Another Alternate Leonic Heresy

[Outlander90]

Hello everyone,

 

I am pretty sure you guys are going to read the title and say, "Oh no, not another one of these!" and my first couple of posts will either make or break my Heresy so here's what I'm gonna do. This particular Leonic Heresy (many thanks to the person who first coined the term, a Custodian Altair I think, do correct me if I'm wrong) is about as open to suggestions as it gets. My main purpose is to make as many diverse legion brawl it out in truly epic battles with considerable focus given to what weapons and tactics are being used by them as they fight for the Emperor or for the Lion. 

 

I will also be coming out with an alternative Sanguinary Heresy(or should I say another alternative Sanguinary Heresy), another alternative Guilliman's Heresy (or are some of you guys calling it Roboute's Rebellion?), an alternative of the much acclaimed and very well written Dornian Heresy and also a completely new heresy which I'm calling the Tyrants Crusade (the jury's still out on that one). Do check them out if you like what you read here. 

 

Also kindly note that I am finished with only about a third of the story so you're going to be disappointed to not hear the end adn I'm really sorry about that but I'm currently working and studying so I will have only a few hours everyday to add to the story. By the way, this story is dedicated to the members of Bolter and Chainsword who have made blogging about Warhammer 40K such a rewarding experience.  

 

So without further ado let me begin with the Leonic Heresy;

 

 

1. The Crusade Begins:

 

The Great Crusade carves out the dominion of Mankind through the conquering might of its martial forces. Chief among them were the Legiones Astartes and these thousands strong contingent of warriors were impossible to defeat and glorious to behold. Mankind’s mortal and mechanicum foot-soldiers were led by hundreds of these most august warriors. But as the Crusade dragged on the Imperium had need of more and more gene seed to replace battlefield losses and stable genetic stock for recruits. If the source of the genetic material used to create the Astartes wasn't found and soon then the Imperium would find the ranks of the most powerful martial force in the galaxy slowly and steadily declining. Alternate gene-seed cultivation led to horrible mutation with one in a hundred surviving to become warriors of the legions.

 

Salvation for the legions came in the form of the Primarchs. Long thought to be lost by the Emperor, the Primarchs had each carved out a stellar realms across many hundreds of star systems. Each had become the masters of their worlds in less than a decade. Worlds such as Cthonia, Chogoris, Caliban, Chemos and Colchis became capital worlds of stellar empires that spanned many hundreds of star systems and included several thousand worlds. Some like the brutal regime of Perturabo’s Olympian Hegemony and the utopian realm of Roboute Guilliman’s Ultramar Empire were rivals from many years, both having fought against one another and not realizing that their liege lords were brothers. Others like Corax’s Raven Guard and Jaghatai Khan’s White Scars were mercenaries and swords for hire, carving pocket empires using puppet rulers and ineffective governments to do their bidding. With the reunification of the Primarchs came the rebuilding of the Legions. The Lunar Wolves, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Imperial Fists and Ultramarines were soon at the forefront of the Crusade swelled with hundreds of thousands of recruits from the martial populations of their Primarch’s Homeworlds. These legions quickly surpassed the 100,000 mark and began to prosecute multiple sector spanning campaigns, leading hundreds of expeditionary fleets and manning dozens of star cluster conquest fleets.

 

2. The Corruption takes root:

 

When Primarch from the glorious legions were being lauded the victories of the Primarchs of the Line Legions went unsung. This led to bitterness and jealously between the once inviolate Council of Primarchs which led to a sharp division created in the war Council which now saw the most glorious campaigns awarded to the Chosen Legion of the Emperor while the Line Legion went about their bloody work or conquering world after world through blood and bitterness.

 

Lorgar found an answer for these bitter legions. Lorgar sought out the gods of old Colchisian lore and opened the eyes of his legion to the glory that could be attained from worshiping real gods who craved worship instead of a god tyrant who craved nothing but blood and conquests. When the Olympian, Nostraman and Nucerian empires threw the yoke of oppression from the Imperium of Mankind, the legionnaires of the hundreds of thousand strong Chosen Legions boasted that they would be the one who would put the Legion Traitor and their Homeworlds to the sword.  

 

The Emperor had decreed that the Adeptus Astra Telepathica would monitor all mortal psykers while the Legion Librarius, founded by the Thousand Son’s Primarch Magnus the Red, would monitor those battle-brothers with psychic abilities. The Thousand Sons had thus maintained a strong presence around Terra and their Homeworld of Prospero, which had become the Centre for Learning in the Imperium. Hundreds of thousands of psykers, both mortal and immortal learnt the discipline and control necessary to practice warpcraft.

 

The Ultramarines were tasked with rooting out and destroying the Traitors and Roboute Guilliman and his commanders were given command of the fleets and armies necessary to crush the massive Traitor Legions and their individual empires. The fact that the Iron Warriors, Night Lords and World Eaters had rebelled in quick secession did not seem to concern the Ultramarines much. Guilliman divided his legion into three separate Legion strong formations containing hundreds of warships. These three fleets would each launch a massive invasion of the worlds of Olympia, Nostramo and Nuceria. Once the colony worlds, factory worlds and farm worlds were taken out the Legions would blockade the core worlds and the Homeworlds in quick secession and besiege the each planet until it was pounded down to destruction. Three of the largest Titan Legions would act in support of the Ultramarines, the Legio Oberon which possessed no less than a dozen Emperor Class Titans, the Legio Venator which possessed a massive force of Heavy Reaver class, Night Gaunt and nemesis class titans and finally the Legio Lysandar which contained only Reaver class support titans led by the mobile support weapons platforms that were the Warmonger Class Titans.

 

The Olympian Front was given to Rogal Dorn and his Imperial Fists, a 150,000 strong legion divided into  five separate Retribution Fleets. The Nostraman Front was given to the Lion and his 180 Chapters each at a standard strength of a 1000 Legionnaires. And the Nucerian Front was given to Russ  his Wolves, 12 Great Companies having close to 10,000 legionnaires of the Vlyka Fenryka. The three fleets managed to capture the colony worlds, factory worlds, farm worlds and forge worlds but could not continue due to heavy resistance from garrison elements as well as multiple fleet actions that cost the Ultramarines.

 

3. The Hammer Falls:

 

The Three Traitor Legions however chose to make a stand at the heavily populated Istvaan System. The principle elements, senior commanders and Primarchs of the Iron Warriors, World Eaters and the Night Lords assembled over the third worlds of the system. As soon as Guilliman found out about this he ordered Dorn, the Lion and Russ to rendezvous with his fleet at the Istvaan III from where the massive Ultramarine Fleets would engage their Traitor opposites and effect planetfall to liberate the population from their erstwhile kin.

 

However as soon as the Ultramarine fleets entered the Istvaan System the Traitor Fleets opened fire on the planet below. Continent killing cyclonic warheads and viral life eaters vied for position with more ancient graviton and vortex payloads but the end result was the same. Fifteen billion lives were extinguished in just a few moments. Even the Emperor, fighting across the galaxy against the deadly Megarachnid swarms felt their deaths. The entire warp reverberated with the horrific death of so many souls. Massive warp storms made navigation for the following second wave fleets impossible. Rogal Dorn led his Legion towards Graia and decided to wait out the storms while Russ continued on to Nuceria with the intention of destroying the World Eater’s Homeworld. The Lion however managed to rally with the Third Wave of legions made up of the Word Bearers, White Scars and Raven Guard. Long used to fighting in the Line Legions these Legions were meant to mop up after the Ultramarines, Imperial Fists and Dark Angels were had decimated the Traitors. Guilliman was glad to know that the Lion and a fresh Third wave would be joining their strength with his legion, with them victory over the Traitors seemed assured.

 

The Ultramarine Fleets clashed with the Traitor Fleets and quickly found them to be brutal, ruthless and extremely efficient at void warfare. Guilliman quickly changed his tactics from fighting head on to dividing his fleet into several hundred smaller battlegroups, each fighting in breathtaking cohesion and discipline. Immediately Iron Warriors Ironclads and Grand Cruisers, Night Lords Fleet Carriers and Hunter Killer Wolfpacks and World Eater Gladiators and Battleships started dying under Ultramarine guns. The Spirit of Konor, one of the most powerful battleships in the Ultramarines arsenal cripples the Iron Gauntlet while the Aegis of Occluda launches wave after wave of assault craft that cripple dozens then scores of Night Lord Hunter Killers, Destroyers and Light Cruisers. With the Ultramarines maintaining a four to one kill tally the traitor fleets would definitely be vanquished, albeit at a monstrous cost.

 

When the fleets of the Dark Angels, Word Bearers, Raven Guard and White Scars finally breached into realspace the Traitor Fleets disengaged from the void battle and were sent scurrying into retreat. But the Ultramarines Fleet had also been badly mauled; ships were burning in the void while others were left as crippled husks, most had severe hull breaches and were running on depleted munitions stores.

 

The Ultramarines still made planetfall on the fifth planet where the traitor had dug in, after a massive and near continuous orbital bombardment from their remaining battle ready warships. Thousands of drop pods landed onto the trench works and fortress bastions and attacked the Iron Warriors and World eaters manning them. Majestic Stormbirds, Storm Eagles and Thunderhawks, fresh from the void conflict, entered the atmosphere to disgorge squad after squad of Ultramarines onto the surface. Super Heavy Tank Battalions emerged from massive landers to support the drop-pod and dropship infantry while gargantuan Titan landers disgorged Legio Oberon onto the surface of planet.

 

4. Decimation:

 

The Ultramarines were trapped, thousands of their number had perished fighting the entrenched Iron Warriors, Night Lords and World Eaters and the remainder had erected trench works and fortification around their beleaguered dropsite. Even Dorn and his Siege Captains would have approved of the makeshift as were ingenuous nature of the Ultramarian defenses. Castellan and Testudo pattern Rhino APC's made up the makeshift fortresses while the hull section of downed drop pods and dropships made effective covers behind which tracked tarantula and rapier heavy weapons platforms had taken position to pound the incoming waves of enemy infantry swarming around the Ultramarine fortresses.

 

Guilliman himself had ensconced himself in his personal command centre, a super heavy Stormhammer tank and used his own physical and martial prowess to counter attack where the enemy made significant breaches but even from his command uplink the situation was looking extremely bleak. Over a hundred thousand warriors were dead either in the gutted husks of warships or dead on the black sands. The Iron Warriors had brought in their Super Heavy Battalions which had killed over a dozen Titans of Legio Venator before they were destroyed by the Corinthian, the massive Imperator class Command Titan of Legio Oberon.

 

Hundreds of Ultramarine warship had been destroyed in the initial phases of the void war over Istvaan V and hundreds had been left crippled. Thousands of mortal serf, thralls and legion helots serving on the Ultramarine warships had perished and many warships were running on overheating reactors and empty munitions decks. The arrival of the Third Wave had elicited a cheer from hundreds of thousands of Human and Transhuman throats but that had passed into shock then righteous hatred when the Battleships and Grand Cruisers of the Word Bearers had been the first to open volley after volley of torpedoes and incandescent lance fire alongside waves of attack craft, especially the Legion based Stormbirds, Storm Eagles, Storm Crows and the much newer Thunderhawks.

 

The Incursus class Battleships and the Warlord class Titans had prevented the Ultramarines from being massacred but that advantage had only given them so much time. Faced off against the combined might of seven legion fleets in the void and close to a million astartes on the surface there stood little chance of victory. The Ultramarines were only prolonging the inevitable and taking as many traitors with them as they could.

 

Their salvation came in the form of the Iron Hands fleet which had pushed their navigator harder than any other to arrive at Istvaan and defeat the Traitors there. Seeing that there would be no way to take on seven legion fleets their Primarch Ferrus Manus decided to lead his heaviest warships, the Mettallus class Battle Barges and the Ferrum pattern Heavy Cruisers directly into the battlesphere making sure that the firepower aimed at the crippled and surrounded Ultramarine fleets would be redirected at them instead. The Iron Fist launched all its boarding torpedoes at the warships of the raven Guard and the White Scars, committing them to a fight they were the least suited to tackle.

 

As the Ultramarines managed to reorganize and rally around their defensive bastions the traitors renewed the offensive driving into the breaches made by previous waves and killing with a renewed frenzy. The Traitor Primarchs and their honor guard came into effect and smashed into  Rhino forts and Prometheus pattern drop bunkers while thousands of Legion tank engaged assault infantry, Tactical Dreadnought Armour wearing terminator squads, which torn the tanks apart or were themselves torn apart by repeated volleys. It seemed that the side with the greatest tanks or most assault terminator infantry would win.

 

The Morlocks wearing Gorgon pattern Terminator plate gutted Raven Guard and White Scar cruisers and battlecruiser, the two legions favoring only those warships that suited their guerrilla tactics. While the rest of the Iron Hands descended on the Iron Warriors, World Eaters, Word Bearers and Night Lords. This distraction gave the battered Ultramarines the opportunity to make evac runs from what remained of their mangled stormbird and thunderhawk fleet. Rising through clouds filled with anti-air flak and missiles thousands of wounded Ultramarines returned to their crippled carrier ships and ran the gauntlet of fire to the nearest jump point. Both fleets lost their heaviest warships covering the beleaguered and overloaded carrier ships but their sacrifice saved tens of thousands of Ultramarines. Gabriel Santar of the Morlocks died battling the White Scars about the Swordstorm while Bian Henricos and most of his breachers squads, the famed Ferrites, were slain by to the Raven Guard.

 

All the Titans accompanying the Ultramarines were destroyed covering the retreat along with close to two-thirds of the immense Ultramarine legion. The loss of such a large strength of one of the Chosen Legions sent ripples throughout the Imperium of Man bit worse was to come.

 

5. The Burning of Graia:

 

Graia was an important world for the greater duration of the Great Crusade and the served as the supply base for a great many of the Imperium’s foremost Expeditionary Fleets. The fourth world was a verdant paradise which had been repurposed as an agri-world producing hundreds of millions of tons of foodstuff for the Imperial Army and the sailor and armsmen of the Expeditionary Fleets. The Third world was a veritable Stronghold, garrisoned by the Imperial Fists and containing enough firepower to destroy several battlefleets if threatened.

 

The Imperial Fists maintained their battlefleets in a constant state of readiness, over a hundred thousand legionnaires practicing the arts of boarding enemy warships held by enemy astartes. It was a situation that would have been unheard of merely months ago but the Fists took to their assigned task with their trademark adherence to duty.

 

The first sign of the attack was a massive armada of ships bursting forth form the systems Mandeville point. Fists dozen then hundreds and finally thousands of craft emerged from the empyrean. The command hololith on the Phalanx lit up with hundreds of conflicting readings making an estimate on the enemy's exact strength impossible. Unbeknownst to them, Word Bearer psychic baffles and Night Lord shrieks were confusing the loyalist auguries.This vast armada of ships was initially assumed to be hostile and the Battlegroups of Iago, Cazzimus, Pertinax and Tyr closed in on attack vector to engage the traitors.

 

When the four battlegroups, each containing two dozen warships, closed on the armada did they realize it was not really an armada of traitor warships, they were made up of old system defense ships and planetary defense picket cruisers and monitors, alongside these were hundreds of cobbled up scrap-battleships which possessed the displacement and mass of a true battleships only one which possessed neither any weapons of note nor any significant void shield nor any drives that would be found on  vessel of that tonnage. The commanders of the battlegroups relayed this new data to the Phalanx and expected orders to engage the 'paper' fleet regardless when the vessels began to broadcast on all frequencies.

 

The armada contained ships filled with the despairing, starved and tortured populations of hundreds upon hundreds of worlds which had fallen under the gaze of the voidships of the traitor fleets. From prisoners of war to slaves to entire planetary populations, none had been spared by the traitors fleets.

 

Listening to the plaintive cry of these despairing souls the human and indeed some Transhuman aboard the Imperial Fists fleet flinched in the order to wipe out this paper fleet, it was to be their first and last act of mercy. Elements among the armada had identified the Imperial Fists and their positions, readiness and trajectories. These were beamed into the warp through the use of stunted mutant psykers which were hardwired into cogiator consoles and auspex readers and optic relays. The very next moment hundreds of salvage tugs burst forth from the warp on insidiously precise vector dragging giant asteroids in their wakes.

 

These were on a direct course for the three immeasurably vital worlds in the inner system. The tugs were hit by the battlegroups and wiped out in scant seconds but the asteroid proved to be another matter altogether. As the fleets altered course to engage the thousands of rocks, most the size of mega hives, others the size of small moons, the left their preplanned battlegroups and tactical trajectories.

 

The warp burst forth once more and hundreds of battle ready legion warships speared into the heart of the Imperial Fist fleets. The vanguard of the traitors was made up of the Furious Abyss, the Blood of Olympia and the Seraphim. These three ships were each studded with a vast mountain range of gun turrets and weapon systems, from long range torpedo bays to unpredictable nova canons and lance arrays to bombardment cannons.

 

The Seraphim form the tip of the Trident, containing a full chapter of the Lions chosen elite. The Blood of Olympia was led by the ruthless Warsmith Harkor, containing nothing but slave stock gunner deck after deck overseen by cruel and vicious Iron Warrior overseers. The Furious Abyss was made in the shape of an elongated trident upon whose back was a cathedral render in eye aching gold, the burning book of Lorgar fashioned upon its armored prow.

 

Three traitor fleets, each one fresh from the decimation of the Ultramarines followed their respective kingships and began to set their guns upon the Imperial Fists scattering about them. The Fist knew the trap that had been sprung on them and many Fleet Captains changed their attack runs to engage the kingship and the traitor fleets following them but they managed to get off only a few volleys before they were hit by the combined might of three super dreadnoughts and wiped out.

 

The four battlegroups however took time to die; they allowed their heaviest ships to trade volleys while the more nimble and much more maneuverable heavy destroyers, torpedo frigates and missile cruisers made flanking attack runs.The kingships simply reduced any ships that came under its guns, turning them into fire blackened husks within moments. The rest of the Imperial Fist fleets chose to concentrate their defense around their command fortress, the Phalanx.  

 

Hundreds of incandescent beams of energy lashed out and disintegrated the asteroids on burn vectors towards the inner planets and thousands of Atlas Ships killer sped forth from the missile silos on all three Principal planets of the system. Yet the asteroids were made out of deposits of adamantium ore and proved impossible to destroy completely. Those that were hit were barely deterred from their path as they were burning in on their assigned vector using massive macro thruster jets. The Fists had no choice but to send ships to destroy or deviate the asteroids from their assigned vectors. Hundreds of heavy Castellan and Crusader pattern Battleships sallied forth to meet the asteroid and in doing so left the protection of the tightly woven sphere that the Imperial Fists fleet formations had fallen into.

 

The Iron Warriors did not care, they burned into the heart of the Fists fleets with a ruthlessness born out of being passed over for glories and honor due them over and over again. The Blood of Olympia killed ships like the legend of ancient Terran sea leviathans, gorging itself on the carcasses of ships and sailors alike. Rogal Dorn knew he had to kill the Kingship and kill it fast. That task was given to the Tribune and her sister ships alongside fifty ships spearing straight for the brutal slab side monster.

 

Gun turrets and plasma lances bristling, the Blood of Olympia killed half a dozen ships before the battlegroup can even get off a single volley but their task is not to wound the monster, that task is left to the 500 Terminator Clad Templars led by a Champion without equal in an age of PostHuman gods, the Black Knight Sigismund, bearing his righteous longsword Justice.

 

Carried in the bellies of the Hammer of Terra, the Tribune and the Halcyon the three Castellans possessed some of the toughest hull plating, the most powerful void shields and an armored prow of solid adamantium.

 

As the battlegroup started shedding protective escorts and warships, the gunnery master on the Blood of Olympia saw what the Fists were planning and whipped their gunnery slaves into a frenzy of reloading and firing but it would be too late. The three ships slammed into the back of the colossus and dug deep. Within moments the Black Knight led his Templars out into the belly of the leviathan and began gutting its gargantuan munitions and gunnery decks. Thousands of traitor Iron Warriors met the Templars but none could stand in the way of Dorn's strongest son. With a grace born out of endless sparring with the Champions of every other Legion he was undoubtedly the most lethal warrior ever to bear the Astartes blood.

 

The Blood of Olympia began to stammer in its near continuous fire cycle. First dozens then scores, then hundreds of its active gun torrent went silent. Chains of internal explosion could be seen by the Imperial Fist warship making daring attack runs. The rest of the Iron Warriors fleets did not even stop to consider the plight of their stricken king ship. It was only when the Phalanx came to bear its fleet killing potential to bear upon the Iron Warriors bearing down upon it.

 

The lead ship, the Ironclad Tyrant of Lochos got off one shot from its primary spinal mount before it was reduced to burning debris and gutted husks.

The vanguard ships were targeted one after the other and in close succession destroyed, the Imperial Fist Commanders clanged their gauntlets to their breastplates and cheered as their command fortress routed the traitor fleet.

 

The Iron Warriors were far from finished, the armada that had made its way into the system now made a hard burn for the Fists. Each one of these ships was a hell burner, packed with explosive fuels and deadly and unsanctioned munitions alongside unstable drives and reactors not to mention the thousands of slaves chained to their hulls. Many of those crucified upon the hulls of these vessels were Ultramarines and Iron Hands from the black sands of Istvaan V or from the gutted interiors of warships orbiting that benighted world.

 

The Iron Warriors fleets were in full retreat but even in retreat they kept the attention of the Loyalist upon themselves.The Dark Angels and Word Bearers went straight for the third and four worlds and released their deadly payload of atmospheric incendiaries and magma bombs. After burning all the major population centers and reducing the manufacturing potential of the entire system to nothing the traitors blackened the skies with drop pods to dig out the Imperial Fists and their lapdogs, regiments of the Imperial Army. Titans of the Legio Gladius and Legio Invigilata were also planetside and opposed the invasion but there were quickly forced to take shelter in the burning urban hab towers to prevent being targeted by orbital support fire.

 

The Imperial Fist could only watch in anger and anguish as the Word Bearers and Dark Angels systematically destroyed and breached every last know loyalist stronghold with overwhelming firepower and brutal force. With no option but a vainglorious last stand Rogal Dorn ordered the retreat of his fleets along with the extraction of any loyalist elements on the surface and the retreat of the Imperial Fists fleet from the system. The Fleets of the Imperial Fists were hammered repeatedly by the Dark Angels and Word Bearers as well as the battered Iron Warriors Fleets.

[Tanner151]

Interesting will follow. I've been reading Warhammer40k/Horus Heresy for years and never thought of alternate versions of that timeline until I read the Dornian Heresy and now I'm very interested in them. So I will follow this and your other timelines a swell when they are written. So good luck