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THE MAN IN THE BOX The Crusade Fleet hung over Mars like a crown of steel. The Verdant Oath and her escorts gleamed in the thin light, engines humming a low, patient warning. Dust storms swirled beneath the atmosphere, curling around the temples of the Adeptus Mechanicus like smoke over fire. High Sentinel Varyn Drakus walked the bridge, reviewing manifest after manifest, fleet strength, Blade assignments, and tonnage. Every calculation balanced, every number accounted for—or so he thought. Then the arithmetic failed. “One thousand and one,” said the Chapter Master. The strategium was silent save for servitors and distant engine hums. “Read it back,” he added. The human Fleet-master hesitated. Not long enough to defy him, long enough to be afraid. “One thousand and one, High Sentinel.” Drakus’ gaze hardened. Silence settled over the strategium like a fog. “Explain.” “I cannot,” the Fleet-master admitted. “The roster is sealed above my authority. This anomaly was not present an hour ago.” Drakus extended a hand. The data-slate was placed into it with visible reluctance. He scrolled. The cogitator whined, chimes stuttering, before unlocking a partition he had never authorized. Designation: Withheld Heraldry: Absent Status: Active Classification: Brutalis-pattern Dreadnought Drakus closed the slate. “No Green Templar stands interred,” he said quietly. No one contradicted him. “Locate it,” he ordered. “Do not alert the Mechanicus. Do not log the search. If questioned, you are reconciling tonnage.” He turned back to the hololithic fleet display. “If it exists,” he said, “it exists inside my Crusade. I will know why.” ☆☆☆ The Brutalis Dreadnought waited in a lower cargo hold of the Verdant Oath itself. Its ceramite was bare, talons locked in mag-lock restraints, edges deliberately dulled. Twin multi-meltas hung inert. Strange-marked tech-priests stood watch, robes layered with sigils from dozens of hands. “Deactivate the restraint fields,” Drakus ordered. One turned, mechadendrites twitching. “Authorization is restricted. This asset is under—” Drakus drew his bolt pistol and fired. The first head ruptured against the bulkhead; the others froze, logic-loops stalling. “You are aboard a Green Templar vessel,” Drakus said evenly. “There is no higher authority present.” He fired again. And again. When the last fell, the bolt pistol locked open. Drakus glanced at it, then keyed his helm. “Techmarine Rodrigo Peral,” he said. “Report. Bring the rites for Dreadnought activation. Requisition an additional magazine for my sidearm. I am short.” ☆☆☆ Rodrigo Peral completed the final rites. Power flooded the sarcophagus. Hydraulics hissed like indrawn breath. A voice emerged—deep, vox-cracked, yet carrying the cadence of a brother long in the wars. “High Sentinel Drakus. At last.” Drakus leveled his bolt pistol. “Identify.” “I am the First. A Greyshield forged by the Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl himself, of pure Vulkan gene-seed, before your Chapter received its name or its Blades. I was held in reserve—pure, untainted—until the moment came.” Greyshield? Drakus thought. Cawl’s vaults supplied our Primaris reinforcements, yes—but no record exists of a pre-founding internee. No sarcophagus was delivered with the gene-stock. This thing claims a history we never claimed. “Why were you interred?” Drakus asked. “In what battle did you fall?” The talons twitched against the restraints. “I was defeated… by a vile machine. It thought itself alive. It wore the form of Man, spoke as kin, but its heart was cold code. I struck it down, but the cost was grievous. The Mechanicus saved what remained of me. They interred me so I could serve still.” The words hung heavy. Drakus felt the chill of recognition—not of truth, but of pattern. The abomination it described mirrored the speaker too closely. “Where have you been since?” he pressed. “Name the forge where they rebuilt you. Name the Tech-Priest who sealed the rites.” A longer pause. The multi-meltas hummed faintly, as if testing power. “I… do not remember clearly. The wars blur. The void is long. I awoke here, among my brothers. That is enough.” Drakus’ gaze hardened. Vague. Evasive. No Marine forgets the forge that birthed his second life. Rodrigo Peral shifted, mechadendrites probing the hull readings. “Lord, the neural bridge reads… inconsistent. I need a second opinion. Apothecary Severo Marqués—report to the hold. Bring your auspex and bio-probes.” Severo Marqués arrived swiftly, white armor stark against the dim lumens. He knelt, connecting leads to the sarcophagus ports. Scans flickered across his narthecium display. His posture stiffened. “High Sentinel,” he said quietly, voice tight. “There are no life signs. None. The biomatter within… it does not resemble an interred brother. No secondary heart, no catalepsean node activity. It is preserved, yes—artificially—but it is wrong. Dead far longer than any Dreadnought could sustain a mind. And yet it spoke.” Drakus rested his gauntlet on the ceramite. The hull thrummed under his touch, almost expectant. “Then tell me,” he said, voice low and final, “who—or what—has been speaking through a corpse’s shell.” Drakus keyed the vox without looking away. “Peral. Prepare to vent the hold. Open the outer hatch on my mark. Eject this… thing into the void.” Silence stretched. Then the voice cracked—less lucid, more desperate. “I am Green Templar! I am the First! Forged by Cawl, pure Vulkan blood—do not cast me out!” The Dreadnought’s talons flexed hard against the mag-locks—metal groaned. “No. I have served! I purged the machine that thought itself alive! You cannot—” “You are the machine,” Drakus said evenly. “And you will serve no longer.” The restraints snapped like brittle bone. Hydraulics screamed as the Brutalis tore free, massive frame lurching forward. Twin multi-meltas whined to full charge, barrels glowing infernal red. Bolt rifles on its forearms spat a storm of mass-reactive shells, hammering crates and bulkheads into ruin. Drakus drew his power sword in a blur. The blade ignited blue-white. “Peral—hatch! Now!” He charged low, aiming for the knee joints where armor gapped for movement. Rodrigo Peral dove for the control panel, mechadendrites stabbing into access ports, overriding lockdown protocols. Warning runes flashed crimson across the deck. Apothecary Severo Marqués raised his narthecium, vox crackling urgently: “All nearby Brothers—this is Marqués! Hold breach—hostile Dreadnought asset! Reinforcements to bay seven, priority!” A squad of Chapter serfs—ship’s armsmen in void-sealed carapace, lasguns and shotguns at the ready—poured through the inner hatch at the alarm klaxons. They opened fire instinctively: las-bolts splashed harmlessly off the bare ceramite, autogun rounds pinging away like rain on adamantium. One serf screamed a Promethean litany and charged with a shock maul raised—only for a casual backhand talon to send him flying into a wall, armor crumpling. A massive talon swept in a wide arc. Marqués twisted aside, but not far enough. The claw raked across his chest plate, tearing pauldron and rib-guard in a spray of blood and ceramite shards. He staggered back, collapsing against a munitions crate, one arm dangling useless, white armor blooming red. “Marqués!” Drakus roared. Tomas Varn—barely out of his indenture, face pale under his helm—broke from the firing line and threw himself over the fallen Apothecary, lasgun blazing point-blank at the Dreadnought’s torso. The bolts did nothing. The Brutalis pivoted, one multi-melta barrel tracking. A searing beam lanced out—white-hot promethium fury that slagged Tomas Varn’s carapace in an instant. Flesh and armor vaporized in a burst of superheated steam; his scream cut short as he slumped, charred remains shielding Marqués’ body like a broken aegis. Drakus locked his mag-boots to the deck with a heavy clunk, anchoring himself against the growing pull as Peral’s overrides began cycling the outer hatch. He lunged again, power sword slashing deep into the exposed knee servo—sparks flew, fluid sprayed, the leg buckling with a tortured whine. The Dreadnought staggered, talons raking blindly. “I am one of you!” it bellowed, voice fracturing into static rage. A fist hammered down; Drakus rolled aside, the impact cratering plasteel and sending shockwaves through the hold. The remaining serfs braced against cargo stacks and support struts, gripping handholds, autoguns still barking futile defiance. Peral’s vox cut through the chaos: “Hatch at fifty percent—five seconds! Lord, the machine is fighting the cycle!” The outer hatch hissed wide. Void roared in like a living thing—sucking air, debris, loose tools toward the black maw. Mars’ ruddy glow framed the opening. Drakus deactivated one boot momentarily, lunged to Marqués’ side, and clamped a gauntlet around the Apothecary’s pauldron. With a grunt, he hauled the wounded brother back, mag-locking both boots again. Marqués groaned, secondary heart laboring, but alive. The serfs clung desperately—some to chains, others to each other—bodies straining against the gale. The Brutalis slid inexorably toward the breach, talons gouging deep furrows in the deck as it clawed for purchase. Drakus drove his sword one final time into the shoulder mount, severing multi-melta feed lines—one barrel died in a sputter of sparks. “You will serve the Chapter,” Drakus said over the howling wind, voice steady, “but not as you imagine.” The Dreadnought’s last talon slipped. It tumbled out, twisting in vacuum, ceramite glowing cherry as atmospheric friction claimed it on the long fall to Mars. Its vox screamed one final, garbled plea—“I am—!”—before silence swallowed it. The hatch sealed with a thunderous clang. Emergency repressurization hissed. Drakus knelt beside Marqués, checking the wound. Grievous, but survivable with immediate rites. The Apothecary’s narthecium auto-injected stimms. The surviving serfs slumped, breathing hard, faces ashen. One saluted weakly, blood on his gloves from a comrade. Rodrigo Peral limped over, scorched mechadendrite dangling. “The roster is correct now. One thousand. No anomalies.” Drakus stared at the sealed hatch, then at the charred outline where Tomas Varn had fallen shielding his brother. “Technology bends to the will of Man,” he murmured. “Not the other way around.” He rose. “Tend to the wounded. Secure the hold. Honor the fallen—Tomas Varn among them. The Crusade continues.” The Chapter endured—bloodied, vigilant, and one step closer to the truth of who had tried to poison them from within... And the man in the box would fight no longer.

So, I actually listened to other forum members and built, what I think is a pretty decent list. The army list is built around the 7th Blade, The Sundered, a Green Templars Crusade Fleet which was almost destroyed by the Ork Kaptain Toofsnatcha. In return for repairs and resupply, Acting-Castellan Mateo Rojas has sworn an Oath to assist Vulkan He'stan on his quest to find the missing relics of the Primarch. My battleplans follow the list. The Sundered - The 7th Blade 2000 / 2000 pts Battle Size: Strike Force (2000 Point limit) Detachment: Forgefather's Seekers Epic Hero 100 pts Vulkan He'stan 100 pts Warlord Character 255 pts Apothecary Biologis 85 pts Forged in Battle Judiciar 95 pts War‑tempered Artifice Librarian 75 pts Immolator Battleline 80 pts 5 Intercessor Squad 80 pts • 1x Intercessor Sergeant: Hand Flamer, Power Fist • 4x Intercessor: Bolt Rifle Infantry 815 pts 6 Bladeguard Veteran Squad 170 pts • 1x Bladeguard Veteran Sergeant: Neo‑volkite Pistol • 5x Bladeguard Veterans 4 Company Heroes 105 pts 6 Eradicator Squad 180 pts • 4x Eradicator • 1x Eradicator with Multi‑melta 5 Infernus Squad 90 pts • 4x Infernus Marines 5 Infernus Squad 90 pts • 4x Infernus Marines 10 Infernus Squad 180 pts • 9x Infernus Marines Vehicle 520 pts Land Raider Redeemer 270 pts Hunter‑killer missile, Multi‑melta, Storm Bolter Storm Speeder Hammerstrike 125 pts Storm Speeder Hammerstrike 125 pts Dedicated Transport 230 pts Drop Pod 70 pts Impulsor 80 pts Shield Dome, 2 Storm Bolters Impulsor 80 pts Shield Dome, 2 Storm Bolters This list builds around a few simple combos, namely 10 Infernus marines lead by a Librarian with Immolator that mount up in a drop pod, Vulkan and the Company Heroes to brawl in the midfield, and the anti tank punch of the Hammerstrikes and Eradicators. Vulkan’s wound reroll can be utilized effectively by almost the whole army and allows you to absolutely crush any target whether it’s a block of infantry or a Knight. The two Hammerstrikes give them early range threats that can gang up on a single target or split up as needed with the speed to apply meltas basically wherever they’re needed. Vulkan and his Company Heroes along with the Judicar and the Bladeguard Veteran Squad post up on an objective and demand your opponent commit heavily. The Infernus Marines with Librarian drop in, roast something, then threaten to do it again with Overwatch while the Eradicators with Biologis can either go in the Redeemer or come in from reserves as needed. The Judicar and the 6 Bladeguard support Vulkan He'stan and his Company Heroes in the center of the table, while the 2 Impulsor units filled with 5 Infernus Marines provide drive-by support, and act as a QRF, reacting to threats as they come. What do you think?

JOURNAL OF ELIAS RENN (Recovered fragment. Original medium: bound paper journal, water- and ash-damaged.) Entry I: I write this as I walk. The road south cuts through the hills like a scar. I have followed it since dawn, though I no longer remember leaving the last town. Only the smoke remains clear in my mind—black and greasy, climbing into the sky like a signal flare for something vast and patient. They came without warning. No herald, no parley. The bells rang once before falling silent. Green armor moved through the square: huge, methodical shapes untouched by panic. Bolters did not roar; they punctuated. Each shot felt like the end of a sentence. I was spared only because I was already gone. That is my purpose, after all. Messenger. Runner. Fool who believes words can outrun fire. Entry II: The people of Varn’s Crossing listened. They nodded. They mad the sign of the Aquila when I spoke of Space Marines. But I saw the doubt in their eyes. Everyone knows His Angels do not descend for nothing. Everyone knows if they burn a place, it must have deserved it. I slept in the stable. I dreamed of armored boots grinding grain to dust. Tomorrow I try again. Entry III: They are burning in a line. That is what terrifies me most. It is not random. It is not wrath. Towns fall one by one, each nearer than the last, as though already marked. As though plotted on a map I cannot see. Today I heard of a village to the east—no survivors, no bodies whole enough to bury. Only ash and the sharp chemical sting that clawed at the eyes. I am beginning to wonder whether I am fleeing them… or leading them. Entry IV: I have started counting days since I left home. My wife’s face comes to me at night, stern and tired, as if she knows something I do not. My daughter laughs in my dreams, holding up her hands, asking if I have brought her something. Emperor forgive me. I did. Entry V: The thought arrived uninvited and now refuses to leave. What do I carry that others do not? No relics. No forbidden texts. No augmetics. I am no heretic. I pray. I tithe. I obey. Yet I remember the pilgrimage. The long road. The nameless guide. The hidden path. The quiet grove, untouched, impossibly green, impossibly old. An Aeldari world, though I did not know the word then. Only that it felt ancient. The vial was small. Clear glass. Clear liquid. Harmless, I thought. A gift. Entry VI: I went home. I do not know why I believed I could outrun them and still return. Perhaps I thought love would make me invisible. She was asleep when I entered. Curled on her side, breath slow, one hand open on the blanket. The vial sat on the table near the bed. She had placed it there carefully, upright, like a votive. I had not told her what it was. I had called it a blessing. I understood then. Not all at once. Enough. I lifted it and felt the cold through the glass. The liquid shifted, slow and deliberate, as if aware of being moved. My fingers shook. I waited for the sound of glass on wood, for her to stir. She did not. I stood there longer than was safe, listening to them breathe. I tried to memorize the sound. I failed. In the washroom I hesitated. Stupidly. As if hesitation mattered. I thought of the culvert, the fields, the river beyond town. All the places where water is allowed to disappear. Then I looked back at the bed. I chose. I poured it down the drain. It did not splash. It slid away, smooth and obedient, leaving the sink clean. The pipes did not protest. There was no smell, except something faint and familiar. Rain. I ran water after it. More than necessary. I told myself it was gone. I told myself this was what saving them looked like. I left before dawn and took a room at the inn where I could see the road and still see the house. I told myself distance was protection. I told myself I was clever. Entry VII: I took a room at the inn facing the road. From the window I could see my house. The roofline. The place where the gutter sagged. The bedroom window where the light caught in the morning and woke them before I did. I stood in plain sight. I wanted them to see me. I thought that mattered. I believed I had outsmarted them. They came midmorning. Not charging. Not hunting. A procession. White and green moving with the patience of men who know there is nowhere left to go. I waited for the moment when one of them would look up and raise a weapon. The one in white stopped instead. He carried a hand-scanner. He raised it and let it hum, slow and thoughtful, as if tasting the air. His helm turned toward the inn. Toward me. For a moment I was certain this was it. Then he lowered the device. He pointed. Not at me. At my house. The scanner moved again. He gestured to the next structure. Then the next. Calm. Precise. I could not hear the words, but I did not need them. The drain. The pipes. The way the liquid slid away so easily. I understood then what I had done. Not escaped. Not hidden. I had spread it. I had carried it into the walls. Into the water. Into everything they would test and mark and cleanse. The white one did not look back. Four Marines stepped forward. Flamers were raised with practiced indifference. No hesitation. No announcement. Fire does not need permission. I remained at the window. No one escapes the pyre. (No further journal entries.) EXTRACT: ADEPTUS ADMINISTRATUM SUB-SECTOR CLEANSING RECORD REF: GT-CX/XENOS-19-THREE CLEARANCE: MAGENTA DISTRIBUTION: RESTRICTED Subject: Civilian Settlement Contamination Event Location: Designate Three of Nineteen, Minoris Surface Habitation Tithe: Adeptus Non Responsible Authority: Green Templars Crusade Detachment, Blade Authority Confirmed Summary: On [REDACTED], auspex confirmation detected non-Imperial particulate contamination within a surface settlement designate Three of Nineteen. Contaminant exhibited self-propagating properties consistent with xenos-derived catalytic agents. Vector determined to be civilian transport from quarantined orbital structure. Assessment: Contamination classified as Class Absolutum. Spread confirmed via domestic water systems and substructure piping. Probability of civilian survival without full sterilization assessed at 0.0003%. Action Taken: In accordance with Crusade Purity Statutes and Codex Exactorum, Section XII, Sub-Clause Pyre, the following measures were enacted: • Full incineration of all affected hab structures • Termination of all civilian biological presence • Secondary purification burn to ensure null residuals • No recovery of remains deemed necessary Notable Observations: One civilian male observed at off-site lodging during initiation of cleansing protocols. Apothecarion scan registered no significant contamination at subject’s location at time of assessment. Subject classified as non-priority. No deviation from operational objectives recorded. Casualties: • Carriers: Total • Adeptus Astartes: None • Material Loss: Negligible Conclusion: Cleansing successful. Contamination eradicated. No relics, substances, or anomalous materials recovered of note. Final Disposition: Incident closed. Further inquiry unwarranted. The Emperor Protects.

The vox-bead clicked once as the channel closed. Chaplain Urraca remained motionless, helm inclined, as though awaiting a response that doctrine insisted would not come. The report had been delivered precisely: identification, coordinates, mission status. All brothers deceased. Objective secured. Requesting retrieval. There was no benediction. No acknowledgment rune. Only silence. He lowered his hand. The void station was cooling. Heat bled from fractured conduits and ruptured housings, leaving behind a thin metallic chill that crept through the seams of his ceramite. Something dripped nearby at an irregular interval—coolant, blood, something else. He did not look. It did not matter. Beyond the breached hull, the asteroid field pressed close. Jagged stone and slow-rotating masses hemmed the station in on all sides, too dense for a strike cruiser to risk passage. The Verdant Oath would remain distant. Only small craft could reach this place. Urraca turned and took stock. The dead lay where they had fallen. Purity Wardens, every one of them. He did not name them yet. Names came later, during the rites. For now, they were positions: breach point, advance, rear guard. He counted them as he would ammunition and reached the expected total without error. His crozius lay in fragments near the center of the chamber. The haft had snapped cleanly. The head—once sacred geometry of adamantium, sigil, and oath—had been crushed inward, its edges folded like thin plate. He knelt and gathered the pieces with care, arranging them by break, by force, by failure. The sight stirred no anger. Only certainty. It had failed. That thought weighed more heavily than the loss of his brothers. They had died wielding the finest weapons their forges could produce. Relics sanctified by rite and lineage. Blades and bolters whose designs had endured ten thousand years of war. And it had not been enough. A faint creak echoed through the station’s frame. Urraca turned toward the sound, weapon already in hand. He did not remember drawing it. He only knew it was there—held low, angled away from his body as training dictated. He adjusted his grip without thinking, then paused. The balance was wrong. Not poor. Not awkward. Simply incorrect, in a way that demanded notice. His thumb slid along the handle and found a shallow groove that served no purpose. His gauntlet’s machine-spirit compensated automatically, tightening its grip as if to reassure him. He looked down. The blade was plain. No sigils. No inscriptions. No marks of forge or creed. Its edge was straight and unadorned, neither serrated nor curved. It might have been forged yesterday or ten thousand years ago. There was nothing to tell him. The handle was the problem. Six shallow depressions ran along the grip, worn smooth by use. His fingers filled five. The sixth remained empty—a narrow channel beneath his palm where no finger belonged. He could feel it even through ceramite, a negative space that refused to be ignored. Urraca loosened his grip at once and let the blade’s tip rest against the deck. It did not fall. It did not resist. It simply remained, balanced without effort. The silence closed in. Without the sound of battle, the chamber felt vast and hollow. He became aware of his breathing, the whine of his armor’s systems, the way his hearts refused to slow. He reached for a litany— —and stopped. The words felt wrong. Not forbidden. Not heretical. Ill-fitted. Like armor forged for a different war. Only then did he look to the far end of the chamber. The Custodian of the Vault lay broken there, its armor breached cleanly through the torso. A single cut remained where a weapon had been buried deep within it, driven where his crozius had shattered again and again. Understanding settled with brutal clarity. Every sanctioned blow had failed. Every strike of faith and rite had glanced away, useless. This weapon had killed it. A thing without name, without ornament, without place in any litany. What Man did not make, Man must not need. The creed rose in his mind—and faltered. The blade had done more than his brothers could. More than their relics. More than the Chapter’s forges. He did not remember sheathing it. He only realized it was no longer in his hand when the low klaxon sounded—extraction. A Thunderhawk threading carefully through stone and shadow. ☆☆☆ Brother-Artificer Verdug entered the chamber, optics sweeping the wreckage. “Void station Five of Nineteen secured,” Verdug questioned. Urraca inclined his helm. Verdug’s gaze lingered on the smooth cut on the xenos. “And the weapon that ended the engagement?” Urraca’s hand rested at his side. The blade was there—sheathed. Plain now. Unremarkable. Its grip smooth and familiar, indistinguishable from a standard Astartes combat knife. He could not recall when it had changed. Only that it fit. “Secured,” he said. Verdug studied him for a moment longer. “Curious. I did not recall you carrying your old combat knife into battle anymore.” Urraca did not answer. He followed the boarding ramp as the Thunderhawk lifted free of the station, slipping between drifting asteroids. The blade rested at his side, silent and compliant, shaped to his needs. He had held it. He had killed with it. And he was bringing it home.