Bitter Legion Torrent

It is interesting, then, to look back nearly 180 years at another caravan that largely walked from Santa Fé, New Mexico to greater Los Angeles and bitter invective about them made by a political figure. On this day in 1841, approximately 65 persons, including Americans, Europeans and New Mexicans, arrived in this region after a 1,200-mile trek over a little more than two months along the Old Spanish Trail.

That happened about the first of September 1841, several months after the Bidwell-Bartleson Party left Sapling Grove, Missouri and became the first of a legion of wagon trains to ply the famed California and Oregon trails across prairies and mountains west, opening the coast to overland migration. Rowland and Workman were joined by about two dozen other Americans and Europeans on their departure and then were accompanied by a large contingent of New Mexicans at the town of Abiquiu, not far northwest along the trail.

Bitter Legion torrent

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the naturalized foreigners Juan Rooland and William Workman, traitors who have gone to California to seduce and confuse its inhabitants, whose exemplary punishment would be the only dike to the torrent of evils that they have committed in this department under my command, and will be the ones which undoubtedly they will commit in the Californias.

The Iron Warriors received cross training on Mars, further refining this specialisation, until only the Imperial Fists of Rogal Dorn could equal their expertise. World after world that rejected the future espoused by the Emperor's Iterators capitulated when confronted with the prospect of a protracted siege by the Iron Warriors, and countless worlds were brought to Imperial Compliance that would otherwise have been devastated in bitter, and ultimately pointless wars.

As the tragic outbreak of the Horus Heresy grew closer, it appears that Perturabo was put under ever increasing pressure, and as a result the fires of his bitterness were stoked to a raging inferno. Some have postulated that it was the Warmaster Horus himself who, time after time, engineered events and adjusted deployments to the primarch's detriment and further stoked his sense of tremendous grievance. Whatever the truth, events came to a head when, following the death of the Tyrant of Lochos, the people of Olympia rebelled against the rule of the Iron Warriors.

History records little of the machinations Horus must surely have enacted in order to turn the bitter Perturabo to the cause of the Traitors, but whatever the truth, the Iron Warriors turned upon their brothers at Istvaan V, and in so doing sealed their damnation for all time.

This lauded record masked a long-simmering discord within the IVth Legion itself, however. A discord bred by ill-use and slights both real and imagined which, as time went on, was given outward sign by a marked distance and growing distrust between the Iron Warriors Legion and the Great Crusade it served. A growing bitterness festered in the hearts of its increasingly paranoid and withdrawn primarch.

This bitter stubbornness grew over time within the IVth Legion, and became a point almost of pride with them -- they refused to fail, regardless of the cost in lives, and were determined to claw victory against any odds by sheer dint of discipline and firepower.

It was when the Space Marines smashed their way into the lightless inner sanctums of the Night Courts at the heart of the towering citadels of obsidian that the bitterest fighting took place. Swept by batteries of lethal neutron rays and assailed by suicidal mobs of Accusators armed with powered chain-hammers able to split even Legiones Astartes battle-plate, the casualties mounted, but the IVth Legion did not falter.

It is also similarly a testament to them and the cold and cruel genius of their Primarch, that such losses were routinely absorbed by the Legion without serous lasting depreciation of the Iron Warriors' strategic fighting power and that high casualties rarely resulted in defeat for the IVth Legion. However, despite their genetically enhanced resilience to mental trauma and psycho-indoctrination, it is believed that such a continuous exposure to loss and destruction worked a slow and bitter corrosion on the Legion's psyche.

By the last solar decades of the Great Crusade, rivalries as well as often mutual simmering disdain, such as the antipathy between the Iron Warriors and Raven Guard Legion brought on by friction during the Icessunder War, and an increasingly bitter rivalry between the Iron Warriors and the Imperial Fists, characterised the Iron Warriors' relationship with its fellow Legions.

Meanwhile, Perturabo's own 125th Expeditionary Fleet was driven into the teeth of deadly foe after deadly foe, neither asking for, nor being sent reinforcements or additional resources, save for those it could itself generate and acquire. Perturabo, bitter but iron in his word, complied.

Where other Primarchs like Leman Russ, Vulkan and Magnus the Red refused to split their forces, Perturabo obeyed his orders with increasing bitterness. The Iron Warriors were being turned into a garrison Legion, with tiny deployments all over the Imperium. The Iron Warriors' indisputable success in siege warfare led to them being "typecast" so that they became the automatic choice for any siege or garrison mission, ignoring the basic needs of all the Legion's Astartes for rest and reorganisation. Resentment against the Emperor's relentless demands began to build up throughout the IVth Legion, and particularly within Perturabo himself.

As the tragic outbreak of the Horus Heresy grew closer, it appears that Perturabo was put under ever-increasing pressure, and as a result the fires of his bitterness were stoked to a raging inferno. Some have postulated that it was the Warmaster Horus who, time after time, engineered events and adjusted deployments to the Primarch's psychological detriment.

In the wake of this tragedy, the IVth Legion retreated further into a private world of stark violence and bitter paranoia. Its brutality suppressed the worlds it garrisoned with renewed savagery and unleashed genocidal force upon the first hints of open rebellion, with many of its commanders growing ever more unhinged and isolated from the Imperium they served.

Between their bitter rivalry with the Imperial Fists and the guilt derived from their butchery on Olympia, in retrospect it was no surprise that Perturabo and the IVth Legion turned Traitor to the Imperium. History records little of the machinations Horus must surely have enacted in order to turn the bitter Perturabo to the cause of the Traitors, but whatever the truth, the Iron Warriors turned upon their brothers at the Drop Site Massacre on Istvaan V, and in so doing sealed their damnation and allegiance to the Ruinous Powers.

The Phoenician was no longer the same being as had descended into the planet. He floated in the air above the shaft, which no longer poured its green torrent up to the restless darkness above, but simply radiated a fading glow of dying light. Fulgrim's armour was shimmering with vitality, as though the light of a thousand suns was contained within him and strained to break free. The Primarch's dark, doll-like eyes were twin black holes, doorways to heights of experience and sensation the likes of which could only be dreamed by madmen and those willing to go to any lengths to taste them.

By late in the Heresy, the Iron Warriors found themselves overextended, under-supplied, and engaged in thankless, bitter sieges against the forces of Roboute Guilliman. The Iron Warriors took heavy losses during these conflicts and once more found themselves in a situation of being used piecemeal across the galaxy similar to that of the Great Crusade. This course of events was finally interrupted when Perturabo received orders to find his brother Primarch Angron of the World Eaters Legion and muster with them at Ullanor in preparation for the Siege of Terra.

After seven standard years of bitter civil war following the Drop Site Massacre, a large contingent of the IVth Legion accompanied Perturabo himself to Terra, where he supervised the siege of the Imperial Palace during the Battle of Terra. The Iron Warriors found a sublime pleasure in tearing the edifices of the Imperium down.

He crafted a trap on the world of Sebastus IV designed to ensnare Rogal Dorn and the Imperial Fists, with whom Perturabo and his warriors had long harboured a bitter rivalry that had stemmed from each Legion claiming to be the best force in the Imperium at laying and defending against sieges.

The recent destruction of Khalan-Ghol on Medrengard made the Warsmith seethe with rage at the bitter defeat by the hands of Uriel Ventris. Honsou plotted his vengeance against the upstart Ultramarines captain and his Chapter. Honsou knew he would not be satisfied until he had inflicted the most wretched humiliations on the one enemy who had escaped him. Honsou attacked Defence Platform Ultra Nine, an Imperial space station that orbited above Tarsis Ultra, the sight of Captain Ventris's stunning victory over the Tyranids a few short years before. Honsou's warband slaughtered everyone aboard the station and seized control of its deadly missile payload.

So began a brutal blockade of the Imperium itself. As Perturabo's embittered armies marched forth, menageries of Daemon Engines and batteries of artillery machines at their side, a dozen fortified worlds previously thought inviolable were brought to the edge of total disaster by the Iron Warriors' merciless siege tactics.

So it was that rotting from within with loathing and bitter spite, the iron facade the IVth Legion presented to the Imperium and the extent of how rapidly and how deeply it had descended into homicidal madness was kept hidden. Only at last, when it was called on to help in the punishment of the rebellious Warmaster Horus at Istvaan V was the dark truth of its true allegiance revealed.

Countless warbands of the Iron Warriors have used Medrengard as their base of operations for centuries, plotting how to crush and imprison their enemies, the Imperial Fists foremost amongst them. Now is the time for those plans to come to fruition. As Abaddon the Despoiler flings open the gates of the Eye of Terror and leads the hosts of Chaos past Cadia's burning husk, Perturabo and his Legion of embittered Traitors march to war once more, their sole intent to wreak such devastation upon the Imperium that no stone stands upon another. 2ff7e9595c