Black Book - The Eastern Expansion Campaigns

[MikhalLeNoir]

Yeah right, your points are valid ones.. But i was in love with the prospect of bith enemy brothers fighting back to back. That is something which has never occured in canon.

[Sigismund229]

Technically, it became non-canon when we lost Jackel and Azus wasn't supposed to be there. That said, it could easily be reworked and expanded upon. The emphasis should be on character interaction. Imagine it, Alexandros, the incurable optimist, still believes it's possible to end the civil war if he can win Icarion over. Meanwhile, Icarion believes he's seen incontrovertible evidence that the Emperor will be his and his legion's doom.

 

Then, look at who's accompanying them. On either side of Alex are two of his brothers who are there simply to fill out the delegation party and protect Alex. Neither Niklaas or Yucahu are anywhere near as optimistic as Alex is. Then, between them, Yucahu is all cold and business, while Niklaas is nursing a fiery anger at what's been done by the Traitors.

 

On Icarion's side, his delegation party is composed of two, scandal-ridden Primarchs. Kozja and his Prosecution, while Travier and his harsh transition into the Imperium. It is by circumstance that Icarion has to take these two to negotiations even when the optics make him look extra guilty from association. 

 

That's several different axes a writer could explore from this small event alone. 

True. I originally started it to explore the unexplored idea of negotiations between loyalists and insurrectionists during the Insurrection and how, in spite of all that has happened, they(Alex and Icarion in particular) are still brothers and can't completely damn each other for choosing what is, from their respective perspectives, the wrong side. It then kinda tailed off as I was writing it though. 

 

Now, does anyone remember where I posted it?

[Big Bad Squig]

I feel it's a little too blunt an instrument. I'd rather have them negotiate and walk away.

Also, what's keeping the Emperor on the Golden Throne if the Webway isn't under attack?

Might be best not to use the seas around the Middle East, so you have some differences between the early XIV and the Serpents. Ursh, the Pan-Pacific Empire (which likely rules Chile) and the Emperor's early domain (hence it's the birthplace of Ahriman) carve up most of that space anyway, so I'd suggest the very north or south of the Pacific, or some part of the Atlantic that won't be occupied by Marianna (which the XIX will draw the bulk of its strength from).

The Southern Pacific would give them plenty of reason to live as nomads, scratching an existence between the Antarctic fortresses of Orioc and Narthan Dume's empire.

Pending Squig's formal approval, they arise from the Shakletian Desert of the old Pacific

Yeah, Squig's approval given.

[bluntblade]

Whoop. Do you have ideas for how the pre-Azus legion will operate?

[Big Bad Squig]

Not any particularly well developed ones, but I had thought they'd definitely be recognisable as the same legion as after Azus' discovery (so same emphasis on engaging enemies at range, and lack of inhibitions around particularly nasty weaponry, although maybe not as much as post Azus). They'd be more mobile than stealth focused given their recruiting ground, but the whole element-of-surprise thing would probably stay, so maybe they could embody the hit and run aspect of later Dune Serpents tactics.

[bluntblade]

Perhaps light, fast tanks and heavy use of atmospheric aircraft? So they just don't stop moving and leave themselves exposed.

[Big Bad Squig]

Yeah, that sounds good to me.

[Sigismund229]

 

 

Unrelated to Insurgos but something I thought we could include in this book. Perhaps an ork Waaagh attacks human space and Icarion diverts forces to fight, using the waaagh as an unplanned opportunity for a bit of PR building?

Eh, I don't like it. Breaks the theme of civil war by abruptly focusing on an external threat.

sim, I was thinking a red box like this:

 

As the Insurrection vegan to spread like wildfire across the galaxy, the Imperium began to strip away the defences of its border worlds and throw the troops who had been garrissoning them into the desperate fighting against the advancing Insurrectionists. The result was a dramatic weakening of the Imperium's defences, leaving a gaping void of power the likes of which had not been seen since the Age of Strife, as Imperial worlds were abandoned to fend for themselves as the fighting in the Imperium's core intensified. It did not take long before xenos began to exploit this power vaccum and launching attacks on the Imperium's fringes. Where before these threats would have been annihilated by the legions before they even stood a chance of succesfully assaulting an Imperial world, they now went unchecked and unchallenged, attacking Imperial worlds at will. Where before they hid from the Imperium like rats, they now began to gnaw on its outermost branches.

 

One of the largest of this renewed wave of xenos assaults to plague mankind's dominions was Waaagh! Bloodstompa. It emerged from one of the last remaining ork realms in the galaxy, the ork "empire" of Ghunda. At the outbreak of the Insurrection, this "empire" had been under assault by the Predators before the larger threat of the Insurrection forced their withdrawal. Within 4 years of their withdrawal, the warring ork tribes of Ghunda had been united by Warboss Bloodstompa and launched themselves into a Waaagh! that began to tear its way into the Imperium's outer territories. While not a large Waaagh! by any means, Waaagh! Bloodstompa was the largest ork invasion faced by the Imperium for nearly 20 years and when it began no Imperial forces were able to disengage from the Insurrectionists to fight it, so it was left free to run rampant.

 

However, in Waaagh! Bloodstompa Icarion saw an opportunity. While many worlds stayed loyal to the Imperium because of the Warmaster's hard work, many more were beginning to question whether it was in their best interests to remain loyal to Terra. The loyal legions were shadows of their former selves, barely able to keep up the fight against the Insurrectionists let alone protect the Imperium from external threats as well. If Icarion could visibly demonstrate his willingness and, more importantly, ability to do so then many of those worlds whose loyalty was less certain may defect to his cause. With this in mind, Icarion not only despatched a force of 5000 Lightning Bearers to deal with Waaagh! Bloodstompa but led it in person, breaking the Waaagh! in a single day.

 

That it could be broken by such a comparatively small force speaks volumes to both the vastly reduced numbers of the orks and the desperate shortage of manpower the loyalists faced. Yet the pay off of this comparatively small campaign for the Stormlord was enormous. In its wake, hundreds more worlds flocked to join his banner, extending his realm's borders yet further.

[Azorius]

How about usage of hallucinogens, weather control agents(think canon Night Lords Exemplary Battles) and communication disruptors(jamming, blocking, computer virus, data djinn etc.) for XIVth Legion? 

[Sigismund229]

A first draft of the bit about the negotiations between the two sides:

 

In the third year of the Insurrection, an unexpected arrival broke out of the warp near Terra. Outer system patrols identified the arrivals as the I^st legion vessel Thunder’s Wrath and its escorts. However, surprisingly, it appeared to have arrived on its own and its commander, a Captain Oda Nobunaga of the Lightning Bearers ninth company(a Captain who is known to have been a sworn honour brother of First Captain Irvin Ruel of the Halycon Wardens. When this bond was sworn is unknown), swore that they had come alone and were not being followed by a larger force. Both Niklaas of the Fire Keepers and Alexandros Darshan von Salim were present in the vicinity of Terra at the time, leading the loyalist forces fighting on Mars. It is known that their opinions were divided, with Niklaas advocating that the Thunder’s Wrath be blown to pieces. The Warmaster on the other hand preferred to find out why the Thunder’s Wrath and her captain, who had proudly declared his allegiance to the Stormlord upon his arrival in the system, had made such a seemingly suicidal decision.

 

Eventually the Warmaster’s will won out and the Thunder’s Wrath was escorted to a docking bay. From there its crew, consisting of the entirety of Captain Oda Nobunaga’s ninth company, were escorted down to Terra where he was met by his honour brother Irvin Ruel and kept in one of the many wings of the Imperial Palace until the captain could be received by the Warmaster in person. When he was granted such an audience once the Warmaster had returned to Terra, the red dust of Mars still on his armour, the request he brought was a surprise: Icarion, the Stormlord, wished to meet his brother the Warmaster under the protection of a truce upon a world of his choosing. They could each be accompanied by two of their brothers and each primarch by a bodyguard of one squad from their respective legions. Against the wishes and counsel of his brothers(with Niklaas and Hectarion being particularly vocal in their resistance to the idea), the Warmaster agreed to Icarion’s terms and told the captain he would meet his brother upon the world of Elysium.

 

Leaving his First Captain, Irvin Ruel, in command of the loyalist legion forces on Mars, the Warmaster and the two brothers who he chose to accompany him, Yucahu of the Void Eagles and Niklaas of the Fire Keepers, travelled to the world of Elysium. There, they descended to the world’s surface and there met their Insurrectionist counter parts: Icarion Anasem, the Stormlord, Alexos Travier and Kozja Darzalas.

 

What passed between them on the surface of Elysium is mostly unknown. What is known is that the Warmaster offered each of his Insurrectionist brothers a chance to leave their rebellion and re-join the Imperium with a full pardon, an offer that each of the three Insurrectionists refused. Alexos Travier then went further and, rather than simply refusing the Warmaster’s offer of pardon, began to extol the virtues of the Stormlord over the Emperor, going so far as to call him the “False Emperor” until he was silenced by the Stormlord. In the talks that followed, both sides agreed to leave the webway as neutral territory, for both sides agreed that, whatever the outcome of the Insurrection, the webway would be vital to humanity’s survival.

 

However, no other agreements could be reached, both sides being too committed to their chosen paths. Saying their farewells, the primarchs went their separate ways, for they would never again meet as brothers. From that point on, there could be no turning back, for either side. 

[Demus Ragnok]

Should they be brought to Terra?

 

Niklaas would pitch a wobbly over that idea.

 

They would also need to be under heavy guard by Custodes and Sisters of Silence.

 

Niklaas gives zero flips about the "honor" between Astartes captains.

[Sigismund229]

Should they be brought to Terra?

 

Niklaas would pitch a wobbly over that idea.

 

They would also need to be under heavy guard by Custodes and Sisters of Silence.

 

Niklaas gives zero flips about the "honor" between Astartes captains.

I was leaving it unstated as I assumed being heavily escorted was a given

[bluntblade]

That ought to be each Except Raktra.

And that's what I get for not reading properly

[simison]

Placing the Schism of Mars here would reduce the focus the book is supposed to have for the Eastern campaigns. 

 

Sig, that red box looks fine. 

 

As for the negotiations, several points. First, I am doubtful that the Schism of Mars will last three years. One, sure. Two, maybe. Three, doubtful. Second, I am worried about wasting 'Demon King' Nobunaga on something as simple as a messenger. Third, the Harbingers wouldn't be brought to Terra. Instead, Alex would keep them to the outer planets, maybe Saturn...Pluto? No reason to risk security leaks if they can talk past the asteroid belt. Fourth, while more actors know about the Imperial Webway, I don't think such info will ever be disseminated among the general populace or unclassified. Keep the negotiations more vague, saying that only something, perhaps a 'secret weapon', was agreed upon but nothing else. Finally, I like the planet's name, good sense of irony right there. 

[Sigismund229]

Oh, had no idea Nobunaga was already a character. In that case I'll find anither name for him.

 

Those other points shall be edited in

[simison]

Oh, had no idea Nobunaga was already a character. In that case I'll find anither name for him.

 

 

No, no one has used Nobunaga yet. My concern is that we don't do him justice when he has the historical nickname 'Demon King'. If we are to put him here, I want to hear some kind of plan to give him his due instead of just wasting the name on a one-time messenger.

[Sigismund229]

 

 

Oh, had no idea Nobunaga was already a character. In that case I'll find anither name for him.

 

No, no one has used Nobunaga yet. My concern is that we don't do him justice when he has the historical nickname 'Demon King'. If we are to put him here, I want to hear some kind of plan to give him his due instead of just wasting the name on a one-time messenger.

I was planning to keep him as one of the "characters" I create to do odd bits and bobs here and there. E.g. in Nobunaga's case I intended to use him as Icarion's "voice" at Iyacrax, probably give him command of a large LB force I have yet to write and finally have him killed by the Nightguard when thry try to assassinate Icarion

 

Given that that's not exactly a major role, I'll change his name

[Sigismund229]

Had a thought regarding this book

 

This book's campaigns could be a chance to show how important the role of smaller units rather than full legions is in a war on the scale of the Insurrection in the same way book 6 does for the heresy

[Sigismund229]

Seeing as Meros is MIA I srote a preface

 

As the Insurrection spread outwards from the galactic core, the Stormlord's gaze strayed eastwards. Where before he had focussed all his military might on the conquest and securing of the Maelstrom and its surrounding regions, he could now afford to expand beyond his power base. However, he foresaw that any offensive against the Segmentum Solar was doomed to a bloody failure. While such an offensive would bleed the loyalists heavily, the Stormlord had no taste for a war of grinding attrition at the gates of the Segmentum Solar, fearing that such a conflict would leave his forces too weak to conquer Terra. Therefore, instead of looking to expand his realm westward, his eyes fell on the Eastern Fringe.

 

The Eastern Fringe was populous, with a relatively high density of habitable worlds within its comparatively small borders. Not only that but it remained rich in resources, whereas the galactic centre had had its resources plundered by mankind for millenia and had little left to give when compared to the Eastern Fringe. These two reasons alone would be enough for the Stormlord to seek to conquer the Eastern Fringe. However, there was a third.

 

Ever since the Day of Revelation, the Eastern Fringe had been host to the loyalist Dune Serpents, led by their primarch, Azus. Plagued by defections and hit hard by the Day of Revelation like every loyalist legion, these Dune Serpents were a pitiful remnant of the force that which had prosecuted the Great Crusade, numbering just 48,000 strong, a number even exceeded by the Iron Bears. However, small though they were, the Dune Serpents had struck back with punches that went well above their weight, disrupting Insurrectionist supply lines and unleashing their chemical arsenals against the Stormlord's cities, slaughtering untold billions and even causing several worlds to defect back to the Imperium in order to avoid total destruction.

 

While no one of the cuts dealt to his nascent empire by the Dune Serpents was anywhere near fatal, a hundred such cuts created a gaping wound that was eating into the side of his fragile realm. A thousand could well kill it. Because of this, not only was the Eastern Fringe a tantalising target but also the Stormlord could not allow the Dune Serpents raids to continue. They had to be removed. 

 

However, where the Stormlord had expected another quick victory, crushing the Dune Serpents and quickly occupying the worlds of the Eastern Fringe, what he would get was a war of attrition that would last for nine years, sucking in legions and units whose strength he would later desperately need for his push against the Segmentum Solar. What's more, the war on the Eastern Fringe would win him little, reducing the East to a burning wreck where it had once been prosperous.

 

It is for these reasons that the war on the Eastern Fringe deserves study. It delayed the Stormlord's plans by as much as a year and sucked in valuable troops and supplies, indirectly having an enormous impact on the Insurrection. If he had had those troops with him when he advanced on the Segmentum Solar, might the Stormlord have breached its gates and broken through to Terra? We shall never know.

 

The other reason is the attitudes of the legions involved. Before the campaigns on the Eastern Fringe, many Loyalist and Insurrectionist legions continued to fight in accordance with their Great Crusade codes of honour. The campaigns fought over the East saw the final death of such notions. Afterwards, the legions were infinitely more ruthless and the brutality of the Insurrection increased a hundred fold.

[simison]

[Meros had almost finished the Preface when he disappeared.]

 

The Great Crusade is over, and the galaxy will burn.

 

The arch traitor Icarion continues his slow and steady domination over the Imperium, cutting the throat from the Emperor’s dream of a galaxy in unity, keeping the staunch loyalists hard pressed to hold on to the crumbling fragments of the shattered jewel that was formerly the Imperium of Man. Like a cancer, they consume the galaxy in unholy purgatory. Torn asunder and ripped into hundreds of tiny pockets of conflicting loyalties, is where we find ourselves: a far cry from the glory we were promised as a species so long ago. The eastern fringe buckles, its borders are stretched thin and worn away by years of conflict. Any soul with the misfortune to be beneath this shroud will find betrayal at their doorstep. Crestfallen by the Day of Revelation and the string of tragedy that ensued, the Imperium endures nonetheless, even as teeters on the brink of damnation.

 

Doom is the name that calls forth the legions of the dead to play their final act. Doom ushers in a new era of uncertainty, where the seeds of doubt have been sown, and begin to grow their putrid flower. Doom is the last thing many of us will ever see, in our short and melancholy lives. Deceit calls out, hungry and starving for it’s snare to trigger. In only a single moment, deceit is our master, controlling everything through abundance of human hubris. Deceit has opened the floodgates to the end of days, a catalyst for the erosion of time. There is hope however, in these despairing times. Listen not to the propaganda of the unfaithful, nor the lyric of the traitor’s sonnet, but seek refuge within one’s self. Only there can one truly master their spirit. Hold fast and be firm. Stand your ground and give not an inch. The labours of every man woman and child built the human race, and they will preserve it, given the inspiration.

 

I too labour, and create this record, of which rests in your gritty palms. Read and absorb the text you read, and learn the truth buried behind the veils of doom and deceit. My inspiration, you ask? The will to live, and endure, and hope that my ancestors can enjoy the serenity of a peaceful existence, and not have to suffer for the sins of their fathers.

 

If there is one thing I can warn you of now before you proceed further into this record, it is the undoubted certainty that, no matter the cost to either side:

 

The galaxy will burn.

[Sigismund229]

Lovely. I'll recycle the bit I wrote for use elsewhere

[Sigismund229]

WARNING: Wall of text incoming. Here's what I've written so far as the Introductory part to Expansion. I'm holding off writing the final chapter of it so that if we do end up going for an Expansion trilogy rather than a single Expansion book I can add in a last chapter that's tailor made for each of them.

 

The Great Crusade is over, and the galaxy will burn.

 

The arch traitor Icarion continues his slow and steady domination over the Imperium, cutting the throat from the Emperor’s dream of a galaxy in unity, keeping the staunch loyalists hard pressed to hold on to the crumbling fragments of the shattered jewel that was formerly the Imperium of Man. Like a cancer, they consume the galaxy in unholy purgatory. Torn asunder and ripped into hundreds of tiny pockets of conflicting loyalties, is where we find ourselves: a far cry from the glory we were promised as a species so long ago. The eastern fringe buckles, its borders are stretched thin and worn away by years of conflict. Any soul with the misfortune to be beneath this shroud will find betrayal at their doorstep. Crestfallen by the Day of Revelation and the string of tragedy that ensued, the Imperium endures nonetheless, even as teeters on the brink of damnation.

 

Doom is the name that calls forth the legions of the dead to play their final act. Doom ushers in a new era of uncertainty, where the seeds of doubt have been sown, and begin to grow their putrid flower. Doom is the last thing many of us will ever see, in our short and melancholy lives. Deceit calls out, hungry and starving for it’s snare to trigger. In only a single moment, deceit is our master, controlling everything through abundance of human hubris. Deceit has opened the floodgates to the end of days, a catalyst for the erosion of time. There is hope however, in these despairing times. Listen not to the propaganda of the unfaithful, nor the lyric of the traitor’s sonnet, but seek refuge within one’s self. Only there can one truly master their spirit. Hold fast and be firm. Stand your ground and give not an inch. The labours of every man woman and child built the human race, and they will preserve it, given the inspiration.

 

I too labour, and create this record, of which rests in your gritty palms. Read and absorb the text you read, and learn the truth buried behind the veils of doom and deceit. My inspiration, you ask? The will to live, and endure, and hope that my ancestors can enjoy the serenity of a peaceful existence, and not have to suffer for the sins of their fathers.

 

If there is one thing I can warn you of now before you proceed further into this record, it is the undoubted certainty that, no matter the cost to either side:

 

The galaxy will burn.

 

 

 

 

 

(A new darkness has come upon the galaxy,

None know how it began,

None shall live to see its end)

-Quote to go on the page before the real fluff begins

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A kingdom divided

The Lightning bolt strikes

In the year 031.M31, the Imperium was hit by the deadliest attack it had ever faced. Hundreds of thousands of legionaries from eight of her legions had been slain, their lifeblood draining away into the soils of distant worlds or their lifeless corpses drifting through the endless void of space. Two legions had been all but shattered, the Iron Bears and the Dune Serpents, the Iron Bears losing their primarch and the Dune Serpents plagued by desertions.

 

However, this was no normal war that the legions had been dragged into. These losses had not been inflicted on them by any xenos or rebel faction, none still existed in the galaxy who could threaten the legions. Instead, it was their brother legions who had turned on them and butchered them by the tens of thousands. Twelve of the Emperor’s vaunted Legiones Astartes and their primarchs had entered into open rebellion, led by the foremost of the primarchs: Icarion Anasem, the Stormborn, now Stormlord.

 

With his rebellion, the Stomlord had extinguished the bright torch of the Great Crusade. Darkness had descended upon the Imperium and monstrosities stalked the shadows as brothers fought to decide the fate of humanity. The brotherhood of primarchs had been broken and they had already begun to fall. All hope is gone. Time ceases to have meaning. There is only bloodshed and war as all humanity is cloaked in a second Age of Darkness.

 

Domains of the Stormlord

In the weeks and months following the bloody massacres of the Day of Revelation, it would begin to become apparent just how long Icarion Anasem had spent seeking out support before he made his first move and just how deep the love and admiration for Icarion Anasem ran on many Imperial worlds. In the wake of Icarion announcing his Insurrection against the Emperor, thousands of worlds rose up in rebellion alongside him, pledging themselves to his cause. From mining outposts that had long been forgotten by many to bustling hive worlds at the heart of the administration of entire systems, worlds renounced the Emperor and swore themselves to the Stormlord. All told, nearly a third of the Imperium's worlds swore allegiance to the Stormlord.

 

It is likely that this number would have been higher had it not been for the incessent work of the Warmaster and his efforts to rapidly integrate worlds into the Imperium and smooth over wounds caused during compliance. While many had critisised him for this in the decades since the Qarith Triumph, stating that he was the Warmaster and such matters were better left to the Council of Terra, his work now bore fruit and, while many worlds deserted to join the Stormlord's nascent empire, the majority of Imperial worlds stayed true to their oaths of allegiance and stayed loyal to the Emperor and Terra and began to muster troops when the Warmaster issued the Commission of Array.

 

As a consequence of this, the Imperium was torn into a ragged patchwork of conflicting loyalties. Many systems raised their banners in rebellion only to discover that their neighbouring systems had stayed loyal and many stayed loyal only to discover their neighbours had sworn themselves to the Stormlord. As a general rule, the areas of space immediately surrounding legion homeworlds were loyal to the same side as the legion whose homeworld they found themselve next to. However, aside from this, there were no clear cut battle lines in these early years of the Insurrection. There were no borders between the Imperium and the Stormlord's domains, just a confused and thoroughly muddled patchwork of loyalties, with the Imperium being stronger in some sectors of space and the Insurrectionists in others. This was further confused when some worlds heard of the Insurrection and rebelled but to regain their own independence rather than to see the Stormlord seated on the Golden Throne of Terra. These systems and worlds would be targeted by both Imperials and Insurrectionists alike and some would see some of the fiercest fighting of these early years of the Insurrection.

 

The capital of the Stormlord's new realm was Madrigal and the Maelstrom zone, which he quickly set about ridding of Imperial resistance. A large number of the worlds that supported Icarion were located in the Ultima Segmentum and so that would be the Segmentum which the Imperial forces would need to fight hardest to hold into. However, Icarion was also able to call upon a lot of support on the Eastern Fringe, where he was only resisted by the already badly mauled Dune Serpents. So it was that Icarion set about expanding and unifying his domains, eradicating Imperial resistance in the Maelstrom and then gradually pushing out into the east and the rest of the Ultima Segmentum.

 

It was in these regions that the earliest campaigns of the Insurrection would be fought.

 

The Tides of Loyalty

Throughout the Insurrection, not even the loyalty of the legions could be trusted, nor could it be predicted. Just because a primarch had sworn his allegiance to the Emperor or the Stormlord, it was far from assured that all or even a clear majority of his sons would do likewise, with many legionaries, especially those who had served on detached duty for many years, choosing to defect and follow a different path. In some cases, these legionaries would defect only to be tortured by guilt over their betrayal of their father and brothers and defect again in order to be reunited with their legion. In a few rare cases, they would later decide to switch their allegiance back to how it originally fell. One example of such a case was the Godslayers 108th Brotherhood. Scarcely a year after the Day of Revelation they saved a unit of Scions Hospitalier from their destruction at the hands of a combined force of Harbingers and Eagle Warriors over the third moon of Ekra, mercilessly pursuing the Insurrectionists to the edges of the system and inflicting heavy casualties upon them. However, just two short years later the 108th was spotted again, this time as part of the massed Godslayers assault on Oskis in the latter stages of the fighting in the galactic core, a battle during which they were thought to be broken. Yet they were not and over the next twelve years there would be multiple sightings of the 108th as part of raids on Insurrectionist supplies alongside legionaries of the Drowned and Predators. They appear to have been broken for good by members of the Steel Legion, as while there are a few scattered sightings of legionaries in their livery they are never in strength, even at the Siege of Madrigal numbering just a few dozen.

 

Rarer still were those legionaries who, while they fought for the opposite side to their primarch, still obeyed their primarch's orders and refused to fight their former legion brothers. Such was the case with the Dune Serpents 97th and 32nd companies. Both renounced their allegiance to the Emperor and took part in both assaults towards Terra as well as assaulting refugee ships fleeing the Blood Crusade. However, during the campaigns on the Eastern Fringe there are pict feeds of Dune Serpents from these two companies boarding several Steel Legion strike cruisers. At no other point are they seen fighting against the Insurrectionist so it seems that their loyalty was to their primarch and legion first, the Stormlord second.

 

More common than this were those legionaries whose minds were broken by the sheer magnititude of the betrayal ripping the Imperium apart. Hailing from Loyalist and Insurrectionist legions alike, these broken legionaries seem to have been drawn disproprtionately from the legion's Terran elements. It is known that the Grave Stalkers and Warriors of Peace, the last legions whose primarchs were found, seemed to suffer more from this manner of defection than from changes of loyalty. Two prominent examples of this type of defection were the Sons of Grief and the Scavengers. Both scoured all heraldry, leaving their armour bare metal after the fashion of the early founding of the legions in the late years of the Great Crusade and sought whatever death their broken minds drove them to search for.

 

The Sons of Grief seem to have hailed predominantly from the IIIrd legion's remaining Terrans. Led by a dreadnought, Venerable Leif, they fought across the northern Imperium, venting their grief at the destruction of their life's work on loyalist and traitor alike. They were finally destroyed by the Iron Bears nine years into the Insurrection on Kranath, near the Three Fires sector, their last vox transmission reading We fought. We lost. Now we rest. Thank you brothers.

 

The Scavengers were another such group active near the Maelstrom, seemingly composed of a mix of Void Eagles and Grave Stalkers. By the time of their destruction at the hands of the Harbingers, there was little left of whatever they had once been. Grief and rage obscured all else to the point that many could not remember their own names and had become more beast than legionary, beasts which needed to be put down for their own good. In the years before their destruction, they had attacked nearly every legion they ever encountered and laid waste to any civilian shipping they could, seemingly believing themselves to be the only true loyalists left in the galaxy.

 

Such tales of loyalty from sons of traitor legions or traitor sons of loyalists are more common than any know or will admit. Amidst the chaos and confusion of the Insurrection, there are hundreds of tales that went unrecorded by witnessess and whos participants did not live to see the end of those dark days. Not even pict evidence can be entirely relied upon. Sometimes units used fake heraldry in order to confuse the enemy or infiltrate into his ranks. However, more common is the simple reason that over the course of the Insurrection many units were destroyed and reformed several times as legions took losses and rebuilt(the Berserkers of Uran 112th company was founded no less than eight times over the course of the Insurrection, the Warbringers 27th March and Halycon Wardens 9th company five times, although these are exceptional cases). Therefore, survivors of the original unit might be part of an ad hoc unit and still bearing their original heraldry while the official refounded unit was elsewhere, giving the impression that some units were deployed to several warzones at the same time when in fact it was members of different iterations of the same unit, sometimes fighting on different sides of the Insurrection.

 

A galaxy at war

It is common to speak of battles which involved many tens of thousands of legionaries, led into battle by their god like primarchs. However, for every such battle there were tens of thousands of smaller engagements fought between a few thousand or hundred, sometimes even a few dozen, legionaries in a system that might, for whatever reason, be considered the front line. It was these engagements which made up the vast bulk of the Insurrection.

This fragmentation of the enormous martial might of the legions can be explained by the sheer size of the Insurrection. During the Great Crusade, the legions had been able to operate as enormous blocks of martial might, hammer blows struck against the distant fastness of the xenos and rebel. They had been able to do so as they were not fighting a united foe and so their enemies would often have to stand and fight them where they first encountered the legions.

 

By contrast, the Insurrection was fought across the entire Imperium, with both sides struggling to take and hold ground, necessitating a fragmentation of the legions into smaller units that could operate over a wider area. So, while the primarchs still retained personal command of the core of their legions, as the Insurrection wore on there were a greater and greater number of smaller units fighting across the length and breadth of the Imperium. When taken together with the chaos and division caused by the warpstorms that wracked the galaxy, this meant that many units ended up waging their own wars across the galaxy, almost independent of the wider war, only linked in that they shared broadly the same goals as the faction with whom they affiliated themselves.

 

It was because of this fragmented nature of the civil war that engulfed the Imperium that the Insurgos warbands were a viable force. Having turned away from the main body of their legion, most of these forces lacked the numbers to operate as a separate force in the grand battles that are so often thought to have constituted the majority of the fighting during the Insurrection. In such grand battles, the Insurgos warbands would doubtless suffer heavy losses or, more likely, be annihilated by a more numerous force from one of the larger legions. However, in these smaller scale operation, the Insurgos could be used to maximum effect in operations such as against the Joryk astropathic station, where a force of some four hundred Wendiigo disabled the astropathic station. As a result of this operation, a not insignificant force of Void Eagles was kept blind to Yucahu’s orders for his legion to regroup in the Eastern Fringe, in accordance with the Warmaster’s orders. Having not received those orders, these Void Eagles would continue their own war in the Ghoul Stars against the Insurrectionist forces there, being absent from the fighting in the more crucial eastern and central theatres until many years later.

 

A realm in ruins

In many histories of the Icarion Insurrection, there is much talk of borders and systems changing hands between the Imperium and the realm of the Stormlord. Such talk is misleading, for by 037.M31, at the latest, much of the Imperium and realm of the Stormlord were entities confined to the realms of theory and the neat, ordered requirements of histories. Neither could truly be said to exist any more than notionally beyond their hearts and the borders, such as they existed, between the two changed hands so often and were so patchy as to make any attempt to map them an exercise in futility.

 

The reality was that, as the brotherhood of the primarchs crumbled, so did the authority of the Imperium. At a functional level, many systems became beholden to a warlord of some kind who would enforce his own laws upon the worlds he ruled and aligned himself with whichever side he chose, either through loyalty or self-interest. During the brief lulls in the fighting, the power of these warlords would decrease as the Warmaster or the Stormlord began to assert their authority more forcefully over their realms, only to increase again once the fighting began again in earnest. In many cases, these warlords served their own ends rather than those of the empire they chose to support and could change allegiance as easily as the wind changes direction, as happened with General Rakkara. For the early decades of the Insurrection, he was an eager supporter of the Stormlord. However, as soon as one of his neighbours defected to the Stormlord, Rakkara rejoined the Imperium and launched an invasion of her territory, nominally for the Emperor but actually fuelled by his own self-interest.

 

The only places where the Imperium and realm of the Stormlord genuinely existed as functional entities was at their cores, the Segmentum Solar in the case of the Imperium and the Maelstrom and its surrounding regions. As such, one of the most common missions for many smaller units of the legions was an assassination or surgical strike to remove the warlord of a given piece of the Imperium and replace him or her with another who was more favourable to their cause. On the Insurrectionist side, these operations were frequently conducted by legionaries of the Grave Stalkers who accomplished these missions with an execution that was as messy and visible as possible, in order to terrify warlords who had sided with the Stormlord out of any thoughts of defection.

 

One such instance was a strike against the Magister-Militaris of Keredos. Having at first sided with the Stormlord, he later defected when faced with the prospect of an invasion by legionaries from the Fire Keepers. Just three months after this defection, his head was found placed on his throne with a XV and a star carved into his forehead, his body parts found scattered across his palace. Another was that of Admiral Gurthas, who had joined his forces to the Stormlord’s cause. He was executed on the bridge of his flagship, at the base of his command throne, by a group of legionaries of the Crimson Lions, his death an unmistakeable lesson in loyalty to those who had abandoned the Imperium.

 

The Stormlord’s Armies

The names of those who turned their backs upon the Imperium on the Day of Revelation were many. Foremost among them were the legions of the Adeptus Astartes who had sworn their allegiance to the Stormlord: Harbingers, Berserkers of Uran, Godslayers, Warbringers, Eagle Warriors, Grave Stalkers, Drowned, Warriors of Peace, Steel Legion. The names of these nine legions would echo across eternity in infamy, for off all those who joined the Stormlord, their betrayal was the greatest. Once the defenders of humanity and prosecutors of the Great Crusade, they would now be the Stormlord’s shock troops in his insurrection.

 

However, it was not just the legions who had joined the Stormlord. Perhaps half of the Titan Legions and a third of the Imperial Army joined him, placing themselves at his command. Some were deceived, others followed him because of ancient oaths of honour, others still followed out of loyalty to the legion to which they were attached. Their reasons for joining themselves to his cause do not matter. All that matters is that they followed him in his treachery, giving him countless millions of troops to call on and even the god machines of the Mechanicum. Both would serve their role in his war. Yet for all the vast numbers of the Imperial Army and the enormous power of the titans, neither was capable of seizing Terra. A thousand ships and ten million men could assault that world’s mighty defences and a thousand ships and ten million men would be killed or thrown back by the defenders of the Imperial Palace, the Adeptus Custodes and the Warmaster’s Vth legion.

 

The war would be decided by the legions and so it is that the Stormlord’s strength could be accurately represented by the number of legionaries he commanded. Thanks to the success of the Stormlord’s forces upon the Day of Revelation, many of his legions had yet to suffer serious losses and they had inflicted terrible losses upon those who held fast to their allegiance to the Emperor. The only exception to this were the Grave Stalkers. Despite the element of surprise, they had been hit hard by the wrath of the Iron Bears once the Grave Stalkers and Godslayer’s treachery was apparent. While they had inflicted grievous wounds on the Iron Bears, they had been badly mauled in return and their primarch, K’awil Pakal, had suffered horrendous injuries while fighting his vengeful brother, Daer’dd.

 

Yet the Grave Stalkers aside, the Stormlord’s superiority in legionaries was easily evident. While it is difficult to obtain verifiable figures, most estimates place the number of astartes under arms in his cause at around 1,000,000 or higher. In addition to their numerical superiority, many of these would be veterans of the Great Crusade, experienced in war and tested in battle against other legions by the Day of Revelation.

 

The Strain of War

In these opening years of the Insurrection, it rapidly became apparent that the Insurrection would test the legions in fields other than the battlefield. Faced with the unforeseen foe of other legions, attrition rates among the Adeptus Astartes were high and with the destiny of the Imperium and by extension the galaxy and all mankind at stake, neither side could allow their foes to gain a numerical or equipment advantage on them.

 

Far from simply allowing themselves to be steadily worn down by attrition, all legions began to launch major recruitment drives, Loyalists and Insurrectionists alike. Tithes of manpower were demanded from hundreds of suitable worlds and the nets of each legion's recruiters were cast far wider in an attempt to find as many suitable recruits as possible. Often one of the first actions of a legion upon subduing or recapturing a world was to assess the local population for potential recruits, such was the desperate need for recruits to replace losses on both sides.

 

However, while such wide recruitment helped to keep legion numbers at acceptable levels, it was not on its own sufficient to replace the enormous losses being suffered by legions in the field. In order to do this, both the Loyalists and Insurrectionists turned to documents long locked away by the Baal decree, many penned by Kozja Darzalas and the Jade General, two Insurrectionist primarchs. Using these treatises, all legions began to cut down on the time it took to turn a recruit into a fully formed legionary, in some cases reducing it to little as two years. While the extra strain this inflicted on recruits bodies killed many, the need for legionaries on the frontline outweighed the cost in number of recruits these new techniques caused.

 

Among those legions with well-developed apothacerions and stable gene-seed capable of mass implantation, it was not uncommon to see large spikes in their numbers during times of relative inaction as enormous numbers of recruits were taken in and turned into legionaries. Formed into squads alongside smaller numbers of veterans of the Great Crusade or early Insurrection, these mass-produced legionaries would be cast into the fires of war without the years of training that had been given to the legionaries who fought the Great Crusade. For them, their first engagement would be a trial by fire in which they learned their craft quickly or died. However, the battles of the Insurrections were a brutally effective crucible in which these new legionaries would be trained and hardened by war.

 

However, this accelerated recruitment was far less stable than the recruitment of those legionaries who had fought in the Great Crusade. In a number of legions, it caused significant problems, notably in the Halycon Wardens where cases of the madness that afflicted the legion was 123% higher among these rapidly recruited legionaries than in those created using older, slower methods. Similarly, in the Dune Serpents these new legionaries proved less adept at restraining their urges and many fought solely for the pleasure they derived from inflicting pain.

 

In addition, while this rapid recruitment and induction kept the number of astartes a legion could field at acceptable levels, it also led to other problems, notably serious problems with supplies of things such as armour and weaponry, let alone ships and tanks. While all the legion had started the Insurrection with large stock piles of armour and weapons, with the high rates of attrition on the front they soon stripped through their available supplies and fresh armour and weaponry was slow in the coming from forge worlds and often in insufficient quantities.

 

Such equipment shortages meant that more often than not legions were reduced to scavenging any equipment they could off of battlefields. Tech marines from all legions cobbled together functional suits from scavenged plates or forged new ones from the melted down ceramite of plates so badly damaged they were unsalvageable. Yet these suits of armour were little more than a stop-gap measure and their shortcomings were all too evident. Often the synthetic muscle contained within the suit would seize up in combat or the helm's filters stopped working properly.

 

The shortage of equipment on all sides and the deficiencies of the stop-gap armours meant that forge worlds rapidly became among the most hotly contested objectives in the entire Imperium. Entire campaigns were fought to control them and often their manufactories would be destroyed rather than left to fall into enemy hands, further worsening the crisis of equipment that both Loyalists and Insurrectionists suffered from. It also soon became practice for legions who were going on the offensive and leaving behind steady supply lines to send out raiders to attack enemy or, if the situation was severe enough, allied supply convoys bound for other legions, seizing the supplies they contained for their own use. In some theatres of war, notably the Eastern Fringe, this would become the normal manner through which legion forces kept themselves supplied with even basic necessities such as ammunition.

[MikhalLeNoir]

Well, looks like a lot of words^^

 

So will this be in every expansion book as some sort of prefsce and then we go for: on the eastern fringes the battle was the fiercest. Deployed by the traitor icarion, the inhuman steel legion of nomus attscked several worlds and pushed the frontier of the maelstromkingdom further into the imperial territory until they troops of the emperor organized them self after the initial shock and the dune serpents attacked with ferocity. Imperial intel gsve hints thst their lost primarch azus was in the hands of nomus. However, the steel legion was no enemy to ne underestimated and so the dune serpents paid a heavy price. Then comes a description of the campaign steel legiin advances. Dune serpents hold them off. Steel legion uses their powers to play with the serpents. Serpents get used to it and change to guerilla tsctcis and via fake news manipulate the steel legion and lures them to traps. However when they get to know that nomus holds their primarch on world x they assemble a killteam/ strikeforce to get him out. But before he can leave the main fleet of the steel legion arrives but so does also the dune serpents and we have. Our big battle where azus fights against nomus in the end. Then rules for the legions involved and a look maybe to another battlefield? West . and book 3 is the setup fir icarions first rush to terra.???

[Sigismund229]

That was my thinking. This is a sort of introduction which explains how a war the scale of the Insurrection is fought and then it concludes with an introduction to that specific campaign, so for example the Eastern Fringe, the fighting around the Maelstrom or the battle of the Forge

[MikhalLeNoir]

That i like. Keep that so. Using thatthe reader knows that all books belong togheter.