Legio Vulpa - Origins: The cognomen of "Death Stalkers" remains an aptly chosen honorific for the Legio Vulpa, for the ancient Titan Legion has an extensive reputation as expert hunters possessed of great savagery and cruelty. The founding of the Titan Legion was undertaken during the Age of Strife upon the Forge World of Anvillus shortly after its colonisation, motivated by the appearance of the Jindarii, a species of nomadic bio-mechanical hunters that had, centuries before Mankind's arrival to Anvillus, established a proving ground in the neighbouring sub-sectors. Records indicate that the Human colonisation of Anvillus galvanised the local Jindarii tribes into enacting frequent raids against the ancient Mechanicum enclave.Against the practiced guerrilla tactics of the Jindarii cadres, or Oxalthixduls in the xenos' own language, Anvillus' Taghmata forces stood little chance; the Jindarii are recorded to have made frequent use of highly advanced armaments such as pulsarand needle technology that proved effective at shredding the toughest armour the Forge World could produce. In answer, the first demi-legio of the Legio Vulpa was raised. Unsuited to hunting down mobile groups of infantry, the god-engines of theLegio Vulpa invaded the Jindarii hunting ground, falling upon the temple complexes of the xenos to draw them out. After a solar decade of fighting, the efforts of the Legio Vulpa had pushed the warfront away from Anvillus, bequeathing the Forge World time to build and expand the ranks of the Legio Vulpa.The conflict between the Jindarii and the Legio Vulpa did much to shape the ethos of the Titan Legion, for the xenos proved immensely cunning and highly adaptable. When faced with a threat far beyond the skill of their normal warriors, the Jindarii began a programme of experimentation and genetic manipulation, implanting the bodies of its most seasoned warriors into gene-wrought organic constructs that rivalled the strength and size of a god-engine. The archive of Anvillus, which maintained detailed records on the threat of the Jindarii, highlight that the initial Jindarii Titan analogues compensated for a distinct lack of ranged weaponry with stealth and speed at odds with their size.With the advent of the Jindarii's new weapons, the conflict entered a new phase, resulting in seven solar decades of war, during which the military minds of the Legio Vulpa conceived and published the first edition of its Libraxus Tacticae Vulpa, the Titan Legion's battle bible. Heavily influenced by the hunting tactics of the Jindarii, the Legio Vulpa favoured tactical deployments that involved direct engagement with the foe, utilising bold assaults combined with misdirection and calculated manoeuvring to entrap enemies and slaughter them without mercy.Thoughthe exact date of the war's conclusion is lost to time, the archives of Anvillus record the final battle between the Jindarii and the Legio Vulpa being fought on the moon ofYythe, located in the third closest star system to Anvillus. There, a demi-legio of 32 Legio Vulpa Titans achieved a decisive victory over the Grand Matriarch of the Hyzebaru tribe of the Jindarii; Legio Vulpa legends state the matriarch, who had led the Jindarii war effort against the Titan Legions for two solar decades, stood 43 metres tall and slew seven god-engines before being slain in turn.Soon after, the Jindarii surrounding Anvillus withdrew in full, no doubt departing for richer, less troublesome hunting grounds. Their departure was marked by a two-kilometre line of Jindarii skulls left along one of Yythe's great rivers, each one engraved with a stanza that, translated, ended with the line, "Here our greatest blades rest, firm in belief they knew death's art, taught instead by those who stalk beneath its shroud." From that day forth, the Legio Vulpa bore the name of "Death Stalkers" with pride.