IA - Angels Infernal (WIP)

[OPTIMVSCHRISTVS]

THE ANGELS INFERNAL

GENE-SEED (PREDECESSOR): Blood Angels (Flesh Tearers)
FOUNDING:25th
CHAPTER MASTER: Lord Commander Semalion Tarquinius
CHAPTER WORLD: Baal Nova (Destroyed)
FORTRESS MONASTERY: Space Hulk Emperor's Mercy
MAIN COLOURS: Bare Ceramite, Red Trim
SPECIALITY: Drop Pod Assault, Jump Infantry, Kill-Team Operations
BATTLE CRY: "Blood for Sanguinius!"
CURRENT STRENGTH: 261 Battle Brothers (non-Death Company)
KNOWN DESCENDANTS: None

LOYALTY: Excommunicate Traitoris

ORIGINS/HISTORY

Late M40:

25th Founding. The chapter is created from what was rumored to be Flesh Tearers geneseed. The training cadre was comprised of members of a number of Blood Angels successors who went on to serve as the chapter's command structure. At its outset, it is a codex-compliant chapter with the standard 10 companies. However, like most Blood Angels successors, it also had a Sanguinary Guard detachment and a Death Company was ultimately created as well.

Upon its creation, the chapter was oath-sworn to reclaim the <name> Worlds on the Eastern Fringe for the Imperium, which had fallen several millennia earlier. In return for their success in the coming crusade, the chapter would have its choice of a world to serve as its fortress-monastery and recruiting rights amongst any inhabited world they liberate. Along with a dozen regiments of the Imperial Guard and an Imperial Navy fleet, the chapter, now fleet-based, spearheads the invasion.

Late M40-Early M41:

Over the course of 300 years, the <name> Worlds are reclaimed planet-by-planet by the Crusade. The Imperials encountered everything from systems overrun by petty xenos empires to human worlds in the thrall of the Ruinous Powers; even more worryingly, they found instances of humans peacefully coexisting alongside xenos! It became apparent early on in the crusade that any vestige of Imperial civilization had long died out this part of the galaxy, and that it would have to be completely depopulated and colonized anew. Thus, the chapter's earliest actions were the wholesale extermination of dozens of fledgling civilizations. The few worlds that were spared their wrath were death worlds that had remained utterly and unquestionably untainted by the Alien or the Heretic. These became the chapter's recruiting ground over the course of the Crusade, replenishing their ranks with the hardiest natives of the <name> Worlds.

Early M41:

The <worlds> Crusade comes to a close. The Chapter Master, Lord Commander <name>, lays claim to a world which he christens Baal Nova as the chapter's new home and sets about constructing a new Fortress-Monastery. Though the crusade has ended, the chapter finds themselves the de facto wardens of this newly reclaimed corner of the Imperium. The constant predations of xenos marauders and the occasional uprising on a human world are an ever-present threat that keeps the chapter keen and blooded over the coming centuries. The greatest threat in the area is the Jaws of Oblivion, a warp rift through which the forces of Chaos and their Daemon allies sally forth to raid and slaughter. Progress by the Administratum and Ecclesiarchy in establishing firm Imperial rule is slow but steady, with the <system> System emerging as the capital. Though most of the chapter's strength remains concentrated in the <worlds>, several companies are rotated out to aid in campaigns throughout the galaxy.

Mid M41:

A massive Ork Waaagh! descends upon the <worlds>, and the whole of the chapter's strength is recalled to defend against the xenos menace. It takes over a century to finally break the Greenskin horde; over the course of this campaign, dozens of populated worlds are devestated and over one third of the chapter is destroyed. Most notably the chapter's Lord Commander, High Chaplain, and High Librarian are slain in battle alongside the entire 1st Company in the <campaign> Campaign. New leadership is appointed, made up of Astartes who had been recruited during the original Crusade from the deathworlds of the <worlds> Worlds.

The new Lord Commander, Semalion Tarquinius, institutes radical changes in the chapter's organization: Rather than 10 companies, the chapter is reorganized into 3 Wargroups, each a combined arms force with its own Sanguinary Guard detachment, armored, mechanized, and air elements, and fleets. They are capable of acting independently in nearly all respects, from recruiting and training to the prosecution of campaigns both major and minor. Concurrently, the new High Chaplain, Balthial Nero, finds that an alarming number of the chapter's Marines have fallen to the Black Rage. He determines that the best way to make use of the situation is to keep those members of the Death Company in active service: rather than grant them the Emperor's Mercy at the conclusion of a battle, the Death Company are placed into cryogenic stasis until they are needed next.

The flexibility of the chapter's new organization is sorely needed, as countless enemies take advantage of the disorder caused by the Waaagh!'s devastation. Xenos raiders, both familiar and new, strike throughout the <worlds>, and the entire chapter finds itself on a constant war footing. To further complicate the situation, it is discovered that several Imperial Governors have treated with some of the xenos, opening dialogue and trade relations. Where this is discovered it is dealt with swiftly and brutally, but it is only a taste of things to come.

699.M41:

Inquisitor Albrecht Torstein of the Ordo Xenos uncovers disturbing details of a plot by the xeno-collaborationist Lord Governor of <world> to secede from the Imperium. His investigation reveals that Imperial society on this world has been penetrated on every level by xenos sympathizers, with Imperial citizens openly trading with blue-skinned humanoids. Torstein requests the intervention of the chapter to make an example of the world.

Sanguinala, 699.M41. Kill-teams infiltrate and disable the planet's orbital defenses and deactivate the void shields of every major hive. On the orders of Lord Commander Tarquinius and under Inquisitorial sanction, the chapter's entire Death Company, whose numbers have swelled into the hundreds, is unleashed. Nearly the entire population of the planet is massacred in the space of a week. Xenos collaboration by the Imperial populace throughout the <worlds> ends abruptly for the next century, though other threats remain.

751.M41

A tribe of xenos raiders is trapped and annihilated as they attempted to assail one of the chapter's recruiting worlds. Among the dead savages is discovered several blue-skinned aliens armed with shockingly advanced weapons and armor.

801.M41

The Tau Empire launches a full-scale invasion of the <worlds>. It soon becomes apparent that they have been orchestrating many of the xenos raids over the past centuries in order to weaken defenses and force the Imperium to spread its defenses thin. One of their opening actions is to launch a decapitation strike on the chapter's Fortress-Monastery, devastating the planet from orbit before mounting an invasion. After fierce fighting, the Monastery's undermanned defenses are overrun, and the Reclusiarch detonates the fortress's plasma reactor to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. Countless artifacts and relics are lost forever, as are much of the chapter's geneseed stores. However, the foresight of Lord Commander Tarquinius means that his Wargroups, which maintain their own small geneseed stores, can still replenish their ranks (albeit at a greatly diminished level).

The Tau invasion is overwhelming and precise, placing many of the <worlds> key systems under siege and overrunning many others entirely. The chapter finds itself fighting losing battles against an unfamiliar enemy at every turn. Casualties mount at a terrifying pace. <capital> falls to the enemy, along with over 100 battle brothers of the Angels Infernal after a 3-year siege.

823.M41

After years of fighting the xenos invaders, the chapter numbers just 300 sane battle brothers. The Death Company now outnumbers those still lucid. The Tau fleet begins to tighten the noose around the Wargroups, who themselves have sustained severe losses to their fleets. In desperation, Tarquinius musters what remains of the chaprter and makes for the Jaws of Oblivion.

Where the chapter previously avoided forays into the Jaws, they now find it to be the only area in the <worlds> safe from the xenos. Chaos forces, comprised mainly of degenerate cultists, are destroyed after fierce fighting, and the chapter makes a new home on a Space Hulk they dub the Emperor's Mercy.

A Tau expedition to destroy the troublesome Astartes remnants follows them into the Jaws and are never heard from again.

800s-Early 900s M41:

The <worlds> have fallen to the Tau Empire. In a matter of decades, Tau civilization thrives, with many humans embracing the Greater Good with open arms. Not all accept it, with a few remaining loyal to the God-Emperor and knowing one day that his Angels of Death would return. Xenos shipping is raided and more lightly defended worlds find themselves waylaid by power armored giants who slay human and blueskin indiscriminately. Attempts to force the Astartes remnants to pitched battle fail at every turn, and they slink back into the depths of the void whenever cornered or confronted with overwhelming force.

Tarquinius, realizing that the Imperium has written off this corner of the galaxy as lost for the time being, wages a brutal campaign of space-borne guerilla warfare. The chapter slowly rebuilds its strength over this period, capturing xenos and human vessels for its fleet and creating new Marines. Armories, some dating back to the Horus Heresy and thought lost, are raided and plundered, adding to the chapter's diminished stores of weapons and ammunition.

923.M41

One hundred years after the chapter fled to the Jaws of Oblivion, the Angels Infernal ready to avenge their slain Battle-Brothers and bring the Emperor's Justice to any who dared accept the heretical Greater Good. A Tau merchant convoy limps into the <capital> system, bearing evidence of battle damage. They make for the shipyards, indicating to the local defense fleets that they are in need of emergency repairs. It becomes apparent that something is awry as the ships fail to slow themselves as they prepare to make orbit; the orbital defenses, facing an unexpected malfunction, are unable to engage enough of them before they enter the planet's atmosphere and plunge into the hives below. As the ships fall towards their own targets, consisting of enemy barracks and command and control centers, they disgorge hordes of jump pack equipped Death Company Marines. With all eyes on the planet, the Angels Infernal fleet translates in system and engages the distracted planetary defense fleet and orbital defense platforms. Overwhelmed by the sudden appearance of an Imperial fleet, the token defense fleet and orbital platforms are wiped out, paving the way for follow-up forces. Tau ground troops and their more numerous human auxiliaries find themselves preoccupied fighting street to street with blood-crazed monsters as the chapter's saner Battle-Brothers make planetfall.

A relief fleet arrives a week later to find a smoldering tomb where once there was a thriving Sept World. The attackers had long since vanished, though their identity was far from a mystery. Upon the walls of the planet's council chambers, scrawled in the blood of the world's presiding Ethereal were the words 'BLOOD FOR SANGUINIUS'.

Mid 900s M41:

The chapter's honor at least partially avenged, open fighting commenced throughout the <worlds>. Knowing that attempting to take and hold enemy worlds would be folly, world after world was devastated and left to burn in the wake of the new <worlds> Crusade. The Tau found themselves in a similar position to the Astartes 100 years earlier in that their kindred had decided this particular corner of the galaxy was not particularly worth reinforcing, and thus they were slowly bled by vicious lightning raids against key worlds. Slowly, they retreated to a few heavily defended worlds, leaving the rest to rot.

961.M41:

The High Lords of Terra order a new crusade to reclaim the <worlds>. Several dozen Imperial Guard regiments and a Space Marine Chapter are dispatched, only to find many of the worlds they were to liberate had already been cleansed. Contact was finally reestablished between the Angels Infernal and the Imperium, and the combined forces proceeded to reconquer those worlds that remained in enemy hands, albeit at great loss.

Those fighting alongside the Angels Infernal saw that little if any of the nobility of mighty Sanguinius remained in these wayward sons. Having been cut off from resupply for over a century, the chapter's armory had devolved to a hodge-podge of looted equipment: the chapter's artificers freely mix together pieces of different marks of power armor to keep Battle-Brothers properly equipped, and many patterns of arms found themselves in the service of the chapter. Though this was to be expected, given the circumstances, a disturbing tendency of the Angels Infernal to gorge themselves on the blood of their dying enemies on victory had revealed itself to the Crusade at large.

970.M41

The Inquisition investigates the chapter for taint. The Ordo Astartes determines that the time spent in the Jaws of Oblivion had mutated their geneseed beyond acceptable limits, though the effects of these mutations remain unknown. This, along with evidence of other heresies both minor and major, leads the Ordo Hereticus to demand the chapter to submit themselves for judgment. Enraged at this insult to the honor of his chapter, Lord Commander Tarquinius refuses the summons of the Inquisition, who subsequently sent a fleet to track the renegades and bring them in by force.

973.M41

An Imperial fleet arrives at the <anomaly>, chasing one of the stragglers of the Angels Infernal fleet. Their relentless pursuit carries them into the heart of the <anomaly>. What happened next is unclear, though the Inquisitorial fleet never did emerge. For their refusal to submit themselves for judgment and the apparent massacre of an Imperial force, the High Lords of Terra declare the Angels Infernal Excommunicate Traitoris.

RECENT & CURRENT OPERATIONS

Although declared Excommunicate Traitoris by the High Lords, the Angels Infernal continue to focus on the defense of the worlds of Man against xenos incursion. Though they try to avoid engaging Imperial forces directly, they have, on more than one occasion, spilled the blood of their former comrades, and have made a habit of looting the wargear of slain enemy Space Marines to replenish the Chapter's dwindling armory.

A task force of Dark Angels, comprised of both members of the Deathwing and Ravenwing, recently attempted to track down and destroy an Angels Infernal task force, who were in turn engaged in an operation to hunt down and eliminate an Eldar Farseer. Under the command of Sanguinary High Priest Commodus, the Dark Angels were baited into an ambush and subsequently caught in a vicious crossfire by dug-in armored vehicles and Tactical Marines, pinning them in place long enough for the Death Company to sweep in and decimate the majority of the attackers. Minimal losses were sustained, and a significant bounty of wargear was stripped from the enemy dead, including precious suits of Terminator plate from the slain Deathwing Knights.

Following this engagement, the task force located their main target, the Farseer, tracking her to a ruined city. The enemy was waiting for them however; in the ensuing battle, Commodus was torn limb from limb and dragged into the warp by a Wraithlord's D-Scythe. However, the Farseer herself was caught by the Death Company, who slaughtered her and her bodyguard, taking their heads and their precious soulstones as trophies. Ultimately, the battle ended in a stalemate, with both sides sustaining heavy losses; the majority of wargear and geneseed of the fallen was recovered, though that of Commodus and his Sanguinary Guard was lost to the warp.

The chapter currently fields the bulk of its forces in a campaign on Oblivion Secundus in the <worlds> Worlds, where it finds itself trapped by a warpstorm along with a number of other armies. Brought there by rumors of a long-forgotten geneseed vault which is believed to house significant Blood Angels and successor geneseed samples, victory here may very well allow the chapter to rebound from the brink of extinction, and begin to replenish its numbers. (ongoing campaign at FLGS)

FORTRESS MONESTARY

Following the destruction of Baal Nova at the hands of the Tau Empire, the Chapter laid claim to the space hulk Emperor's Mercy. After purging the hulk of Chaos forces, the Chapter's Techmarines set about reconsecrating the corrupted systems and awakening those that had laid dormant for millennia. The Chapter is now able to exert a certain amount of influence over the hulk's movements, which now greatly aids in its ability to avoid detection by Imperial forces. One of the major modifications made to the Emperor's Mercy by the Techmarines was the construction of Cryo-Crypts: vast halls of cryogenic stasis pods in which the Chapter's Death Company is interred until needed for battle. The Chapter's Battle Brothers occupy just a small portion of the hulk, comprised mainly of ancient Imperial and Mechanicus vessels. In those areas not in active use by the chapter, a thriving society of humans has emerged, inhabited by prisoners taken by the Chapter in its raids. This society is comprised of primitive voidborn tribes, who frequently engage in bloody warfare among themselves through the passages of the hulk for control over limited resources. It is thought that these voidborn now number in the millions, serving as both a hunting ground for bloodthirsty Astartes as well as a fertile recruiting pool for the chapter.

ORGANIZATION

Having been heavily reduced in number after a millenium of constant fighting whilst being cut off from the rest of the Imperium, chapter strength is estimated at just a few hundred active battle brothers. However, this does not account for the rather large Death Company that has been accumulated within the Cryo-Crypts of the Emperor's Mercy, which are estimated to outnumber the chapter's active battle brothers by at least 2 to 1. The chapter fields a single combined arms battle company; however, a significant number of Battle Brothers operate away from the Fortress Monastery as autonomous kill-teams, executing various objectives handed down by the Chapter's command echelon and acting as a reconnaissance force capable of preparing a target prior to an assault by larger combat elements of the chapter.

BELIEFS

<IN PROGRESS>

FLEET

Of the Chapter's original fleet, there remains a pair of Strike Cruisers and 5 various escort vessels. These typically remain moored at the Emperor's Mercy when not engaged in offensive or patrol operations. However, after centuries of raiding, the Chapter has been able to accumulate a not-insignificant number of captured vessels which it has modified for combat operations. Depending on the vessel class, these serve roles ranging from transporting Kill-Teams to serving as frontline combatants alongside the Chapter's core fleet.

GENESEED

The Chapter suffers the same Twin Curses that afflict the majority of the Sons of Sanguinius, although like their rumored sires, the Flesh Tearers, it seems to do so at an elevated rate. The Ordo Astartes determined that time spent in the Warp has mutated the geneseed to an unacceptable extent, although the consequences of these mutations have yet to be determined. Like many other Blood Angels successors, geneseed implantation involves a good deal of time spent in a sarcophagus. Upon initial emergence, an Angel Infernal takes upon the same comely visage the geneseed is known for. However, Battle Brothers of the Angels Infernal have unusually pale skin and permanently bloodshot red eyes, as well as a predominance of dark hair. Perhaps most unusual, one can track the progress of an Angel Infernal towards his fall to the Black Rage by his appearance as well as his behavior: the further he descends down that dark path, the more increasingly bestial his appearance becomes. Fang size is perhaps the best indicator in how far gone a Battle Brother is.

[OPTIMVSCHRISTVS]

Added a bunch of stuff to the original post...

[Olis]

Will look at some time over the next day or two, brother. Atm, I'm a little bit swamped. ^_^

[OPTIMVSCHRISTVS]

Much obliged

[OPTIMVSCHRISTVS]

Bunch of minor changes...going to work on the chapter's beliefs next.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Looks good thus far, but considering their Chapter symbol, I must ask: Will the Angels Infernal turn to Chaos? It's pitifully easy for Renegade Space Marines to think, "I'm doing what is necessary to save the human race from xeno threats!" as they use Chaos-tainted weapons, their corruption worsening until they outright become Chaos Space Marines.

[OPTIMVSCHRISTVS]

When I first envisioned the chapter I had intended for them to turn to Chaos outright...now I'm not so sure about that. I might alter the symbol slightly to avoid confusion (just a matter of adding another spoke to the star- might even change it to reference their flesh tearers heritage)