By dedicating himself to the gods of Chaos, a heretical Space Marine not only finds a patron who approves of his new life, but who will actively reward him for following it. For one whose existence was denial and obedience, the euphoria of this realisation can be more powerful than the pride he once felt at being accepted as warrior of the Adeptus Astartes. It is this temptation, this abyss of bloody gratification, that constantly beckons to the Space Marines.
They cannot claim ignorance of it, because the teachings of their Chapters and the Chaplains remind them on a daily basis of what lies on the other side of their purpose and stringent duty. To turn to Chaos, he must walk a different road, choosing obscene freedom in place of righteous servitude — whether done with good or selfish intentions, once made, it is a decision that cannot be recanted.
From the moment he renounces the Emperor, a Space Marine is truly damned. During the Age of Strife, swirling warp storms, brutal alien invasions and rampant civil war had isolated many worlds, leaving them vulnerable to attack and leading to their drastic technological decline. When, at the end of this era, the Emperor revealed himself on Terra and began his quest to reunite the race of Mankind, it was at the head of an army of altered super-warriors — the predecessors to the Space Marines.
Following his success in conquering the techno-barbarian tribes of Terra, the saviour of Mankind turned his eyes to the stars. While his warriors proved more than capable of slaying the rebels and strange beasts of Terra, the Emperor knew that the shadowy threats lurking in the darkness of the galaxy would require something more. He set about improving his biological techniques, perfecting the warrior genes he would need to create an army of post-humans that could reconquer the galaxy.
The pinnacle of his success was the Primarch Program, in which the Emperor used his own rich genetic code to create twenty super-beings, each with the strength of a dozen men and intelligence to rival that of the Emperor himself.
These gods amongst men were masterpieces of arcane science, destined to reunite the scattered realms of Man. A mysterious force swept up the infant Primarchs and flung them through the immaterium far from Terra, eventually depositing them upon distant human worlds. Perhaps it was during this cosmic voyage that Chaos first touched the Primarchs, whispering in their dreams and sowing the seeds of future tyrannies as they slept.
He had gleaned much invaluable knowledge and data from his experiment. Numbering hundreds of thousands of genetically enhanced warriors and boasting fearsome weapons and starships, each Space Marine Legion was powerful enough to conquer whole worlds. With these warriors under his command, the Emperor stepped out into the turbulent galaxy. World after world was brought into the Imperial fold, some rejoicing at being found by the warriors of Terra, others not so willing to bow before the might of the Emperor.
It mattered not, for there was no force capable of resisting the Space Marine Legions for long. Each was given a Legion to command — a Legion created from his own genetic material. It was a golden time for the armies and servants of the Emperor of Mankind. The insidious forces of Chaos had set into motion the events of their near destruction many decades earlier.
The most dire threat to the Imperium was not to come from the xenos filth that infested the galaxy, but from amongst the ranks of the Space Marines themselves. The leader of this rebellion, after whom the heresy is named, was the most praised and respected of all the Primarchs — Horus. Since that cataclysmic act of treachery, the Imperium of Man has been consumed by war within and without; a war so vast it may yet bring the Imperium to its knees.
The innate psychic abilities of that ancient race brought about the creation of a new and terrible god — Slaanesh, the Dark Prince of Excess, whose birth almost spelled their extinction. Many worlds once claimed by Mankind had been taken over by aliens or corrupted by megalomaniacal tyrants. The reclamation of the stars was a long, hard-fought struggle, but the Legiones Astartes were ascendant.
With every victory, the Imperium grew as new worlds joined the Great Crusade. Secondly, wherever the populations of Eldar were the greatest, the immaterium literally spilled out and mixed with material space. This created many of the scattered zones in the galaxy where the warp and realspace overlap, the largest and most significant of which is known as the Eye of Terror. The Eldar had come face to face with their darkest desires and had been found wanting.
For Mankind, the rise of their own empire — and its inexorable slide into damnation — was only just beginning. Led by the Emperor and the Primarchs he had gathered to his side, the conquering armies of Mankind swept across the galaxy like a firestorm.
Thousands of worlds and untold billions of souls were liberated by the triumphant Space Marine Legions. Foul and sinister holds were shattered, alien dominions were overthrown, and the Imperium of Man was forged in a heroic age of conquest and rediscovery. With the unparalleled vision and skill of the Emperor driving it onwards, Humanity rose to the task of rebuilding its ancient heritage. The minions of darkness retreated to their own realms, and the alien was cast into the void. Though his Primarchs had been scattered by the machinations of the Chaos Gods, he strived to track each of them down and enact his vision of a superhuman army.
The seeds of corruption had already been sown across the Imperium, tainting the ambition of common men and even taking root amongst its highest echelons. The Chaos Gods whispered to the Primarchs from the warp, disturbing their dreams with promises of limitless power. In the underground labyrinths of Calth, the vendetta between the Word Bearers and the Ultramarines turned to outright war.
Brother fought brother, former allies turned into the most bitter foes by an act of treachery that would resound through the galaxy forever more. No single Primarch was wholly resistant. The character of each was sorely tested, and fully half of them eventually failed that test. This list of names should have been a roll-call of honour, a roster of mighty heroes that would make the enemies of Mankind tremble.
Yet each succumbed to the honeyed promises of Chaos and reneged on their fealty to the Emperor, and each became a figure of infamy that would haunt the Imperium for time immemorial. When the rebellion against the Emperor came, its leader was to be the Primarch least suspected of any treachery; the great and noble Warmaster, Horus. Yet the announcement bred jealousy and confusion in many of the Primarchs. Did their father really intend to abandon them at this most critical time?
Without explanation, the Emperor left for Terra in order to further his mysterious agenda, leaving Horus to deal with the Crusade in his wake. Initially, even the mighty Primarchs had little idea that they had fallen to the wiles of the Chaos Gods.
When they rebelled, their good intentions and just causes began to fall away as their spirits became saturated with the energies of the warp. Slowly they were remade, body and soul, by the powers that claimed them.
The Space Marine Legions that they led inevitably followed the fall of their commanders, blind to the faults of their genetic fathers and ever hungry for more conquest. The corrupting force of Chaos spread into the Imperial Army and the Mechanicum. There, beset on all sides, Horus fell to a blow from an eldritch sword. The tainted wound festered, plunging Horus into a fugue state from which he could not be roused.
The Sons of Horus were desolate at the loss of their founding father. Under the advice of Erebus, a respected Chaplain of the Word Bearers, the most senior members of the Legion took their Primarch to one of the Davinite warrior lodges for healing.
Although superhuman in physique, they were all too human in their souls, and therefore fallible. The Emperor decreed that if the commander of Isstvan went unpunished, other worlds might follow. Horus chose to end the Isstvan rebellion swiftly and without mercy, employing virus bombs against Isstvan III from orbit. The voracious life-eater virus consumed every living thing upon the planet in a matter of minutes. Whole continents and cities were burnt to ashes as the mass of gasses released by the rotting organic material ignited in the atmosphere, scouring Isstvan III clean in a devastating firestorm.
Twelve billion souls died with a death scream that momentarily pulsed brighter than the Astronomican. It was a signal to the Chaos Gods that Horus was now completely theirs, for it was an act of treachery on a scale never before seen. Horus had ensured their numbers were almost entirely made up of those Space Marines from each Legion who were still loyal to the Emperor, intending to wipe out those who had proved incorruptible in a single deadly stroke.
Of these brave warriors, fully two-thirds miraculously survived the bombardment, thanks to warning messages received from the dwindling ranks of loyal comrades left aboard the orbiting fleet of the Warmaster. Angron, headstrong as ever, made planetfall at the head of fifty companies of Traitor Marines to slay these survivors. The ground war began in earnest, signalling the start of the greatest turmoil to ever have engulfed the Imperium. On Mars, the Tech-Priests turned ancient, forbidden weaponry upon each other, further scarring the face of the Red Planet in their bitter struggle for dominance.
The Imperium tore itself apart as old feuds were revived and ambitious planetary lords seized the opportunity to declare their secession. With the initial attack stalled, Horus brought his entire arsenal of weapons and warriors to bear.
For over a month, the gigantic cannons of the rebel army pounded the walls, foremost amongst them the siege weapons of the Iron Warriors and the Legio Mortis Titan Legion. Eventually, after heavy bombardment, part of the curtain wall came crashing down. The Traitor Legions hurled themselves at the breach to pour into the inner palace. At the heart of the fighting stood the Primarchs.
The indomitable Rogal Dorn of the Imperial Fists and noble Sanguinius of the Blood Angels fought a desperate rearguard action to halt the force pouring through the breach. To the terrified populace of Terra, it was as if their world was drowned in battle.
The loyalists were attacked from both sides, and very few escaped. As the rebel forces slowly closed their grip upon the loyalist troops, the Emperor readied himself for the final conflict.
The last hours of Humanity had come, and the few remaining gallant defenders prepared themselves for certain death. The Legions of Horus poured into the Imperial Palace in an unstoppable wave. Shouting praise to the gods of Chaos, the Traitors threw themselves at the final lines of defence. Hundreds of depraved attackers died to salvoes of bolt shells and lascannon blasts, but the Chaos Space Marines were implacable in their advance. The Imperium was soon entirely engulfed by civil war.
All across the galaxy, loyalists and rebels fought tooth and nail to destroy each other, gripped in a bitter conflict that would see all of Mankind fall — or worse, enslaved by the Ruinous Powers. Even with his Space Marines, his daemonic allies and half the Titan Legions behind him, Horus could sense that time was of the essence. The Warmaster had become an almighty champion of Chaos, and he and his ship writhed with the fell power of the Dark Gods.
Nightmarish beyond comprehension, the sight of it drove many of the Space Marines mad. Despite the horror of his surroundings, the Emperor pressed on towards the bridge, seeking the Warmaster. The skies turned black with Chaos Drop Pods and Dreadclaw assault craft. As the traitors sought to conquer the hundreds of square miles of towers, walls and bastions that formed the Palace defences, the dead were piled so thickly that their corridors became blocked by the press of corpses.
Gigantic dropships landed at Lions Gate and many other starports, bringing a second wave of Heretic Astartes to the fight. When the Emperor breached the armoured doors of the bridge, he finally came face to face with his misguided son.
Horus, swollen with the power of Chaos, stood over the dead and broken body of the angelic Primarch Sanguinius. Horus faced his creator, and in an instant, the two were locked in deadly battle, likened ever after to a duel between gods. They battled not only with powered blade and claw, but also on the psychic plane, their bodies and spirits locked in a struggle to the death.
With a last effort, the Emperor struck home, The Emperor had always been guided by his innate prescience, but even he could not be sure which way the tide of this battle would finally turn. After being notified that loyalist reinforcements were soon to arrive, the Warmaster decided to take a risky gambit and lowered the shields protecting his flagship, hoping to lure the Emperor into a personal confrontation.
That very instant, the Master of Mankind saw what he had to do. It was the final chance at victory for both sides, for the future of the human race was at stake. In doing so the Emperor paid the ultimate price for his victory, and darkness overcame him as he finally allowed his body to suffer his terrible wounds. With the death of the Warmaster, the Chaos armies lost the assistance of their daemonic allies — and with it, the resolve to fight.
The Battle for Terra was over, but the cost was unthinkable. The Emperor ascended to the arcane life-support systems of the Golden Throne to hold his ultimate death at bay.
Terra was in ruins, her cities levelled, her peoples devastated. Such was the ferocity of their attacks that nothing short of the complete rebuilding of Terra could even begin to heal the wounds inflicted during the siege.
The loyalists had won, though the Imperium lay in tatters around them. The Traitor Legions retreated to the Eye of Terror, swearing that they would return to set the galaxy aflame once more. He took with him the body of the Warmaster, and an unquenchable thirst for vengeance. Within the giant warp rift, the traitor Primarchs and their Legions found sanctuary amongst the nightmarish Daemon worlds.
They warred amongst themselves for dominance and territory, while factions split from the Legions to found other warbands and armies. They have never stopped fighting against the Emperor. This struggle has lasted for ten thousand years and even now besets the Imperium. The Horus Heresy is a distant memory, but the taint of Chaos still threatens to corrupt — the Long War continues. They sought to purge those brothers that had turned to darkness, following on their heels with the focus of a pride of lions on the hunt.
The period that followed was known as the Scouring. The Traitor Legions and their twisted Primarchs continued to fight — no longer for the conquest of the Imperium, but for their own survival. The wars of the Scouring lasted many years and almost exhausted the manifold armies of Terra. The loyalists eventually hounded their turncoat brethren into the Eye of Terror.
It became both prison and stronghold to the traitors, the only stable space lane in and out barred by the fortress world of Cadia.
Still the traitors launched their raids, wounded animals lashing out with bloodcrazed savagery. As if the traitors were not enough for the badly mauled Imperium to deal with, this time also marked the rise of the alien threat. With so much of its strength committed to its grand civil war, Humanity found itself assailed anew by the very xenos empires it had recently driven back.
The Horus Heresy had torn the nascent Imperium from the heights of glory, and plunged it into a nightmare of eternal war. It was to carry the most terrible cost. Many strange and hideous changes have been wrought upon them since their retreat, and their bodies have been reforged into forms more pleasing to the Ruinous Powers.
Still these killers remain unrepentant, convinced they walk upon the path to everlasting glory. At first, this desire is focused towards specific goals, but as time passes, it becomes a bone-deep obsession. Though the Dark Gods are given to rewarding their mortal followers for acts of carnage that further their divine cause, the gifts they bestow upon their favoured are fickle indeed.
A particularly extravagant slaughter might be rewarded with a blood-red aura that invigorates the supplicant, but it is just as likely the champion will find his arms being reshaped as axes of bone, or that he has the face of a slavering hound.
Eventually, the Chaos Space Marine seeks immortality, to ascend to such lofty heights of favour that he is remade as a Daemon Prince.
But for every successful aspirant there are hundreds of failures, mutated beyond recognition into mewling abominations known as Chaos Spawn. Ten thousand years of history have obscured those dark days when Horus almost enslaved Mankind with the shackles of Chaos. Indeed, records of the full horror of the Heresy are only preserved by the Inquisitors of the Ordo Malleus, and perhaps the memories of the Emperor himself.
Within the Eye of Terror, however, time flows differently. Many of the same traitors who howled their praises to the Gods of Chaos before the Imperial Palace still live to this day. Their defeat gnaws at them like a cancer, and their hatred of the Imperium burns undimmed. Those warriors who were once dutiful, honour-bound Space Marines have become cynical and embittered reavers determined to destroy that which they once protected. For these traitors, the Horus Heresy is not some distant, half-forgotten age, but a glorious war still in living memory — a war that is still being fought.
Little remains of the organised Legions that waged war upon ancient Terra. Millennia of jealousies and infighting have broken down the Legions into companies and warbands of varying sizes.
Each is led by a captain or champion of Chaos who pursues his own destiny. The most fervent worshippers of the Dark Powers band together to form squads blessed by a patron god and bear their mark upon their bodies and armour. Most have simply sworn themselves to all of the Chaos Gods. In the ever-changing delirium of the Daemon worlds, many traitor Legionaries have survived the worst of the warping influence of Chaos by keeping their sense of purpose.
They are carried forth by ancient warships that have survived from the time of the Heresy, but are now encrusted with millennia of baroque decoration and scarred by old battle wounds. The Traitor Legions also capture drifting space hulks — vast agglomerations of spaceborne detritus and wreckage — and refit them to use as vast battle barges carrying thousands of troops.
With these assets, the warbands of Chaos go forth to despoil the worlds of the Emperor, enslave his followers and steal his wealth so that they might carry out further attacks.
Thus, the punitive raids of the Traitor Legions are an ever-present threat to the worlds of the Imperium, especially to those systems around the Eye of Terror. With each new millennium, dozens of disillusioned or power-hungry Chapters defect, just as Horus did. Only the High Lords and the Inquisition have any idea of how deep the rot goes. Nonetheless, some renegades have achieved such notoriety that their legends resonate throughout entire sectors.
Over the course of centuries, the forces of Chaos have been further swelled by Space Marines who have turned from the light of the Emperor to pursue their own agendas. Freed from the dogma and traditions of their Chapters, these renegade Space Marines become corsairs and mercenaries, using their unequalled battle skills to gather wealth and power.
The most powerful then set themselves up as the tyrannical figureheads of pirate fleets and rulers of bases hidden on desolate planets. As they explore this new freedom, these Space Marines inevitably turn at some point to the Gods of Chaos to grant them more power to do with as they will. From this point on, they are as doomed to walk the path of the Chaos champion as any Traitor from the Horus Heresy.
These renegades are hunted men; they are especially loathed by other Space Marine Chapters, who consider it a duty of honour to crush any renegades lest their perfidious behaviour become a stain upon the honour of all Space Marines. Though never rivalling the size and power of the Legions, a Space Marine Chapter is a potent military force.
Such events always warrant an extreme response from the Imperium, usually involving the intervention of other Space Marine Chapters.
It is perhaps the most trying test of faith for a Space Marine to have to pit his skill, training and loyalty against another Space Marine. Though the scions of Chaos do not have the unshakeable faith of their loyalist brethren, the disturbing gifts they receive from the Ruinous Powers in return for their allegiance can more than compensate.
Because of this, these internecine conflicts often have a calamitous effect on other Chapters nearby. Inter-Chapter wars tend to escalate quickly, engulfing many worlds in war and bloodshed. On occasion, those forces sent to deal with the treacherous Chapter may actually end up, in whole or in part, joining with those they were sent to destroy.
Just such an occurrence took place during the Obscuran Uprisings of the late 34th Millennium. During the four hundred years of separatist rebellions that were spread across much of Segmentum Obscurus, at least seven Chapters broke their oaths to the Emperor and took part in the pillaging of hundreds of vulnerable or warravaged worlds.
Of these Chapters, two — the Sons of Vengeance and the Silver Guards — initially fought on the side of the Imperium, but fractured into warbands and turned renegade after their actions against the Free Council of Hannedra II. Insurgencies such as these plague the history of the Adeptus Astartes, and each has been a devastating setback to the Imperium that its masters are eager to suppress.
Over the years a Chaos Space Marine obsessed with death may find his helm transforming into a flayed skull that is fused to his own features, whilst one who seeks to glut himself on flesh finds his intestines mingling with the recycler cables of his power armour until he is a living engine of consumption. Often, these perverted anatomies echo the shapes and hues of the Daemon servants of the Ruinous Powers, marking the Chaos Space Marine as the property of his patron, body and soul.
The bitterness and spite of the Heretic Astartes has spread throughout the galaxy, spilling from the warp before bleeding back once more for time immemorial. Though the Inquisition takes great pains to quell reports of Chaos incursions in order to spare the common populace from unconventional thought, legends of these events persist across the galaxy, handed down through the generations by the foolish and the brave.
The first Space Marines are created in turn. With the warp storms that isolated Terra dissipated, the Emperor goes forth into the galaxy. The Imperium of Man is born. The Horus Heresy The galaxy is torn by rebellion. The forces of Chaos are eventually hurled back from Terra. Though Guilliman is mighty indeed, his opponent is a serpentine giant swollen with daemonic power, each of his four arms wielding a poisoned blade.
First Post: As the title states, what have you been spending or plan to spend in the short term your gaming m First Post: From the developers of the Divinity games. Very little real info at the moment, apart from the just Last Post: Voss, you keep saying 7th level players. First Post: Denofgeek have been speaking to the birdies, and it seems the sixth Terminator film which ignores t Last Post: Im pretty sure theyre supposed to look tired and worn out.
Now with added trailer! By: Necros [ Go to page: 1, 2, First Post: I have a Weirdboy and use Tellyporta in every match and I still find myself facing the opponents rel First Post: Since the other thread was locked, Ill try this and see if it works. Lets discuss the firearms you By: djones [ Go to page: 1, 2, First Post: Our Codex has been released!
Lets begin with tactical discussion, now that were fully establis First Post: What the title says really, Im looking for some more 28mm scale pilot models to add to my collection Im new -ish to the hobby bee First Post: Hi folks.
Its been a long time coming and could be longer yet but Ive decided to just go ahead Last Post: Chapter Humans? What humans? By: theCrowe [ First Unread ]. You get to re-roll 1s to hit for shooting, when you dont move. First Post: Next week I am going into a game with the new Vanguard Primaris models that were recently released a First Post: Seems appropriate that there should be a specific thread to all things Ynnari.
Based on the May Whit Last Post: I think the Yncarnes main role is to make the Avatar feel good about itself. Summoned units remain in play until the end phase of the turn in which they were summoned. Void shields that have been knocked down can be repaired.
Alternatively you can visit Games Workshop s website for more information. Warhammer Codex - Blood Angels 8th. When calculating victory points, the Lesser Daemon pool scores half points if the pool has less than or equal to half round up its original number of daemons remaining. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
On 22nd April Games Workshop announced via their Warhammer Community Website that when 8th Edition was released, all Army codexes would be obsolete. Codex Supplements have their parent faction noted in brackets. All codexes were rendered obsolete by 3rd edition Warhammer 40, Battlezone codexes were rules supplements that dealt with a specialised combat environment, instead of an army.
There was only ever one produced. However, material in Codex: Catachans provides rules for jungle warfare. The concept of a Battlezone codex was replaced by Games Workshop's Expansions. The two event codexes were released in association with the and Worldwide Campaigns.
These codexes provided background and special gaming rules for the event, along with four 'supplemental army lists'; variant armies that required access to certain other Codices for use. Posted by 2 years ago. Example early 3rd edition Codex Imperial Guard Each codex had its own lettering style for the title.
Example late 3rd edition Codex Imperial Guard All of these longer codexes had a standard black border and common title style.
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