Legio Praesagius - Legion Combat Doctrine: Scions of the venerable Legio Gryphonicus, warriors amongst the largest of Mars' Titan Legions, the Legio Praesagius were created not as wardens of some far-flung realm of the ancient Mechanicum, but to prosecute the battles of the Great Crusade.As such they were provided at their founding with a large complement of heavy Battle Titans -- Warlord, Carnivore and Mirage-class god-engines that would stand strong in the fires of battle.In these earliest days of its existence, the Legio Praesagius ranked as a Legio of the primaris grade, comprising over 300 god-engines of various classes and including Emperor Titans of both Warmonger and Nemesis classes amongst its ranks.After the last few cataclysmic battles within the confines of the Sol System, the Titan Legion was rarely assembled in its entirety, for few conflicts would require such a force for any end other than utter destruction, a task for which the True Messengers showed little enthusiasm. Instead, the Titan Legion was assigned in demi-Legio forces to a number of Great Crusade fleets, fighting in actions the length and breadth of the nascent Imperium.The continued pattern of its deployment as demi-Legio battle groups fostered a doctrine of dispersed command and individual initiative amongst the various princeps of the Titan Legion. Many of the veteran warriors of the True Messengers were called upon to take charge of detachments of their brethren whilst crusading alongside other arms of the vast Imperial military, developing their own unique styles of command as well as the confidence and experience necessary to quickly and efficiently marshal such a headstrong force as a Titan battle group while under heavy enemy fire.On many occasions this style of leadership, as opposed to the more stratified and dictatorial models employed by many of their brethren, was to be the cornerstone of a great number of the Legio Praesagius' victories. During the fighting on Akeron Carcis, where Craftworld Aeldari pulsar fire had sliced apart the command Titan of the Legio Praesagius force, there was no panicked retreat, nor even a brief space of confusion.Command was immediately taken up by Princeps Trieste of the Auric Pegasus, a veteran warrior of the Titan Legion already well respected by her peers, and as the wraith-like Aeldari war machines moved in to finish off what they expected to be a demoralised and broken foe, the True Messengers surged forward on the attack, swiftly enacting vengeance upon the xenos warriors for their losses.During these battles, the princeps and moderati of the Titan Legion displayed a distinct preference for precision weaponry. The indiscriminate destruction caused by such weapons as Void Missiles, Titan-class Flame Cannon and Vulcan mega-bolters was eschewed as lazy and ill-befitting the avatars of the Emperor's dream of a united Humanity. Instead, the True Messengers' Titans relied on the precise firepower of Turbo Lasers and Volcano Cannons, weapons which resonated with their preference for long-range duelling on the battlefield.As the Great Crusade progressed and the fighting became ever more ferocious, some few of the Titan Legion's most renowned warriors were also noted for their prowess with the Titan-grade Chainfist and Power Fist, skills which some amongst the old guard frowned upon.This preference in both weaponry and tactics that left the Titan Legion at a disadvantage against hordes of properly-equipped infantry had been seen by some as a weakness, leading to some among the more bloodthirsty Titan Legions to make mockery of the fact that on several occasions the True Messengers withdrew from the battlefield in the face of overwhelming numbers of enemy infantry though the warriors of the Legio Praesagius have always maintained that such actions were to avoid the wholesale slaughter of Human soldiers who might later be made into allies.The True Messengers instead relied on the support of the Excertus Imperialis and allied Mechanicum cohorts to engage such foes, and were amongst the most skilled of the Titan Legions in the close support of infantry actions. Many regiments of the Imperial Army tell of the pinpoint accuracy of the True Messengers' cannon and the stalwart devotion of their princeps to the lowly infantry who fought beside them.In the latter years of the Great Crusade, after the Titan Legion was settled on Gantz, its power had waned from so many of its god-engines having fallen in battle, and it could only muster less than a hundred god-engines. These surviving war machines were almost exclusively of the Warlord or Reaver classes, with only a few remaining Emperor and Warhound-class machines, and their crews were veterans, seasoned by the fires of the Great Crusade's wars. Indeed, the Titan Legion retained more trained personnel than it did operational Titans at the time of its ceremonial grounding on Gantz.Some among the True Messengers feared that the "prize" they had been granted as the new wardens of the Forge World of Gantz might be the death knell of the Legio Praesagius of old, the systematic destruction of the old crusading traditions of the True Messengers and the slow remoulding of their beleaguered force. These fears were to be proved unfounded, as the Legio Praesagius was to remain active as a core component of Roboute Guilliman's wars to expand Ultramar.The magi of Gantz would slowly rebuild the Legio until, by the time of the call to arms at Calth, the True Messengers were ranked as a Titan Legion of the Secundus-grade and were to pledge 112 Titans of various classes to the Ghaslakh Crusade against the Orks. Unlike the Legio Praesagius of old, this force was more varied in composition as many Warhound and Reaver-class Titans that bore the hallmarks of the Gantz magi's unique forge craft now walked beside the ancient Terran Warlords and the last few Emperor-grade Titans.The Ghaslakh Crusade battle group that left Gantz in 007.M31 was at the time the majority of the Legio's complement. Only a handful of god-engines remained at Gantz for the defence of the great forges that burned at the heart of that world, mainly those in dire need of repair or whose construction and dedication had yet to be fully completed.In the aftermath of the Battle of Calth these few warriors, a mere dozen Titans, with only three of these being Battle Titans bestowed on the Titan Legion at its founding, were all that remained of the once proud Legio Praesagius.