Destroyer Squads - which Legions used them?

[Jareddm]

Are destroyers a penal units in some legions? Well, first of all, there are no "penal units" in the legions. The lore is consistent. First, an astartes, even in the times of the Crusade, gopes through a process of psycho-indoctrination that makes them less inclined to incur in those behaviours worthy of penal sanction: disobidience of orders, desertion, pillaging... scarce and rare even among those legion framed for their ill-discipline like the Night Lords, World Eaters or the VIth pre-Russ. The most common unruly behaviour was that of too much collateral damage, but this was dealt through sumary execution by the Opsequari corps and its descendants (Chaplains, Wardens, Ophalim...) our was included into the core of the legion approach to warfare.

 

A whole different thing is this idea of "fall of grace". This though is not a penal but a personal sanction based on an officer or (usually) a primarch criterion. As such, we can see the case of Morturg (and I agree, it is a case of terrible character writting) or the Raven Guard (the old Terran way was too much for Corax freedom-fighter past). It is not so disimilar in concept to units like the Vth Sagyar Mazian, the "red-handed" Night Lords or the Medusan Immortals. They are frowned due to some "moral" standards running on the legion core of beliefs, but not what we could consider a penal unit. I agree that the high lethality of the destroyers is suited for those "fallen from grace" individuals, but still, not their only destiny (more on that to the last point).

 

I disagree with this separation between "crimes against order" and "crimes against honor."  For legionnaires, I feel both are equally serious and warrant punishment, including assignment to Destroyers.  And while the volume may not be an even split between the former and the latter, both still existed, and I don't see a problem with legions mixing the two.  Prisons and mental hospitals didn't used to be separate things.  And for some legions, I don't see them separating them either.

 

So, if someone had a problem with authority and didn't follow orders? You probably wouldn't give them a gun and turn your back on them. 

If the gun and the man were considered expendable, then you give him the gun and push him out of a plane above enemy territory.  Maybe check back in a few days.  I don't think anyone's suggesting such individuals would be working in close proximity to other troops.

Edited July 1, 2020 by Jareddm

[Askari]

People really seem to misunderstand what it means for destroyers to be "expendable" or "outcasts". Remember that prior to the Heresy it was considered almost unimagineable for marines to kill each other in cold blood in all but the most deranged and violent legions. That being said the Legiones Astartes encountered some incredibly powerful enemies who were able to inflict heavy casualties on even space marines. 

 

Outcasts doesn't mean that they are deemed a serious risk of going rogue and betraying you. It means they don't fit well within the strict ordered ranks of the legiones astartes. They have a different mindset that isn't as well suited to a strict hierarchy of they are more brutal and tolerant of collateral damage than you typically want to an army of liberation ad reconquest. But you have invested a substantial amount of resources into each marine so you dont want them to go to waste. That is where the destroyer corps comes in. You get to direct their independent streak and brutality towards a productive end. They won't be getting promoted out of the corps, it's a dead end position, but it isn't really a suicide squad either. At least not more than any forlorn hope or vanguard of an assault would be. Space marines were secular but they had many ritual notions of purity and honor.

 

Fighting with weapons that made the liberated ground uninhabitable would be taboo both for practical reasons ( you want to keep habitable planets for humanity) and for reasons tied to the idea that there are respectable and dishonorable ways to conduct warfare. But Destroyers don't care about those notions, they are brutal pragmatists. Or they are just plain brutalists who are utilized pragmatically by their commanders. A final aspect that contributes to the taboo of the destroyer corps is the fact that their weapons degraded their bodies. This also goes back to the honor culture and notions of ritual purity. The purity of the human genome is an important ideal of the Great Crusade- mutations are an existential threat to humanity that must be brutally purged. For a space marines, imbued with the genetic material of the Emperor's own sons, to experience biological degradation would evoke an immense feeling of revulsion amongst the arch eugenicsts of the Astartes. To be laid low  not by a blat or shell but instead by a slow poisonous decay would be one of the worst fates that an Astartes could imagine. 

 

Destroyer corps would have been for the separate legions what the Night Lords, Iron Warriors, Death Guard, and World Eaters were for the Emperor. They were the guys who did the dirty jobs that needed to be done but who you would keep on a tight leash and who you wouldn't want the majority of your forces to emulate. This is also why in those more brutal legions who already specialized in doing the dirty jobs the destroyer corps had less of a taboo. 

 

I would also like to point out that the loyalist Death Guard was never portrayed as being sent to the destroyer corps as a punishment. It wasn't really a negative assignment in his legion. The discrimination he faced was exemplified by the fact that he never was promoted despite his skill and experience.