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Well I guess it is time to move my HH Ravenguard to its own thread away from the Adeptus Astartes section. Since the release of V2 of Horus Hersey, I have been building but not really painting my Ravenguard forces. My group has been walking away from 10th edition and focusing on HH as we enjoy it more. With the release of Beta-Garmon and Solar Auxilia the group is now prepping for our upcoming campaign. Also we are doing a "Tanksgiving" monster tank battle game around Thanksgiving. XIXth Legion Stay tuned

Well I was going through the Sisters of Silence to see how many models I actually I have. Turns out I have 20 Sisters of Silence plus the Black Library Character. I did order another 5 Sisters of Silence. Plus I ordered some bits off of Etsy. First off was this I ordered 10 Heads I figured these would be great for my Raptora Bodygurad. Then I found these Cyber puppies!!!!! And since my Pursuer Cadre will be 5 models I needed 3 critters for the squad, and being Allies to my Raven Guard I had an idea Crows, Ravens close enough......the one on the ground will be added to my Remembracer's base too. So for my XIXth Legion- Raven Guard, I have been toying with an idea that fits in with the fluff of my Expeditionary Fleet and why my army differs compared to most Raven Guard. Let me explain the break down on my various Companies of my Raven Guard fleet. 23rd Assault Company- Assault Marines, Destroyers, Dark Furys, Land Speeders, Apothecaries, Counsel and Praetor with Jump Packs. 104th Heavy Assault Company- Deliverers, Cataphractii Terminators, LAnd Raiders Proteus and Spartans, and Characters in Cataphractii armor 307th Siege Company- Breachers and MKIII armored models and Characters in MKIII with some exceptions 501st Tactical Company- MK VI models Tacticals, Support and Heavy support. 909th Recon Company- Recon Marines, scouts, Mor Deythan 10th Armored Company- Tanks As I was planning my Master of Armor and starting to build him I really wanted a certain icon on him so I decided to I would add it to him. What was the icon.... Raptor Imperalis- also called the Raptora Imperialis, was an early icon employed by the Emperor of Mankind and his nascent Imperium of Man during the Unification Wars and the Great Crusade to represent the Imperial cause. Originally, this honour badge was only used by the proto-Astartes known as the Thunder Warriors, but would later be adopted by the genetically-enhanced regiments of the Excertus Imperialis and the early Terran-born Legiones Astartes as well. So that would make the individuals with this logo, Terran-Born......Which explains the large 15 man squad of Deliverers, different companies, and different fighting styles. Then the kicker By the time the Raven Lord took command of his Legion, the Great Crusade was over a century old. Corax was quick to impose the style of war he had perfected on Lycaeus over that which had come to define the XIXth Legion, melding stealth and guile with vigilance and swiftness. It was during these early years that much of the native demeanour of the old XIXth Legion, particularly the more cold-blooded ways of the Xeric tribes, was purged. The Legion had so often served in oppression, repression and occupation forces that Corax saw in some of the Terrans of his XIXth Legion something akin to the slavers of Lycaeus. Several of the Legion's highest-ranking officers were displaced or reassigned to non-command roles, including Lord Arkhas Fal, who had commanded the XIXth Legion as its Master for three decades before the coming of the Raven Lord. So My Crusade Fleet is made up of Terran Born Astartes along with my Remembracer being from Terra with the Sisters of Silence watching them to see if their loyalty is to the Emperor or Horus.

Right, exactly what it says on the tin, chaps. I'm looking for assistance correlating what information there is to be had about the XIXth Legion's Terran period and recruitment, iconography, culture, etc. You know - the sort of stuff required to bring a force to life. I'm presently tossing up what to do with five or so truescale Mk.IIIs I've just about finished ; and one of the possibilitis which suggested itself to me was a band of Terran-origin XIXth legionnaires who'd wound up (as with so many of their kind) separated from their parent Legion at some point subsequent to Unification. Now, this in and of itself would be pretty straight-forward. Formations such as the Ashen Claws provide ample testament to this kind of force being out there in the universe. But if you've seen many of our previous Vox Stellarum logs floating about the place, and in particular what we tend to do with Heresy and Unification era stuff when it comes to fleshing out the fluff behind our projects ... then you'll already probably see wehre this is going. I like tying my miniature efforts of Terran extraction to their earth-culture origins, both in terms of naming and more involved elements of the modelling and equipment. Thus far, this has resulted in North Indian inflected Loyalist VIIIth and IVth; as well as Umbral's excellent Tibetan Night Lords. Yet when i turned my attention to the XIXth Legion, things became rather more difficult to 'pin down'. What we know from the Third and Sixth Black Books is that many of the Terran XIXth were drawn from the "Xeric tribes of the Asiatic dustfields", proximate to the Yndonesic Bloc with whom they seem to have been in a continual state of armed conflict. We also can make an inference of a sort as to their relative propinquity towards the eastern frontiers of Ursh, due to their involvement in the pacification of same as Astartes as part of Unification, but this is just tha - an "inference" (based in no small part on a similar pattern observable elsewhere of some Legions' first outings being in conflict in their own general 'neighbourhood'). So what does this give us? Well, not terribly much. However, it is a start. Only hits I've found in relation to potential meanings or derivations for "Xeric" is the straightforward and direct use of the term in reference to rather arid biomes, including at the present time a swathe of territory running through northwest China and Central Asia to western India, Iran, and so forth. And no doubt, given the reduction in habitability of the ensuing 28,000 or so years of human history on Terra, these realms will have expanded a great deal. Although so too will the "Yndonesic Bloc" - which I have little doubt encompasses a far broader extent than modern-day Indonesia. And while this might straight-up suggest Mongols or something, I have something a little different in mind. Specifically, the Scythians and/or [dependent upon which ethnographical sources you wish to rely upon] Saka peoples which inhabited much of that aforementioned expanse. So I guess what I'm asking is twofold - beyond what is stated above, what do we konw about these Xeric dust-tribes? Is there anything cited in the various Horus Heresy novels or other sources about them and other elements of the Terran XIX adt this point in time? And, further, do we have any information about unit-badges or other heraldry - the Black Book art has a rather bland "XIX" in a roundel; possibly supplemented by the six-armed starbursty sigil seen on the shoulderpad of some of the earlier Ashen Claws art (although this is cited as a unit-designator in the panel of tactical markings in Extermination so make of that what you will]. And, you know, anything else that may be useful :P