, the Iron Blood 's craggy flanks were clad in armour tens of metres thick. She was without viewports, for the war doctrines of Perturabo made it clear the battle should be conducted by calculation and firepower, and viewports into the void war were nothing but vanity.This flagship rode at the head of a flotilla of the Iron Warriors' warships which comprised the IVth Legion's Imperial Expeditionary Fleet. The Iron Blood is known as the oldest and mightiest of her class, constructed at the orbital shipyards of the Iron Warriors' homeworld of Olympia at the order and to the exacting specifications of Perturabo himself.The prow of the Iron Blood resembled a vast iron arrowhead, followed by a crenellated hull behind it. Her slab-like armoured flanks were blackened by the fires erupting from the carcasses of dying foes smashed asunder by brutal ramming attacks, and her serrated spine was a mountain of bristling weapons turrets of all types. Weapon batteries also lined its sides.At the time of the Great Crusade, it was considered one of the mightiest capital ships in the galaxy, capable of single-handedly annihilating other void fleets and entire worlds.The Iron Blood is notable for taking part in the Battle of Phall, a major void engagement that took place following the start of the Horus Heresy in the early 31st Millennium after the Isstvan III Atrocity, between the entirety of the Iron Warriors Legion's fleet and a formidable Imperial Fists Legion Retribution Fleet.Perturabo was sent by the Warmaster Horus to halt the encroaching Imperial Fists fleet that had originally been sent to Isstvan III by their Primarch Rogal Dorn to reinforce the beleaguered Loyalists trapped on that world. The Traitors could not allow such a strong complement of Astartes to infiltrate their controlled area of space, for the Loyalists' presence would seriously disrupt preparations for the Traitors' drive on Terra.Commanding the entirety of his Legion's war fleet, Perturabo led his warships in a sudden and devastating attack upon the Imperial Fists' fleet in the nearby Phall System where the Loyalists had massed for the attack on Isstvan.Ultimately Perturabo failed in his attempt to annihilate the entirety of the Loyalist fleet, due to the vigilance and foresight of Captain Alexis Polux, the commander of the Imperial Fists Retribution Fleet, who had kept the warships under his command at a high state of combat-readiness.Though they sustained significant damage, Captain Polux was able to launch a successful counterattack against the Iron Warriors' fleet and inflict significant damage as well as destroy or disable multiple capital ships. When the Retribution Fleet's astropaths finally managed to make contact with Terra, they received a direct order from Rogal Dorn recalling the Retribution Fleet to Terra to prepare the defences of the Imperial Palace.Launching a bold counter-strike, the Imperial Fists drove off the embattled Traitor fleet and managed to break orbit and manoeuvre to their jump points, where they entered the Warp and made for Terra to prepare for the Traitors' coming assault upon the homeworld of Mankind.