Iron Warriors
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| Iron Warriors | |
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| Primarch | Perturabo |
|---|---|
| Battlecry | Iron Within, Iron Without! |
| Colours | Silver and Gold |
In the fictional universe of Warhammer 40,000, the Iron Warriors are one of the traitorous Chaos Space Marine Legions. The Iron Warriors' speciality lies in siege warfare. They were once considered the battering ram of the Great Crusade, but turned on their brothers and became synonymous with treachery and heresy. The Iron Warriors were the fourth of the original twenty, First Founding Legions of Space Marines.
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[edit] History
[edit] Perturabo
When the twenty infant Primarchs were spread across the galaxy by the forces of Chaos, the young child who would become known as Perturabo was discovered on Olympia, climbing the sheer cliffs below the city-state of Lochos. The city guard brought the child before the Tyrant of Lochos, Dammekos. Intrigued by this child, Dammekos adopted him into his family.
Perturabo never trusted the Olympians and, although Dammekos took time and trouble to win the trust and affection of the boy, Perturabo never responded with any warmth. Many saw him as a dark skinned,cold youth, dark and melancholy, but with a mind like a razor.
[edit] The Great Crusade
When the Great Crusade reached Olympia, Perturabo pledged his loyalty to the Emperor, and was granted command of the IV Space Marine Legion and suzerainty of the Olympia as the Legion's home. The deposed Tyrant of Lochos spent the last few years of his life trying to marshal support to reclaim Olympia. He failed, but created an undercurrent of unrest that was to be harnessed many years later.
With the Great Crusade already in full swing, Perturabo wasted no time in recruiting new Iron Warriors from amongst the Olympians. His first action as leader of the Iron Warriors Legion was a lightning campaign against the nearby heretical world of Justice Rock. The new recruits served well and their triumphant return was celebrated by the people of Olympia.
The Iron Warriors, under the leadership and guidance of Perturabo, became renowned as devastating siege troops. Expert engineers with cross-training from the Priesthood of Mars, they quickly built on their already impressive reputation. While the Iron Warriors were determined to serve Mankind and their Emperor, their specialisation was an unfortunate one. The nature of siege warfare is long periods of dull, back-breaking labour interrupted by the most brutal, merciless combat imaginable. Men, even Space Marines, cannot withstand hell indefinitely and combat fatigue began to brutalise the Iron Warriors. The custom existed that once the siege lines were complete the besieged must either surrender or expect no quarter. With each campaign the Iron Warriors came to prefer the latter. Battle was to these Space Marines a release from the tedium of life in the trenches.
As the Crusade moved forward, many Iron Warrior citadels were established on liberated worlds, guaranteeing a safe line of communications and an occupational force for the planet. Tiny numbers of Iron Warriors were garrisoned in these new fortifications, sometimes in ridiculously small numbers. One often-cited example was the Iron Keep on Delgas II, where a single Tactical Squad of ten Iron Warriors was stationed, despite the world having a disgruntled population of almost 130 million. Where other Primarchs, Russ, Vulkan and Magnus 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' to the extent that they became an automatic choice for a siege or garrison mission, ignoring the basic needs of all soldiers for rest and reorganisation. Resentment began to build up throughout the Legion, and particularly with Perturabo himself.
[edit] The Horus Heresy
In the midst of the cleansing of the Hrud Warrens on Gugann, matters were brought to a head. It was Warmaster Horus himself who broke the news to Perturabo that Olympia was in rebellion. Dammekos had died and the population had taken up arms. Perturabo was by this time tired of repeatedly having to prove his worth, and the thought of being the only Legion unable to hold its own homeworld appalled him. Horus bade Perturabo to return to his place of discovery.
Perturabo and the Iron Warriors suppressed the rebellion on the streets of the city-states. No one was spared. It was the principle of surrender or no quarter, and the Iron Warriors had grown accustomed to granting no quarter. Perturabo watched on as the fortifications in which he had once taken such pride were overcome. By the time the massacre was over, Olympia had been culled into slavery. Five million civilians had been killed in the process.
As the pyres burned through the long Olympian night, the Iron Warriors slowly realised the extent of what they had done. One moment they were humanity's heroes assaulting the Hrud and the next they were committing genocide. Perturabo was overcome by an oppressive feeling of shame. He knew that the Emperor could never forgive him for his crime.
It was in this doomed mood that the Iron Warriors received news and orders. The news would have been shattering under normal circumstances, but when heard in ruins that were thick with the stench of the dead, it was apocalyptic. Russ's Space Wolves had attacked Magnus's Thousand Sons on Prospero. Horus had turned renegade along with his own legion. Angron's World Eaters and Mortarion's Death Guard were also with him. Fulgrim and the Emperor's Children had also declared their allegiance to Chaos, and the renegade Primarch had unsuccessfully tried to turn Ferrus Manus of the Iron Hands. The Iron Warriors were ordered to join the Iron Hands and five other Legions; together this task force would crush the nascent rebellion.
Between their bitter rivalry with the Imperial Fists (which dated from the time of the Great Crusade) and the butchery on Olympia, in retrospect it was no surprise that Perturabo and his soldiers turned traitor. Though Perturabo had almost certainly sided with Horus beforehand, the Battle of Istvaan V proclaimed the Iron Warriors' betrayal. The Iron Warriors, the Night Lords, Word Bearers and Alpha Legion were held in reserve, while Ferrus Manus led his own Iron Hands, along with the Raven Guard and the Salamanders against the rebel positions. After being heavily engaged with Horus's forces, the surviving Loyalists eagerly sought the shelter of the Iron Warriors' trenches and bunkers, only to be mercilessly gunned down by their erstwhile allies. Henceforth, even unto the present day, the Iron Warriors have been known as the Betrayers of Istvaan.
After Istvaan, the Iron Warriors were let loose. Finally freed from tedious and exhausting siege missions, they were possessed with a terrible energy. On a dozen worlds, an Iron Warrior Warsmith replaced the true governor and tithes were paid under the shadow of fortified battlements. Yarant and Vanaheim saw horrific fighting between the Iron Warriors and the Imperium; Tallarn was transformed by virus bombs from a paradise world into the sandy deserts that it is famous for. A strong contingent of the Legion accompanied Perturabo himself to Terra, where he supervised the siege of the Emperor's Palace. The Iron Warriors found a sublime pleasure in tearing the edifices of the Imperium down, especially since the fortifications of the Imperial Palace had been undertaken by their bitterest enemies and rivals, the Imperial Fists.
[edit] The Iron Cage
In the end, Horus was defeated by the Emperor, and the bulk of the Traitor Legions retreated into the Eye of Terror. Before his Legion followed suit, Perturabo devised and enacted the one real victory for the Iron Warriors in the aftermath of the Horus Heresy. He crafted a trap on Sebastus IV, designed to ensnare Rogal Dorn and the Imperial Fists, with whom Perturabo and his warriors harboured a bitter rivalry stemming from each claiming their legions to be the best at laying and defending against sieges. The trap was known as the Eternal Fortress, a keep centred within twenty square miles of bunkers, towers, minefields, trenches, tank traps and redoubts. Upon hearing of this, Rogal Dorn publicly declared that he "would dig Perturabo out of his hole and bring him back to Terra in an iron cage".
Rogal Dorn expected an honourable battle, but this was not to be. Beginning by isolating the four Companies of the Imperial Fists from their orbital support, Perturabo began to carefully divide his enemy and destroy them piecemeal. Some Imperial Fists managed to penetrate the defenses and reach the center of the Eternal Fortress, only to find there was no central keep - simply an open space watched by yet more defenses. The fortress was a decoy of no real value. By the sixth day of the siege, Imperial Fists Space Marines were fighting individually, without support, using the bodies of their own battle brothers for cover.
The siege of the Eternal Fortress (later referred as the "Iron Cage") lasted for a further three weeks. Relief came in the form of Roboute Guilliman and the Ultramarines, but the siege left Rogal Dorn a broken man, rendered the Imperial Fists Chapter unable to fight for nineteen years, and paved the way for Perturabo's ascension to Daemon Prince, after the sacrifice of over four hundred loyalist Marines' gene-seed.
[edit] After the Heresy
Under the command of their new Daemon Prince, the majority of the Iron Warriors fled to the Eye of Terror and secured the daemonworld of Medrengard, from where they could brood on the turn of events and plot vengeance.
The remainder of the Iron Warriors Legion defended their small empire, but there was no refuge from the retribution of the loyalist Legions. The Imperial Fists supported the Ultramarines in a decade-long campaign to liberate the subjugated worlds. They discovered the Iron Warriors to be like a barbed hook that, once embedded into a victim, could only be removed with great risk of injuring the patient further. The Olympia garrison held out for two full years after the defeat of Horus, eventually triggering their missile stockpiles when defeat was unavoidable. They left a blasted wasteland that became quarantined by the Inquisition, and no mention of Olympia has entered Imperial records since.
[edit] Organization
The Iron Warriors are organised as a number of Grand Companies, each commanded by a Warsmith. Originally each Grand Company would have been similar in size and organisation, totaling approximately a thousand Space Marines, but now they vary in size enormously. The Warsmiths themselves are all extremely gifted in combat engineering, many maintaining a large contingent of slave-mechanicians to perform the more menial work.
It is uncertain how many Grand Companies there are at any given time. At the time of the Horus Heresy, the Legion had at least twelve Companies, although with the widespread deployment of many garrison forces at the time, it is impossible to be sure.
Like many of the Traitor Legions, their current organisation is completely non-standard. A Grand Company will often be divided into component detachments led by lesser champions. There is a tendency to operate in multiples of three. Suitable recruits are taken (willingly and unwillingly) to Medrengard where they are selected periodically by Warsmiths for their Grand Company and subjected to ordeals until they prove themselves worthy.
[edit] Homeworld
Olympia was, before the time of the Great Crusade, a rugged and mountainous world, its population concentrated within a multitude of city-states. The ready availability of quarried stone and the terrain made the control of strategic passes and high ground the key to military security.
Olympia was destroyed shortly after the end of the Horus Heresy, and like the other Traitor Legions, the Iron Warriors seized a planet within the Eye of Terror to make into their new home world. Knowledge of the worlds within the Eye of Terror is scant at best and the realm of Chaos rarely stays the same for long. The Iron Warriors' homeworld, Medrengard is frequently depicted as a world with a black sun and a white sky, its surface turned into a vast fortress, filled with canals of molten metal and the ground covered in iron shavings, all trace of its original form lost under mountains of impossibly high towers, its core penetrated by plunging dungeons. Medrengard has been described as a bleak jail world where slaves toiled and died, while great Chaos warships were tethered to its tallest towers wherein resided the Warriors themselves. Now, their greatest stronghold is Brigannion 4. It has weathered 17 assaults from within and without the Eye of Terror, thus earning the name and reputation of "The Planet of Steel"
[edit] Combat Doctrine
The Iron Warriors follow a simple method. They commence battle with a sustained bombardment, utilising every weapon at their disposal. The basis of this is a complex fire plan in which every weapon is directed with utmost care at the optimum target, for maximum effect. Where possible, the Iron Warriors will coordinate with Traitor Titan Legions to add to their own considerable firepower. This emphasis on artillery and mechanized warfare means that Iron Warrior forces often fare best in siege warfare and armoured advances on enemy territory.
Where possible, field fortifications will be used. Iron Warrior doctrine includes extensive use of fortifications to occupy the maximum number of opponents while using the absolute minimum number of troops. This in turn keeps the bulk of the Iron Warriors troops fresh and available for assaults, and allows them to achieve superiority elsewhere.
When an Iron Warriors force launches a planetary assault, they begin with an intense orbital bombardment (be it nuclear, plasma, viral or chemical) which could pressure the enemy into surrender without a single Iron Warrior having to land on the surface.
However, stronger, well-defended worlds are unlikely to surrender so readily. If the planetary bombardment is indecisive, a landing force will be launched from the Iron Warriors fleet. The first wave of atmospheric fighters, gunships, and bomber craft will saturate landing zones and launch raids on enemy bases and supply lines. All efforts are made to demoralise and weaken the enemy to the point of destruction before any troops are landed. Sometimes however this hammer-blow approach is unsuitable and instead the Iron Warriors will resort to covert insertion of select Iron Warriors on-world to scout and secure a landing zone in a surprise assault, preferably while also eliminating as much of enemy defensive capability as possible.
Once the first wave has caused sufficient damage to enemy defences (or secured a suitable landing area), a second wave is launched. This consists of construction craft, heavy transports and bulk freighters, carrying supplies, prefabricated fortifications, heavy machinery and construction personnel to the surface. The heavy craft used in this wave are large, well-armoured and equipped with formidable defensive weaponry, but still require support in the form of escort flyers from the first wave.
Upon landing, the second wave will compound the damage caused by the orbital bombardment and bomber attacks with a secondary artillery barrage, scattering any enemy forces trying to mount a defensive effort in the area. The larger transport and freighter ships land first, their crews immediately disembarking and beginning the construction of walled trenches, bunkers, living quarters and artillery positions, the latter of which are then filled by the massive weapons brought in by the artillery ships. Selected Iron Warriors with incredible logistic skills will direct this complex and dangerous operation. By the time the third wave is launched, the landing zones will be a dense midden of fully-stocked fortifications.
The third wave is made up entirely of troop transports and orbit-to-ground drop pods. The troops deployed will consist of several hundred Iron Warriors Space Marines backed up by a vastly greater number of lesser troops. Iron Warriors armour will also be deployed at this time. Having occupied the newly-built ground fortifications, the commanders will proceed to plan out the destruction of the remaining enemy forces. Over a period of time ranging from months to mere hours, this formidable Iron Warriors incursion will then engage in a series of lightning-fast strikes, armoured advances and carefully-laid sieges, until no enemy resistance remains.
Siege warfare follows a very simple but effective set of general tactics. When a breach has been forced in the enemy defences it will initially be probed by veterans and infiltrated, then the gap will be prised open with firepower until a storming force can be unleashed. These storming forces are based around fast moving heavy armour which can move instantly from relentless barrage to lightning-fast advance. Breaches are then widened until the defences are shattered. For the key moments in battle when a position absolutely must be taken, the Iron Warriors adopt an ice-cold ferocity that is comparable to the Blood Angels or World Eaters, but only when the moment is right and never for longer than necessary.
In combat, Iron Warriors are terrifyingly adept at both ballistic warfare and close-range bloodshed, and use a mixture of the two to slaughter opponents in vast numbers. The typical Iron Warrior is armed with a powerful bolter, plasma gun or other such ranged weapon, as well as a close-combat blade or chainsword.
The Iron Warriors have a special association with the Obliterator cult. They have extensive access to the hulking combinations of armor, weapons, and marines, more so than any other traitor legion, and the first observance of Obliterators was among the Iron Warriors.
The Iron Warriors are expert sappers, engineers and miners and have acquired a formidable siege train of specialist equipment over the centuries. This includes Termite tunnelers, a Leviathan transport, Dreadclaw assault boats adapted for planetary landings and a large assortment of Imperial-built artillery. These are used very sparingly and are maintained and guarded by the 1st Company. Additionally they have a number of Corvus assault pods which allow them to make use of any supporting Titans as siege towers. The Iron Warriors are so frequently supported by Titans that some Imperial experts have asserted that they are part of the same formation.
In keeping with Warhammer 40,000's archaic yet science fiction feel, the Iron Warriors' methods of warfare combine popular conceptions of medieval siege warfare with later Vauban-inspired siege strategy and some purely science fiction concepts.
[edit] Beliefs
The Iron Warriors believe that the Emperor used them to fight the bloodiest battles of his Crusade and then let the other, more favoured Primarchs take all the glory. They also believe that Rogal Dorn turned Olympia against them so that they would be disgraced and discarded after they had served their purpose. They will have vengeance on both.
They see themselves as titans of old who are loose in the universe, doing whatever they like, knowing that no natural nor man-made law can stop them. They honour the Chaos gods as a pantheon but are not truly devout themselves. Their greatest loyalty is to their daemonic, semi-deified Primarch, Perturabo, who they believe saved them from being sacrificed by the Emperor.
[edit] Battle-cry
"Iron Within, Iron Without!"
A monotone chant of "Iron Within, Iron Without" is repeated during the beginning of combat operations.
Saying "Iron Within" to elicit the response "Iron Without" is sometimes used by Iron Warriors to identify each other, especially in confused combat, such as that in tunnels or during combined operations with other Chaos forces.
[edit] Appearance
Prior to the Horus Heresy, the Iron Warriors wore silver power armour, trimmed with gold. This has only changed very little in the millennia since to display iconography with Chaotic symbology.
The Legion's symbol is that of an iron mask. When the Iron Warriors turned to Chaos, this symbol was slightly redesigned, and is now superimposed over the symbol of the eight-pointed Chaos star. Both before and after the Heresy Iron Warriors often painted and continue to paint their weapons and other heavy equipment with black and yellow construction chevrons to emphasize their tendency to construct their own fortifications while demolishing their enemies'.
They do not accept mutation as willingly as some of the other Traitor Legions, instead choosing to remove the corrupted limbs and replace them with powerful, infallible cybernetics, as do the loyalist Iron Hands. This is consistent with their beliefs, as they are not devout to the Chaos Gods, honouring their power and using Chaos rather than worshipping it. Due to a few corruptions in their gene-seed, they often suffer from deformed limbs, but this too is usually corrected with cybernetics. They retain their Primarch's cold intelligence, paranoia, dark skin and dark eyes, and are noted for a preference for technological methods.
[edit] Notable Members
- Warsmith Honsou the "half-breed" - an Iron Warrior who appears in Storm of Iron, and Dead Sky, Black Sun. In Storm of Iron he is a captain who has clawed his way to that position despite heavy prejudice from other Iron Warriors for being a 'half-breed': when transformed into a Marine, his gene-seed was 'tainted' by captured genetic material from the Imperial Fists, the Iron Warriors' most hated foe. Despite this, his abilities and tenaciousness led his Warsmith, on the verge of ascension to daemonhood, to appoint Honsou as his successor. At the end of Dead Sky, Black Sun, most of his force has been smashed by other Warsmiths in their internecine warring.
- Forrix - One of three captains (including Honsou) who appears in Storm of Iron. A once-lauded veteran of the Horus Heresy, Forrix had become disillusioned and apathetic by the time of the Hydra Cordatus campaign, and was eventually slain during the fighting.
- Kroeger - A captain in Storm of Iron, Kroeger is a borderline bezerker, though unlike the blood-crazed fiends of the World Eaters he seems able to control his fury. He is killed during the Hydra Cordatus campaign; his own armour (possessed by a minor daemon) decides to 'bond' with a new owner, who subseuqently kills Kroeger.
[edit] References
- Games Workshop Design Staff (2002). Warhammer 40,000 Codex: Chaos Space Marines, 1st Edition, Nottingham: Games Workshop. ISBN 1-84154-322-5.
- McNeill, Graham (2004). Dead Sky, Black Sun. Nottingham: Black Library. ISBN 1-84416-148-X.
- McNeill, Graham (2003). Storm of Iron. Nottingham: Black Library. ISBN 1-84416-103-X.
- "Index Astartes – Iron Warriors" (May 2001). White Dwarf: Australian Edition (257). ISSN 0265-8712.
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