Dark Angels - The First: The Ist Legion was intended to demonstrate the true potential of the Astartes versus their predecessors among the Emperor's armies for they were a true Legion, numbering already 10,000 transhuman warriors while their early kin among the other nascent Legions were but a few hundred each. It was at Samerkend on Terra in 668.M30 during the Unification Wars that the Ist Legion took to the field en masse for the first time, assembled with the Emperor Himself at their head. Here, the Legiones Astartes faced their first true test, not a test of individual strength or genetic purity, but a test of their worth as an army. Ten thousand of the First, flanked by contingents of four other Legions, took the field against 200,000 gene-forged Udug Hul, the elite slave-soldiers of the king of Akkad. The Udug Hul, whose blood was poison and whose strength was greater than 10 un-enhanced warriors, were the terror of the Upper Asiatic Basin and a foe that had so far resisted the advance of the Emperor's armies.Ten solar hours after battle was joined Samerkend was in ruins, the Udug Hul scattered and broken and the Great King of Akkad's head a trophy on the belt of the newly-appointed Grandmaster of the Ist Legion. This warrior, Hector Thrane, was lauded by the princes of Terra for his victory and granted the title Sinestra of the Emperor, the left hand of the Warlord of Terra, His most fearsome instrument of conquest. By order of the Emperor, the Ist Legion left no stone upon stone, and almost every record of the terrors encountered in that battle was destroyed. In the wake of the victory the rate of recruitment and processing of the new Space Marine Legions was accelerated, their potential proven in triumph, and the Ist Legion gained a dark renown among the ranks of the armies of Unity. They had walked into the mouth of hell, and not only had they returned, but they had left hell shattered in their passage.This first victory was to set the pattern of the Ist Legion's battles during the wars for Old Earth and the Sol System, pitting them against the most horrific of foes with only one objective -- to eradicate them completely.From Fortress Thirty-one in the Thulean wastes of ancient Terra, to the Battle of Karnakon amid the cryo-volcanic mountains of Sedna, the Ist Legion would meet the worst threats that faced the armies of Unity and lay them low. So horrific were many of the threats they faced -- xenos terrors beyond the pale of sanity and psychic phenomena that threatened to tear reality asunder -- that little more than the battle honours remain, the details erased even from the data-stacks of the Emperor's library.To prosecute these impossible battles the Emperor would grant them access to the armoury vaults of the Imperial Palace, to every forbidden weapon entombed within, and they would be the only Legion trusted to wield the worst of Mankind's creations freely. The orders of Grandmaster Hector Thrane would see the obliteration of the warped cities of Khadun and Molay in the eastern reaches of Old Earth and the deployment of gene-phage munitions to purge Enceladus, one of the moons of Saturn, clean of Khrave infestation. These were victories that left an indelible stain on both the course of the war and the identity of the warriors who prosecuted them, forging Thrane's reputation as a ruthless and prideful warlord.Among the armies of Unification, the Ist Legion had become synonymous with death, for where they walked it seemed as though that pale rider followed after them with an inevitability that spawned many long-held superstitions regarding the reclusive warriors of the First. They were treated with an awe that sat somewhere between respect and terror by those who served alongside them, for it was said that to offend them was to bring the scrutiny of their patron, Death himself, upon the offender. Among the host gathered by the Emperor they were not heroes, but rather a breed of monster made loyal by the will of their master. They were not to be lauded for their bravery but rather placated to assuage their wrath. Despite the dictates of the Imperial Truth, the common soldiery of the Imperial armies often set small wards and charms at the edges of their camps when the Ist Legion arrived to avert the ill-luck that many felt followed the Emperor's firstborn Legion.Such superstition was not without cause, for of those Imperial formations attached to support the First Legion in combat most came to bloody ends. Some were savaged by the monsters that the newly-dubbed Angels of Death had come to slay, and others would simply vanish, purported to have been silenced by the Ist Legion themselves, lest word of some dread enemy return to the camps with the survivors. The warriors of the Ist Legion, ever of pragmatic mind, soon began to assume the guise in which they had been cast, adopting the skeletal icon of Death as their own and adorning their armour with funerary symbols. This self-imposed exile from the camaraderie of the Emperor's lesser servants was a point of pride among the Ist Legion. It was a sacrifice made to protect the mortal army from the terrors only the Ist Legion were fit to bear, though to some of those they fought beside, most especially the warriors of the other Legiones Astartes, it seemed more vainglory and arrogance than humble sacrifice.The Masters of the Ist Legion showed no interest in such slights, content to remain wreathed in malign rumour as they fought the battles that could never be lauded lest they break the minds of those who bore witness to the battle honours. For while the younger Legions were granted the lesser honour of standing triumphant at the mundane victories of conquest, the Ist Legion would be awarded the greater honour of acting as the Emperor's left hand; a brutally efficient weapon of grim aspect hidden behind the bright pageantry of the Imperial Army.