(Imperial) Harbingers -- Corrupted by Nurgle

[tomambrosio]

+++INCOMING INDEX MALLEUS REPORT+++

 

ENTER PASSCODE: xxxxxx

 

WELCOME, INQUISITOR

 

SUBJECT: THE HARBINGERS

SUBJECT REF: 546284/54-B

CROSS-REFERENCE: PLAGUE OF Unbelief; 13TH BLACK CRUSADE; IMPERIAL HARBINGERS; ADEPTUS ASTARTES

AUTHOR: CAPTAIN AMBROSIUS, GREY KNIGHTS

 

+++Thought for the Day: The Plague of Unbelief is inside each of us -- Purge it!+++

 

Lord Inquisitor,

 

I hope this missive finds you well. Sadly, I have grave news to report and there is no easy way to state this: the Harbingers, a chapter of the adeptus astartes derived from the geneseed of the Lion, has been corrupted by the Plague of Unbelief. This is not conjecture and I know of this news firsthand. I leave it in your hands what to do with this information.

 

The events which I shall describe below took place on the hive world of Amistel (Agripinaa Sector, Segmentum Obscurus) in response to the invasion of the Sector by Typhus, the so-called Herald of Nurgle (may the Emperor damn him for all eternity), from his new base of operations in the Ulthor system. Reports that a new wave of the Plague of Unbelief had spread to this world, as well as Plague Marines of the Death Guard Traitor Legion, brought my team of Grey Knights there. The hive had already suffered relentless attacks by the Enemy and it was only the valiant actions of the adeptus astartes chapters of the Iron Knights and Howling Griffons, was well as the Legio Astorum Titans, which allowed the hive to stand.

 

Our mission was the cleanse the hive of any remaining traces of the great enemy. My team was small and consisted of only one terminator squad and two tactical squads. The honorable dreadnought Kagan provided us with heavy support. The hive appeared secure enough to detach a large portion of the adeptus astartes defenders in order for them to reinforce the Cadian system. This was a fatal mistake and may ultimately lead to the fall of the planet.

 

With seeming knowledge of our force disposition, a focused attack against the eastern hives was launched just as the adeptus astartes defenders were withdrawn and beyond the point of recall. This began as a standard attack, with wave upon wave of plague zombies assaulting the trenches dug around the hive. While the remaining defenders were busy with the zombies, movement was detected along the western hives at dusk.

 

The Imperial Guard units along those trenches reported seeing the familiar colours and livery of the Harbingers, who we know had been sent on a mission against Typhus earlier during the Black Crusade. Assuming they were friendly, the guardsmen let them approach, ignoring the fact that they did not respond to vox signals. {Editorial Note: This was a problem throughout the 13th Black Crusade. The fragmented nature of the Imperium

[Severus6]

This is well written and I have only three comments/suggestions to add/share,...the first being; the Plague of Unbelief was not an actual biological/chemical epidemic. It was a wave of disbelief in the holiness and divine right of the god-emperor of mankind. That being said, dont scrap your initial idea as it is a perfect play on words,....the Plague of Unbelief,...Death Guard,...you now have pestilence and rotting of the flesh and the soul. I am certain that is what you had in mind initially, I just wanted to clarify. The second point is that, unless I have missed something in the latest GW background, I dont believe the Harbingers are corrupted by the warp. Granted I like the idea and its a nice twist but I would suggest that possibly a company sized element or a company plus turned to chaos and those were the individuals that were faced on the planet. Finally, CPT Garro was one of the 70+ Marines that stayed loyal to the Emperor and escaped dury the early phases of the Heresy in an attempt to warn the Emperor. Just a thought, hope it helps.

 

Severus6

[Ferrata]

A few more things to add to Severus comments.

 

My team was small and consisted of only one terminator squad and two tactical squads. The honorable dreadnought Kagan provided us with heavy support

I wouldn't classify that as a small Grey Knight force. You have to remember that the table-top armies are bad representations of actual army size. If you have seen the Movie Marine rules, which squad and a Razorback would be the same as 1500 point army, Grey Knights are even better than this. Your force would easily be a moderate sized force.

 

If this was not bad enough, in one case I saw what appeared to be Brother Morr, a dedicated Grey Knight, as part of a corrupted terminator force.

Please drop this, it adds nothing to the story and goes against the fluff which states no Grey Knight has ever fallen. Having this passing mention of a fallen GK really did nothing for the story.

 

Second, Marshall Raten, the leader of the Black Templar task force, declared that he would recruit from the survivors to replace those lost in the Crusade. Cago stopped this by convincing the High Lords of Terra to create a separate, independent chapter of the Adeptus Astartes.

Inquisitors do not petition for the creation of Chapters, so I would drop this. Maybe have the Black Templars start recruiting from the planet, but the High Lords declared a new founding of chapters. Sending the Harbringers to an area recently under attack (seems logical) they set up on this planet after seeing how well the recruits had worked for BT.

 

Finally, I'm not a big fan of using real GW chapters in DIY stories unless its for training, and even then at a push. Personally I would find this how thing more believable if you replaced GW chapters with DIY names, maybe only keep the BT in as they are everywhere ;) The DA can quite easily be selected for training.

 

Good Work :D