Levels of Loyalty; aka Fun with Pseudo-Latin

[Indefragable]

I have finally made my way through all the Legions' entries in the Black Books, something caught my attention: the phrasing of how each Legion's Allegiance is officially described:

 

Hidden Content

 

I Legion

Dark Angels

Allegiance: (Book 9 forthcoming….not an implication just waiting to see what the precise wording is. No traitor jokes, please).

 

II Legion

[REDACTED]

 

III Legion

Emperor’s Children

Allegiance: Traitoris Perdita

 

IV Legion

Iron Warriors

Allegiance: Traitoris Perdita

 

V Legion

White Scars

Allegiance: Fidelitas Scindo

 

VI Legion

Space Wolves

Allegiance: Fidelitas Sine Recursu

 

VII Legion

Imperial Fists

Allegiance: Fidelitas Totalis

 

VIII Legion

Night Lords

Allegiance: Traitoris Perdita

 

IX Legion

Blood Angels

Allegiance: Fidelitas Constantus

 

X Legion

Iron Hands

Allegiance: Fidelitas Constantus

 

XI Legion

[REDACTED]

 

XII Legion

World Eaters

Allegiance: Traitoris Perdita

 

XIII Legion

Ultramarines

Allegiance: Fidelitas Constantus

 

XIV Legion

Death Guard

Allegiance: Traitoris Perdita

 

 

XV Legion

Thousand Sons

Allegiance: Traitoris Perdita

 

 

XVI Legion

Sons of Horus

Allegiance: Traitoris Maximus

 

XVII Legion

Word Bearers

Allegiance: Traitoris Maximus

 

XVIII Legion

Salamanders

Allegiance: Fidelitas Totalis

 

XIX Legion

Raven Guard

Allegiance: Fidelitas Constantus

 

XX Legion

Alpha Legion

Allegiance: Traitoris Perdita

 

 

So basically, there's a few different categories Legions fall under. Below find each category with my translation of it's gothic/pseudo-Latin and the (#) of Legions that fall into each category:

 

Loyalist:

1. Fidelitas Scindo: "Split Faith" (1). White Scars.
2. Fidelitas Constantus: "Constantly Faithful" (4). Blood Angels, Iron Hands, Ultramarines, Raven Guard
3. Fidelitas Totalis: "Totally Faithful" (2). Imperial Fists, Salamanders.
4. Fidelitas Sine Recursu: "Faithful Without Retreat" (1). Space Wolves.

 

Traitor:

1. Traitoris Perditia: "Destructive/Damned Traitors" (7). Emperor's Children, Iron Warriors, Night Lords, World Eaters, Death Guard, Thousand Sons, Alpha Legion [NOTE: "perditia" seems most common to the Latin root word perdo which means destructive, but I believe the designers' intent was to make it closer to the english word perdition which is a state of damnation.
2. Traitoris Maximus: "Greatest/Absolute Traitors" (2). Sons of Horus, Word Bearers. [NOTE: maximus is closest to "greatest" in terms of Latin translation, but again I believe the designers' intent is better served by saying "absolute" or "without hope of redemption."

 

The Traitors seem pretty straightforward: you have your heretics and your extra heretical heretics that caused the whole thing in the SoH and WB legions.

 

The Loyalists get a bit more interesting, with apparent "rankings" of Loyalty: your constantly faithful, your totally faithful, and your faithful without turning back. Hmmmm. Seems kind of like saying one student got an A+, the other an A++, and another one an A+++.

 

The Space Wolves stand out as being "Sine Recursu": without retreat. Aka they are loyal to the end...hopelessly loyal if you will. I find it a kind of neat-o wait to say "loyal without hope of redemption" as a counter-point to the "Traitoris Maximus" aspect. But again, how that differs from being "Fidelitas Totalis', Totally Loyal, is beyond me aside from the poetry of it. I also like the symbolism of "dogs" who obey their master even if they don't know what's good for them. Truly, the Wolves of the Emperor.

 

The White Scars are the outlier since they are given a "rank" of "Fidelitas Scindo:" Split Loyalties. This actually makes sense given the events of the BL novel Scars

where there is basically a civil war within the White Scars over those who want to side with Horus and those who want to make a determination for themselves

, the anecdote in FW Black Book 8: Malevolence

where it is stated that at least one V Legion force in full panoply, the Brotherhood of the Great Eye/905th Expeditionary Fleet, is recorded openly fighting alongside Horus' forces

, and the fact that Jaghatai Khan--of all the Primarchs--was the one that neither side knew where he would end up and made up his own mind based on his own investigation.

 

Now chances are (especially since we're talking about GW, after all) none of this really means anything and it was just "what sounds cool." Good chance, but it's something that piqued my curiosity, especially since I am curious if it implies that somehow some of the  "Fidelitas Constantus" Legions had some elements that went rogue or Traitor somehow.

 

My own thoughts:

 

-Space Wolves and White Scars: as mentioned above.

 

-Imperial Fists and Salamanders: both Legions were 100% loyal, with no known (officially or otherwise) defectors or Blackshield contingents, whether by something intrinsic or chance (aka the IF were completely recalled to Terra and the Sallies suffered 98% casualties at Istvaan...not much room for debate with the few that survived).

 

Ok now this is where things get interesting:

 

-Ultramarines and Blood Angels get "downgraded" to "Fidelitas Constantus" because of the whole Imperium Secundus thing that Bobby G has convenient amnesia about. Makes sense that there'd be a black mark as sort of a "look, we know your intentions were pure, but c'mon!" aspect there.

 

-The Iron Hands went a bit nuts after Ferrus Manus died, with some elements returning to Medusa to sort things out, others carrying on a shadow war, and others reportedly going Blackshield in large numbers. Make sense why they wouldn't get the "Fidelitas Totalis" grade, since, simply put, they didn't have their together. What I wonder is why they wouldn't get a "Fidelitas Scindo" grade as a result. This is not a knock on the IH, just curious about the rankings.

 

-The Raven Guard are kind of the "plain" ones: did they really do anything to have their loyalty questioned? It's one of those things where you can see the justification for "upgrading" the IF and SAL, but you can't really see any reason to "downgrade" the RG. Correct me if I am wrong.

 

-Sons of Horus and Word Bearers stated above.

 

The rest of the Traitors I'm kind of disappointed that there are not more classifications. On one hand, heresy is heresy and any form or rebellion gets you labelled as a Traitor. It's also harder to convince the masses that someone needs a "gentle purging" rather than complete extermination. I get that...

 

-...but the Thousand Sons especially seem like they deserve some sort of special classification, such as "Traitoris Idiosos": traitors for being idiots rather than outright rebellion (does that put me in the "Magnus did nothing wrong" camp?).

 

-The Night Lords also seem to deserve something more akin to a "Traitoris Fidel Dimittas:" Traitors who let their loyalty slip away."

 

 

TL:DR: I'm very curious to see how the I Legion/Dark Angels fall into this pattern and also quite curious to see if anything more materializes based on these "levels" of allegiance, but I'm not holding my breath. Was fun to dig out my old Latin textbooks from high school for this one!

 

 

Edit: spelling and typos

Edited October 31, 2019 by Indefragable

[The Unseen]

I doubt anything more will come of them, but I thought it would've been cool to have something for Tsons about how their choice was basically made for them.

Something along the lines of how (in ADB's black legion series) the Tsons sorcerer says that many of his kindred called the Wolves "the deceived" in Tizcan, but the conatation is not an insult to the Wolves, but instead more about how cunning the deceiver was.

Was a neat little throw away line.

[Leif Bearclaw]

 

-...but the Thousand Sons especially seem like they deserve some sort of special classification, such as "Traitoris Idiosos": traitors for being idiots rather than outright rebellion (does that put me in the "Magnus did nothing wrong" camp?).

Eh. Magnus and the Sons kinda committed outright rebellion before Horus (long before, if you count the deal Magnus made with Tzeentch over the Flesh Change, but that's not common knowledge, so it's kinda unfair to count it in the context of a Imperial Historical Document, which is what the Black Books ultimately are) both the initial, Nikea breaking message to Terra and the repeated refusals to stand down when offered in spite of Horus's orders. Got to say, especially from the in universe viewpoint of the Black Books the Sons are plenty guilty and Perditia seems like a solid description.

 

 

-The Night Lords also seem to deserve something more akin to a "Traitoris Fidel Dimittas:" Traitors who let their loyalty slip away."

I dunno, that could be spun just as easily for most of the Traitors. If the NL need a special criteria, imo something like 'Traitoris Amentia' (Traitors of Madness/Mania) is more fitting, and even then you could claim that applies to other Traitor Legions too (like the WEs and IWs, maybe the EC). Though I'm almost certainly getting the suffixes wrong, even for pig Latin.

 

The other thing to point out, though I'm loath to admit it, the terrible 'every loyalist Legion had Traitors' bit FW included in either book 4 or 6 (forget which) specifically noted what appeared to be Traitor SWs. Though imo that was most likely either a AL false flag,

[Indefragable]

<snip>

 

All good points. And as I said, it's hard to commit "light treason" so it makes sense that it's all or nothing on the damnation piece. Unless you're double damned like the SoH/WB (lol).

 

The TS were definitely not innocent by any means, and considering they had the SW sic'ed (no pun intended) on them before anyone knew Horus' intentions, they are definitely Traitoris of some sort. But likewise, it feels like they deserve something different since they really only sided with Horus much later on and were definitely different from the other traitors.

 

Yea, I was trying to come up with something like "Traitors that slipped their leash" for the NL to imply that they had pretty much become a rogue asset even before the HH.

 

Ultimately, I suppose anything other than "Traitoris Perditia" would seem to imply that there is some hope of redemption or such.

[MegaVolt87]

"traitors in plain sight/view" would also fit for WB and NL, open secret kinda thing as well maybe. 

[Indefragable]

"traitors in plain sight/view" would also fit for WB and NL, open secret kinda thing as well maybe. 

 

Yes, but except that the Word Bearers were the most shocking betrayal of all. They went from being one of the slowest-conquering Legions pre-Monarchia to becoming one of the most Zealous in terms of pace, brutality, and success rate afterwards. They were the very model of a Legion in Crusade mode.

 

...which was exactly part of their plan. It helped cover over their duplicitous efforts as well as giving themselves a mini-empire (though far more spread out than Ultramar) they could recruit from and build a massive fleet.

[MegaVolt87]

Conspirators in the shadows then for WB and possibly AL. 

[Elzender]

I could see the Raven Guard fitting there due to Corax's relatively known conflict with the Terrans and their exile to the Nomad Fleets. Most of those fleets ended up as Blackshields, and I could imagine some of them siding with Horus due to their past joint campaigns. I could see this generating some doubt regarding the complete loyalty of the XIX to the narrator of the Black Books.

 

About the Traitoris Perditas, I am guessing it is mostly due to them being "lost" to the Traitor side due to the SoH and WB manipulations. It is true that it would be nice to see some further nuance, maybe for the four legions that would become enslaved to the Chaos Gods, but also as for the origin of their betrayal, be it loyalty/friendship to Horus or contempt against the Emperor (IW, DG, WE to an extent, maaaaybe AL?), Chaos influence (arguably EC with the Laer sword and the kakophoni incident, TS), descent into madness (NL due to Curze's curse and the criminal influx from Nostramo, WE due to the Butcher's Nails), or completely screwed by Tzeentch (TS). As for the Alpha Legion, who knows, as usual.

 

Then again, it does seem fitting that for an Imperial narrator, there is little distinction between traitors, other than the two Legions that instigated it all. Moreover, it is unlikely for the narrator to really know much detail of the fall of the Legions.

Edited October 31, 2019 by Elzender

[Beren]

More interesting notes:

 

The Forgeworld of Zhao Arkhad is listed as Traitoris Obsequium/Fidelitas Perdita, while their Legio Xestobiax is listed as Officio Fidelitas. I don't know much about Latin, so I can't tell you what it translates to.

 

For those who don't know, Zhao-Arkhad was censured after Prospero because of the self-defense of it's forge-fane there, but the Martian Retribution fleet never arrived. The Supreme-Domini declared for the Warmaster and was immediately assassinated, shattering the tenuous peace there. The forge-fanes were then split between isolationists who remained on the planet and wanted nothing to do with anyone, and others that departed to fight on either side of the war. Zhao-arkhad was later reclaimed in its entirety during the scouring. Legio Xestobiax was largely stranded on Zhao-arkhad and thus took no major role in the war during this time period.

Edited October 31, 2019 by Beren

[Marshal Rohr]

Love this breakdown. 

[Sandlemad]

More interesting notes:

 

The Forgeworld of Zhao Arkhad is listed as Traitoris Obsequium/Fidelitas Perdita, while their Legio Xestobiax is listed as Officio Fidelitas. I don't know much about Latin, so I can't tell you what it translates to.

 

For those who don't know, Zhao-Arkhad was censured after Prospero because of the self-defense of it's forge-fane there, but the Martian Retribution fleet never arrived. The Supreme-Domini declared for the Warmaster and was immediately assassinated, shattering the tenuous peace there. The forge-fanes were then split between isolationists who remained on the planet and wanted nothing to do with anyone, and others that departed to fight on either side of the war. Zhao-arkhad was later reclaimed in its entirety during the scouring. Legio Xestobiax was largely stranded on Zhao-arkhad and thus took no major role in the war during this time period.

 

Good catch! My take for those bits of bodge-latin would be that Zhao-Arkhad is something like 'Yielding Traitor', as in either 'traitor but surrendered as part of the reclamation' or 'traitor only insofar as they yielded to worse traitors', i.e. 'hung out with a bad crowd, guv'.

 

'Fidelitas Perdita' has more potential meanings... Faithful but lost? They lost their faith in the imperial cause? This is the problem with/charm of high gothic, it's resistant to actual proper latin declension... For Legio Xestobiax, I'd take it as 'Officially Loyal' simply but maybe 'Loyal to their office as stay-at-home garrison defenders over the greater imperium'?

 

Either way I get the feel that these examples are meant to be making the crime of disloyalty less damning. After all they are one of the highest profile cases of a faction reconciling with the imperium after a pseudo-neutral stance during the heresy. A forge world and a titan legion are a much bigger deal than a warband of blackshields. Zhao-Arkadd and the Legio Xestobiax are an interesting one because they complicate the vicious post-heresy 'traitor or loyalist' dichotomy. That they fought against the Legio Mortis in an action that (at least immediately after the heresy) was known to be down to Horus's misdirection probably helped.

 

I wonder how the forge world of Incaladion would shape up. The Legio Fureans were arch-traitors and at least a large part of the forge pledged to Horus but after the heresy it remained a significant Adeptus Mechanicus world.

[Marshal Rohr]

Would that be loyal in treachery, since the forge world split?

[Sandlemad]

I can see that working. As a central imperial statement about the forge world that phrasing prioritises/lionises the surviving loyalist faction, you know, the true believers who held on in the midst of division. A less charitable imperium or one less inclined to take a pragmatic approach might put it in a way similar to what the White Scars got, Fidelitas Scindo/"Split Faith".

[Beren]

I bring you more phrases.

 

Unfortunately Legio Tempestus which I'd picked up Conquest to look at' was listed as uncomfirmed with a large Traitoris Perdita contigent. House Vyronni on the other hand was listed as 'Fedelitas Tenax'. Again I'm not sure what this means, though it could refer to their depleted strength, a territorial defense or perhaps loyalty by default (they were attacked by the traitors).

 

House Vornherr from Tempest is 'Fidelis ad Mortem, which given their fate probably means 'loyal in death' or 'loyal to their deaths'. That said, the same title was not given to Legio Praesagius (Fidelitas Constantus) indicating either that the Titan Legio somehow survived its dire losses at calth or that the title equates to "the traitors slaughtered them, so I guess they were ours".

Edited November 2, 2019 by Beren

[Leif Bearclaw]

 

House Vornherr from Tempest is 'Fidelis ad Mortem, which given their fate probably means 'loyal in death' or 'loyal to their deaths'. That said, the same title was not given to Legio Praesagius (Fidelitas Constantus) indicating either that the Titan Legio somehow survived its dire losses at calth or that the title equates to "the traitors slaughtered them, so I guess they were ours".

This could simply be that Vornherr was fully wiped, with the handful of survivors unable to reconstitute the House. Whereas Preasagius's home Forge World of Gantz seems to have survived the Heresy and into m41, True Messengers were reconstituted by their Home World despite the losses at Calth, and thus the Legion was not struck from the Imperial Order of Battle. Something similar seems to have happened with Tempestus, as most/all of their loyal grouping died on Mars, yet the Stormlords were definitely still in Imperial service in m41.

[Lucerne]

 

 

-...but the Thousand Sons especially seem like they deserve some sort of special classification, such as "Traitoris Idiosos": traitors for being idiots rather than outright rebellion (does that put me in the "Magnus did nothing wrong" camp?).

Eh. Magnus and the Sons kinda committed outright rebellion before Horus (long before, if you count the deal Magnus made with Tzeentch over the Flesh Change, but that's not common knowledge, so it's kinda unfair to count it in the context of a Imperial Historical Document, which is what the Black Books ultimately are) both the initial, Nikea breaking message to Terra and the repeated refusals to stand down when offered in spite of Horus's orders. Got to say, especially from the in universe viewpoint of the Black Books the Sons are plenty guilty and Perditia seems like a solid description.

 

 

-The Night Lords also seem to deserve something more akin to a "Traitoris Fidel Dimittas:" Traitors who let their loyalty slip away."

I dunno, that could be spun just as easily for most of the Traitors. If the NL need a special criteria, imo something like 'Traitoris Amentia' (Traitors of Madness/Mania) is more fitting, and even then you could claim that applies to other Traitor Legions too (like the WEs and IWs, maybe the EC). Though I'm almost certainly getting the suffixes wrong, even for pig Latin.

 

The other thing to point out, though I'm loath to admit it, the terrible 'every loyalist Legion had Traitors' bit FW included in either book 4 or 6 (forget which) specifically noted what appeared to be Traitor SWs. Though imo that was most likely either a AL false flag,

 

That was a fantastic bit of lore- it's been ridiculous in both 30k and 40k that we don't see more turncoats from, say, Ultramarines because blue armor and mismanagement shouldn't make ignorant, powerhungry supersoldiers immune to temptation.

[battle captain corpus]

As with all things...its really just lots of shades of grey....there is no black and white. ;)

 

BCC

[Leif Bearclaw]

That was a fantastic bit of lore- it's been ridiculous in both 30k and 40k that we don't see more turncoats from, say, Ultramarines because blue armor and mismanagement shouldn't make ignorant, powerhungry supersoldiers immune to temptation.

 

 

40k? Sure, whatever. Though given how 40k era traitors tend to adopt new colours 'which Chapter did they come from' isn't exactly obvious most of the time. The Ultramrines are just 1 Chapter in 1000 after all, so it would actually be far less plausible if we kept running into new Traitors from 1st Founding Chapters at higher rates than the others.

 

30k? Nope. It just doesn't add up. Why would a GC era Ultramarine follow Horus? He's already in a warrior brotherhood with a stupidly charismatic, cult of personality type figure at its head, the Ultramarines Legion. Even if he's not a particular fan of Gulliman personally, there's still the greater loyalty to the Emperor (that's why so much of the conversation around the loyalists from Traitor Legions in the early HH series boiled down to 'Primarch or Emperor?' that's not really a choice for loyalist Legions). To join up with the Traitors he'd need to be more taken in by a different Primarch's cult of personalty, to a higher degree than either loyalty to Gulliman or the Emperor/Imperium. There are a few exceptions, most often single individuals (with decent explanations behind them) but having large scale defections to the Traitor side from loyalist Legions is awful fluff. Just look at the Scars (one of, if not the best, cases (DA aside) for 'Traitor Loyalists'). A Legion with a heavy Horus leaning lobbying group in it, but as soon as Khan got involved and picked a side, that was it, and the pro-Horus side went into the Sagyar Mazan suicide units and died for atonement, as ordered by their Primarch (and I'm unaware of any cited case of those units flipping to Traitor when out on their own). Plus it really undercuts the HH story of the DAs.

 

But this might be getting a tad off topic .

[Marshal Rohr]

There were legionaries from every legion that joined Horus, went rogue, or stayed loyal. It’s one of the coolest and strongest world building facets of the Black Book lore. The Latin Ratings probably indicate the known amounts of Legionaries who changed sides.

[Lucerne]

 

That was a fantastic bit of lore- it's been ridiculous in both 30k and 40k that we don't see more turncoats from, say, Ultramarines because blue armor and mismanagement shouldn't make ignorant, powerhungry supersoldiers immune to temptation.

 

 

40k? Sure, whatever. Though given how 40k era traitors tend to adopt new colours 'which Chapter did they come from' isn't exactly obvious most of the time. The Ultramrines are just 1 Chapter in 1000 after all, so it would actually be far less plausible if we kept running into new Traitors from 1st Founding Chapters at higher rates than the others.

 

30k? Nope. It just doesn't add up. Why would a GC era Ultramarine follow Horus? He's already in a warrior brotherhood with a stupidly charismatic, cult of personality type figure at its head, the Ultramarines Legion. Even if he's not a particular fan of Gulliman personally, there's still the greater loyalty to the Emperor (that's why so much of the conversation around the loyalists from Traitor Legions in the early HH series boiled down to 'Primarch or Emperor?' that's not really a choice for loyalist Legions). To join up with the Traitors he'd need to be more taken in by a different Primarch's cult of personalty, to a higher degree than either loyalty to Gulliman or the Emperor/Imperium. There are a few exceptions, most often single individuals (with decent explanations behind them) but having large scale defections to the Traitor side from loyalist Legions is awful fluff. Just look at the Scars (one of, if not the best, cases (DA aside) for 'Traitor Loyalists'). A Legion with a heavy Horus leaning lobbying group in it, but as soon as Khan got involved and picked a side, that was it, and the pro-Horus side went into the Sagyar Mazan suicide units and died for atonement, as ordered by their Primarch (and I'm unaware of any cited case of those units flipping to Traitor when out on their own). Plus it really undercuts the HH story of the DAs.

 

But this might be getting a tad off topic .

 

Because the Ultramarines shouldn't actually be a blob of mindlessly loyal boy scouts- they have flaws like every other Legion, have oddballs like every other Legion, and indoctrination and groupthink will always have exceptions. The Emperor, beloved by all, has at this point badly misjudged the loyalty of the space marines in general, there have been years for ill-feeling to set in and in an entire Legion, there will always be the ambitious or begrudging who get ideas. The galaxy's on fire, nothing matters anymore, and in the context of 30k, the Imperium may well appear to be over- so hail Horus and praise these "gods" who grant power?

 

The DA undercut themselves- their story is about their neuroses, not about them being justified in their paranoia because of the non-existence of a few turncoats and blackshields. The Heresy is about a complete breakdown of trust and brotherhood at every level. The idea that some Legions were completely loyal completely undermines that core theme of the Heresy as a whole- brother against brother and the death of innocence.

 

Also, you may want to look into the Scars more- there are entire formations of them flying the Warmaster's banner at one point or another.

Edited November 3, 2019 by Ugolino

[Indefragable]

Just closing this out since I'm OCD with leaving things unfinished...

 

With Book 9: Crusade out, we now know that the I Legion the Dark Angels are......

 

 

<Drum roll>

 

 

Fidelitas Constantus

 

 

Yay. Big fanfare and horns blowing. Yea right, nothing really remarkable here. Just closing it out for completeness sake. 

[Beren]

Fidelitas Scindo for Legio Victorum.

[The Scorpion]

Just closing this out since I'm OCD with leaving things unfinished...

 

With Book 9: Crusade out, we now know that the I Legion the Dark Angels are......

 

 

<Drum roll>

 

 

Fidelitas Constantus

 

 

Yay. Big fanfare and horns blowing. Yea right, nothing really remarkable here. Just closing it out for completeness sake. 

 

 

What about other forces of the Imperium? I remember the knight house of Vryonii being under the designation "Fidelitas Tenax", for how they sided with the Emperor even though their oaths boud them indirectly to the Warmaster. They had every reason to turn, but didn't.

[Indefragable]

Fidelitas Scindo for Legio Victorum.

 

 

 

Just closing this out since I'm OCD with leaving things unfinished...

 

With Book 9: Crusade out, we now know that the I Legion the Dark Angels are......

 

 

<Drum roll>

 

 

Fidelitas Constantus

 

 

Yay. Big fanfare and horns blowing. Yea right, nothing really remarkable here. Just closing it out for completeness sake. 

 

 

What about other forces of the Imperium? I remember the knight house of Vryonii being under the designation "Fidelitas Tenax", for how they sided with the Emperor even though their oaths boud them indirectly to the Warmaster. They had every reason to turn, but didn't.

 

 

The Titan Legion sections provide a whole other layer of interesting classifications. That is something I may revisit down the line, though I personally am not that interested in Titans which is why I skipped it the first time around. If anyone is motivated enough to do so, I can either post that information in the main post or provide the link to a new post, all duly credited of course. 

[Beren]

So, with Loyalist Legios now out we have some new ones, though I'm only equipped to make guesses about.

 

Fidelitas Exemplorum:

Legio Ignatum

Legio Honorum

-Given that Legio Ignatum was notorious for its loyalty to Terra and the Emperor, this one doesn't require too much guesswork.

 

Fidelitas Tenax:

House Taranis

House Vyronii

House Coldsroud

House Terryn

House Moritain

-With the sider range of subjects, it now looks like this is some reference (possibly for Knight Houses only) to defensive action against adverse circumstances. The main Taranis contingent fell to the last defending Magma City, Vyronii fought off an ambush on its homeworld, an Understrength Garrison of Terryn Knights fended of assaults on their homeworld against the odds, COldshroud suffered its single greatst loss of life in a defensive rearguard action while buying time for Legio Gryphonicus titans to withdraw, and Moritain is mentioned as having suffered heavy casualties attempting to protect civilian populations in the Belt of Iron.

 

Fidelitas ad Mortem:

House Vornherr

-Already discussed.

 

Fidelitas Pietas:

Legio Defensor

-Given their reputation as having deified the Emperor early on, this doesn't require much thought either.

 

All the others are either Fidelitas Constantus or 'Unconfirmed'.

Edited April 17, 2021 by Beren