Red Scorpions - Notable Campaigns: Berillia Massacres (498-601.M34) - Prior to its disastrous failure during the Berillia campaigns and swift descent into madness, the Shining Blades Chapter was one of those Chapters renowned, alongside the Red Scorpions, Ultramarines, Umbral Titans and a few others, with a gene-seed record of extreme purity. However the Shining Blades fell victim to their own pride, turning from the Emperor's will and beginning a traitorous crusade to cast down any who would claim to be their equals. Now calling themselves the Flawless Host, they spent a standard century harrying Loyalist Chapters, burning isolated Imperial outposts and decimating smaller detachments of loyal Astartes warriors until they assaulted a Red Scorpions strike cruiser, the Crux Puritatis, as it returned from campaigns in the Segmentum Tempestus, capturing the vessel and taking the Chapter's dead to augment their stocks of gene-seed. Then Chapter Master Thay Kraun of the Red Scorpions recalled all of his Chapter's combat units from their previous engagements and scoured the area from which the Flawless Host was known to operate. Once the asteroid fortress used by the Flawless Host and its degenerate allies was discovered, Kraun committed his brethren en masse to its utter destruction. In a titanic battle that raged for six solar days the Red Scorpions battered the Flawless Host, blasting apart its defences and storming its fortress chamber-by-chamber. Chapter Master Kraun himself led the re-taking of the Crux Puritatis, using the Blade of the Scorpion to decapitate the Flawless Host captain who claimed the ship in single combat. Withdrawing in the face of the Red Scorpions' overwhelming wrath, the Flawless Host vowed to exact vengeance upon all those who would tarnish its glory.Helios Campaign (857.M38) - In 857.M38, the Red Scorpions responded to a call to cleanse the world of Helios of Traitors who had turned against the Imperium. The war effort had been in progress for several solar decades, with Astra Militarum forces incapable of turning the tide. Shortly after their arrival, the Space Marines launched an assault against the Traitors' massively reinforced battle fortress. Much to their surprise, the battle-brothers soon discovered that their traditional armaments were incapable of overcoming the resistance mounted upon its adamantine walls. Because the Red Scorpions' Chapter Master distrusted the Astra Militarum forces, he commanded his Master of the Forge to create an alternative solution. The result was the Land Raider Helios, a variant which mounts a Whirlwind Missile Launcher atop a standard Land Raider hull. This hybrid tank soon proved its efficacy and was later accepted by the Adeptus Mechanicus as an official alternative Land Raider pattern.Second Aegisine Crusade (633.M39) - The Second Aegisine Crusade was launched by the Imperium of Man to reclaim the worlds of the dread Sub-sector Mandragora in 633.M39 after it had been lost from contact with the Imperium for centuries under a pall of Warp storms. The Red Scorpions Chapter gained high honour for its role in the later phases of the crusade which re-conquered the worlds around the former sub-sector capital planet of Hecuba. These worlds had fallen under the tyranny of a heretical Adeptus Mechanicus sect based on the once-proud Forge World of Shaehol. It was now a fetid world of chemical swamps and treacherous ash-wastes, its ecosystem wrecked by millennia of unrestrained industry. Shaehol was heavily defended by legions of insane, half-mechanoid servants loyal only to the dark magi who had created them. The paranoia of Shaehol's dark masters had invested the planet with innumerable layered defences made up of thousands of kilometres of living razor wire, clusters of Hurricane Mines and protected by labyrinthine fortress-mazes. The Red Scorpions spearheaded the orbital assault against Shaehol, conducting a concentrated attack by Drop Pod assault supported by Thunderhawks and Caestus Assault Rams which managed to force a beachhead on the heavily defended planet. For 19 murderous solar hours the Chapter was forced to defend the landing zone against phalanxes of corrupted Combat Servitors, waves of surgically mutilated labour helots and the vast and baleful war machines of Shaehol, but they would not break. Only through the Red Scorpions' resolute action did they enable the Battle Titans of the Legio Tempestor and the Imperial Knights of House Vymar to safely land on the surface and deploy, then push past their valiant protectors to take the war to the foe. It would take a further two standard years to fully re-conquer the fallen Forge World as the warped masters of Shaehol and their works were destroyed root and branch, but the Adeptus Mechanicus did not forget the Chapter's sacrifice. When at last the conquest was over after 2 standard years of brutal combat, and the Red Scorpions took their leave of the planet, the Adeptus Mechanicus' lords of war did them homage, as towering Knights and Titans lined the route taken by the Red Scorpions as they marched to the landing zones, bowing to them in homage as they passed by.Ordon Rift Crusade (late M39) - The Ordon Rift Crusade was a campaign undertaken by the Red Scorpions Chapter into the perilous Ordon Rift region deep within the interstellar wilderness of the southwestern regions of the Segmentum Tempestus in the 39th Millennium. Filled with spatial rapids, gravitic storms and other lethal phenomena, the exact circumstances of the Red Scorpions' extended voyage into this hazardous area remain unknown. For more than 300 standard years, the Chapter remained out of contact with the Imperium and was thought lost. The Red Scorpions have a reputation for fighting alone as often as they have fought alongside the ranks of the Imperium's other warriors, and although they have faced defeat several times, they have always returned again from the abyss to draw their blades in the Emperor's service. After the Red Scorpions' triumphant reappearance during the Battle of the Grey Sisters against forces of the Night Lords Traitor Legion on Oriflame, it was established that during its absence the Chapter had founded an orbital battle station named Vigil around the Feral World of Zaebus Minoris deep within the Ordon Rift as a permanent base. Since its discovery, the Red Scorpions and a handful of high-ranking members of the Administratum have kept the exact location of the Zaebus System and the safe routes through the treacherous passages required to reach it a secret, thus ensuring their security and the safety of their gene-seed and recruiting stock.Crucible of Endikon IX (236.M40) - In the early years of the 40th Millennium, the Hive World of Endikon IX fell under the assault of Aeldari Corsair hosts, piratical raiders who enslaved the population and set them to systematically strip their world of all material wealth. After nearly eighty standard years of occupation and torment an Imperial force finally arrived to liberate Endikon IX, spearheaded by a combined force of Space Marines from the Red Scorpions and Raptors Chapters. The battle for control of the space over Endikon IX was brutal, with the Navis Imperialis taskforce sustaining heavy casualties as it drove off the sleek Aeldari voidcraft, especially amongst the lumbering transports that bore the liberation army's Astra Militarum contingent. With their manpower depleted to dangerous levels the Raptors' commander, Captain Kel Vamar, proposed utilising the famed ability of his Chapter in stealth and infiltration to engage the Aeldari by ambush and wear them down in a campaign of hit-and-run strikes before landing the remainder of their support troops. The Red Scorpions' 5th Company, under Commander Oren Saker, refused to have any part of what he termed "cowardice in the face of the enemy" and proceeded to initiate a full drop assault without any support. The resulting battle was successful in breaking and scattering the Aeldari ground forces, but at a terrible price -- of the eighty-three Red Scorpions who descended to the surface of Endikon IX, only sixteen returned. The few members of the Apothecarion which had accompanied the 5th Company spent many solar days searching the drifts of Aeldari dead to recover all of their Chapter's fallen. Though the campaign was eventually completed by the forces of the Raptors Chapter, who lost but a handful of brothers in a protracted harrying campaign to eliminate the remaining Aeldari, the Red Scorpions proudly list Endikon IX amongst their greatest battle honours, holding those who were martyred in honest battle as true heroes of the Imperium.Galen V Suppression (Unknown Date.M41) - The Red Scorpions unleashed their Land Raiders in Codex Astartes-approved Cobalt/Ammonium desert camouflage to aid with the suppression of a heretical revolt in the cobalt chromate deserts of Galen V.Siege of Vraks (826.M41 & 830.M41) - The Imperial arsenal world of Vraks in the Segmentum Obscurus fell to the machinations of the Heretic Cardinal Xaphan, sparking a protracted siege of the planet by the Imperium. Over time the conflict worsened, drawing in numerous Chaos Space Marine warbands and Renegades from the Eye of Terror, as well as an increased Loyalist Space Marine presence to combat the growing Heretic Astartes menace. Ultimately the hellish slaughter of millions poisoned the world and was exploited by the servants of Chaos to bring forth a full Daemonic incursion on the surface. This necessitated the direct involvement of the Ordo Malleus and the Grey Knights before the siege was broken in the Imperium's favour, although Vraks itself had been laid waste. The Red Scorpions participated twice in vital stages of the war. Firstly in 826.M41, when a strike force composed of elements of the 1st, 3rd, 6th, and 8th Companies of the Red Scorpions arrived on the world of Vraks in the strike cruiser Arx Fidelis. Led by Force Commander Ainea, the Red Scorpions strike force aided in the final breaching of the curtain wall surrounding the Fortress of Vraks in the final years of the terrible siege. Veteran Sergeant Carab Culln led the Vanguard Veteran squad that carried the Teleport Homer used by Commander Ainea and his squad of Terminators to take, and subsequently hold, the breach in the curtain wall where the besieging Imperial army would pour through. The Red Scorpions returned to Vraks in 830.M41, this time with a strike force personally led by Lord High Commander Verant Ortys in response to Inquisitor Lord Hector Rex's request for aid. The Red Scorpions' battle barge Sword of Ordon arrived in orbit of the dusty planet, carrying 400 of the Chapter's battle-brothers, including Veteran Sergeant Carab Culln. Culln would go on to rise to prominence, gaining much glory and honour for his Chapter and demonstrating the skill-at-arms and leadership that would eventually see him elevated to command of the Chapter's elite 1st Company. The Red Scorpions would go on to participate in the Imperial retaking of the Fortress of Vraks and the Battle of Saint Leonis' Gate.Beta Anphelion IV (850.M41) - Astartes from the Chapter's 1st and 6th Companies, led by Commander Carab Culln, assisted Ordo Xenos Inquisitor Solomon Lok during an investigation and subsequent battle against the renegade Tyranids of Beta Anphelion IV. The Chapter eventually came under scrutiny by the Inquisition's Ordo Hereticus for their actions during this mission, in which they left Inquisition and Astra Militarum forces to their fate, along with Inquisitor Lord Varius of the Ordo Xenos who had ordered the mission to Beta Anphelion IV.Badab War (906-911.M41) - The Red Scorpions Chapter played a key role in the Badab War, commanding the Loyalist Space Marine forces throughout the war's duration with the blessings of the Imperial legates, even though there were some initial misgivings about the Chapter's fiercely independent reputation. The High Lords of Terra requested their direct involvement to intervene in the conflict. Not currently involved in any other engagements, the crusading Chapter was able to swiftly move to the Maelstrom Zone, arriving in 906.M41. Lord High Commander Verant Ortys was appointed as the overall commander of the Loyalist Space Marines by their common assent, due to the famed Chapter Master being a veteran of many campaigns. The Red Scorpions were at first limited to countering the Secessionist raids on Imperial shipping and conducting probing attacks against several outposts to gauge their foes' strength. The Badab War took an ill-fated turn of fate for the Chapter when Verant Ortys and his honour guard were killed in mysterious and likely treacherous circumstances while conducting a parley with the Secessionists' leader Lufgt Huron of the Renegade Astral Claws Chapter. The Chapter's heir apparent, the 1st Company's Commander Carab Culln, immediately assumed control of the Red Scorpions, and despite some minor dissent, was made the overall commander of the Loyalist Space Marine forces. His first act was to sideline the Fire Hawks' venerable Chapter Master Stibor Lazaerek and bring in further forces from his own Chapter. This increased his Chapter's presence within the combat zone to eight full Battle Companies, two battle barges and four strike cruisers. Leading from the front lines, the Red Scorpions took part in numerous engagements throughout the rest of the conflict, playing a key role in many major battles of the Badab War. After the Badab War ended, Lord High Commander Culln and the Red Scorpions were awarded the rare and lauded honour of a Vexilla Imperialis by the assent of the High Lords of Terra for their role in crushing the uprising, to serve forevermore as a mark of victory and stand as a relic of the Chapter.Second Tyrannic War (992.M41) - The Red Scorpions were involved in operations against the Tyranid menace of the encroaching Hive Fleet Kraken.Third War for Armageddon (998.M41) - A single company of the Red Scorpions arrived at the end of the first standard year of conflict during the Third War for Armageddon in the Season of Fire and awaited the Season of Shadow to commence hostilities against the great Ork WAAAGH! assaulting the Hive World of Armageddon.