Black and GoldThe Black Legion is a of that is the first in infamy, if not in treachery, whose name resounds as a curse throughout the scattered and war-torn realms of humanity. The Black Legion was once one of the 9 of who turned Traitor to the during the in the early 31 st Millennium.The Black Legion, at that time still known as the Sons of Horus, became the primary instrument of its, the, to overthrow the and seize control of the Imperium in the name of.

• Black Legion Game

Such are the crimes of the Black Legion that it is easy to forget that the past was very different, and that there was a time when its Astartes and their perfidious master Horus were lauded above all of the other warriors of the, and were considered the most favoured servants of the Emperor of Mankind.Born as the XVI th Space Marine Legion on, the Black Legion would first rise to greatness under the name of the Luna Wolves. Before the dark days of the Horus Heresy they fought at the Emperor's side on Terra and through the early years of the. They were as stalwart and indefatigable as any of the servants of the Emperor and their actions exemplified what it meant to be a warrior of the Space Marine Legions. Brutal, ruthless and unwavering but also honourable, and once loyal beyond question, the history of the Black Legion is the history of the ambition of the Imperium itself, and the flaws that broke its founder's dreams of unification and glory for all asunder.The Black Legion is now one of the Traitor Legions of Chaos Space Marines who are united in the pursuit of the single purpose of overthrowing the Imperium. They oppose the infighting that consumes so many of their brethren amongst the other Traitor Legions, for the Astartes of the Black Legion are the greatest servants of.

Black Legion Game

They are always brought together in great numbers to work the will of their Warmaster of Chaos, the heir of Horus. Whenever the entirety of the Black Legion is called to battle, it marks the beginning of another one of Abaddon's against the.The Black Legion is the only one of the Traitor Legions to have changed its name following the Horus Heresy. The XVI th Legion was originally known as the during the.

In honour of Horus' great achievements during the latter years of that era after the Imperial victory over the during the, the Emperor suggested that the Legion be renamed the.Horus eventually instituted this change following his conversion to the service of the of Chaos on the world of. After Horus' treachery and final defeat at the during the Horus Heresy, however, the Legion was renamed the 'Black Legion' by its new Warmaster,. The new name was chosen after the Astartes of the Sons of Horus painted their Power Armour black in grief at the death of their Primarch Horus and shame at their failure to overthrow the False Emperor and seize control of the galaxy in the name of the.The Black Legion are at once the inheritors of the most glorious legacies of the Great Crusade, and the vilest treacheries of the Horus Heresy. Their Primarch was the Warmaster Horus himself, once celebrated as the greatest of the sons of the Emperor, and later despised as the basest of Traitors. Of all the infant Primarchs scattered to the corners of the galaxy before the process of their creation was completed, Horus grew up closest to Terra.The world of had been settled in the very earliest days of Mankind’s exploration of the stars, its hugely rich natural resources ruthlessly exploited until they were all but played out. Thus, Horus grew to maturity amongst the anarchic gangers that populated the post-industrial nightmare of a world honeycombed with long-extinct mines and dominated by decaying spires. It was from the hyper violent gang-scum of Cthonia that many of the earliest inductees into the Space Marine Legions were taken, and it was there that the Emperor found the first and most beloved of His lost sons.For thirty standard years, the Emperor and Horus fought the opening campaigns of the Great Crusade side by side, the Primarch learning at the foot of his sire.

When at length the Emperor detected that another of the Primarchs was close at hand and departed to locate him, Horus was left at the head of his master's hosts, entrusted with the command of the conquering Imperial armies. Horus was well-suited to the task, and the lessons he had learned in the previous three Terran decades served him well. As one by one the Primarchs were united with their sire and their brothers, Horus came increasingly to be regarded as the greatest of their number, the first among equals.While many of his brothers and the Legions created in their image were gifted in particular fields of military endeavour, Horus was a natural leader, his greatest genius his ability to meld seemingly divergent allies into a coherent whole. This skill was not only of use on the battlefeld, for it carried over into contacts with the peoples the Great Crusade met.

It was Horus' way to treat with the populations of newly-contacted worlds according to the traditions of each, and this highly successful doctrine was repeated in each of the Expeditionary Fleets. Tragically, it might also have been the cause of the Primarch's fall, and with him fully half of the Space Marine Legions.In the aftermath of the greatest of the nascent Imperium's victories to date, the defeat of the largest ever encountered, Horus was granted the title ',' commander-in-chief of all the Emperor's armies. So great was the victory that his Legion, originally called the Luna Wolves, was renamed the Sons of Horus.The Emperor returned to Terra to oversee the next phase of the creation of his interstellar empire, but on the of, Horus was struck down by some malady sufficiently virulent to affect even a superhumanly resilient Primarch.

At some point during his treatment or recovery, Horus was inducted into one of Davin's, the, and it is likely that during that process, he was corrupted in some manner that would lead to his eventual downfall. Horus emerged from his illness changed, and the practise of establishing Warrior Lodges spread throughout the Legions. With it, apparently, spread whatever taint had corrupted the Warmaster, and the fate of the galaxy was sealed.As the pre-eminent Primarch, Horus had always enjoyed the confidence of his brothers, even when internecine rivalries had caused disputes. It appears that through a masterful series of manipulations and deceptions, Horus subverted the loyalties of those Primarchs personally closest to him, whilst simultaneously diverting or undermining those others, such as, and, who would oppose his treachery.

The Warmaster's plans were impossibly well-coordinated, each of the Primarchs experiencing a turn of fate or a precipitating incident that determined which side they would take in the ensuing galactic civil war.Imperial scholars have long debated how many and which of these events were directly brought about by Horus' machinations and which were sheer coincidence. Others still must surely have been the work of the themselves, turning their unknowable attentions upon the domains beyond the Empyrean and exerting their will upon them. Whatever the case, events reached a head according to the Warmaster's strategy when he the remaining Loyalists in the nascent on the world of, an act so dire that five entire Astartes Legions were despatched to call him to account for his apparent rejection of all the Great Crusade stood for.It was at that the Warmaster finally revealed his true colours. The first wave of the Legions sent to confront Horus made planetfall, only to discover themselves in the midst of treachery.

Faced with overwhelming odds, the, and - later known as the - attempted tolink up with the second wave, only for the true extent of the Warmaster's treachery to be fully realised. The second wave, consisting of the, and turned upon their embattled brothers, and the result was the infamous, one of the darkest moments not only of the Horus Heresy, but of the entire history of.The ensuing civil war pitched the whole Imperium into anarchy and chaos. It was not only the Legions aligned to Horus that rebelled, for the Warrior Lodges and the Chaotic taint in general had spread far and wide by the time of the Drop Site Massacre.

The was split almost in half, regiment fighting regiment and fleet fighting fleet. The of the, the ancestors of the, were equally affected, and soon fully half of the Emperor's hosts were engaged in bitter conflict with the other. Barely a single world was untouched by a war that accounted for countless billions of lives and that culminated in the Warmaster's assault on Terra itself.As events neared their tragic conclusion, those Legions not committed to the defence of Terra raced through the Warp,converging on the homeworld of Mankind in such numbers that the Traitors, massed to assault the, would be defeated. At the last, Horus lowered the shields of his, effectively inviting the Emperor to teleport aboard and confront His treacherous gene-son. In the battle that followed, Horus was slain at the hand of his sire, his soul psychically annihilated so that not a shred of its essence remained. But in defeating the Primarch, the Emperor had suffered such wounds that only His ascension to the life-sustaining could keep death at bay.Even as Rogal Dorn carried the Emperor's body from the Warmaster's Battle Barge, the Traitor hosts began their fighting withdrawal, and in the anarchy and confusion Horus' body was recovered by his Legion. Having fought their way clear of the Sol System and fled for the, the Sons of Horus established a world that was at once the tomb of their lost Primarch and a fortress, from which they would launch further attacks both upon their fellow Traitor Legions and against the smouldering Imperium.

Bereft of their glorious Primarch, the Legion floundered, and in desperation turned to each of the in turn in their search for renewed power, inviting possession and the ever more costly blessings of the Warp.All the while, the Legion suffered the jealous attacks of their former allies during the so-called. At length one such rival, the remnants of the, stole the body of the slain Primarch from the heart of its tomb and spirited it away, some say with the purpose of cloning it in order to create a new and still greater Warmaster. The salvation of the Sons of Horus came when one of its greatest captains, led an attack on the Emperor's Children that destroyed the body of the Primarch and in so doing ushered in a new age for the Legion.The Traitors changed their name once more, this time in reference to the fact that their armour was now adorned black, calling themselves the Black Legion. Through his actions, Abaddon re-invigorated the Legion, reviving the old notion that none could stand in their way and that they would one day inherit the galaxy itself. When the warbands of the Black Legion gather under the wrathful banner of Abaddon the Despoiler, the words of Horus are ever heard upon their lips - let the galaxy burn. Contents Legion History ' You will try. But today you face the Emperor's sons and His warriors.We are the Luna Wolves, and this Legion is the anvil upon which you will be broken.We are the anvil.now behold the hammer.'

—Commander Horus Lupercal during the Compliance of MelchiorThe Wolves of TerraBadge of the Black LegionIn the time when the Emperor's eye first began to fall beyond Terra, He raised new armies to fight His. He drew these new troops in part from the forces that had already unified Terra during the of the late 30 th Millennium, from willing Terran volunteers like those who comprised the XVI th Space Marine Legion who were implanted with the of their missing Primarch Horus like all the of the.Badge of the Pre-Heresy Sons of Horus LegionThese recruits were also drawn in part from the Emperor's subjugated enemies, and together they represented the first generation of Space Marines. Like most of the embryonic Space Marine Legions, the XVI th Legion drew all of its first recruits from the Terran population. Though it is difficult to be certain based on the existing Imperial records from this lost time, there are indications that many of the XVI th Legion's early intake came from the hunter clans of the Jutigran Bowl and the Samsatian sub-plate slums.

Perpetual conflict and the harshness of life on the desolate margins of Terran society had given these people the hard edge of ruthlessness and independence that would serve a Space Marine well.Badge of the Pre-Heresy Luna Wolves LegionThe XVI th Legion made war with abrasive aggression. Perhaps through the influence of their genetic heritage or the use the Emperor put them to, the Space Marines of the XVI th Legion became synonymous with sudden and overwhelming shock assaults. To the XVI th Legion fell the swift prosecution of battle and the bloody termination of campaigns.Their attacks were preemptive as often as they were part of an existing conflict, their forces either the first deadly threat unleashed by the Imperium or preserved to enact a final, killing blow. The First Pacification of Luna was perhaps the most famous of these early victories for the XVI th Legion, but the breaking of the Coriolis Enclaves and the Five Winter left scars in the collective consciousness of Terran society that persist even now. In the Capridian Sinks, it is still common for traders and gamblers to refer to the Legion's ancient number of sixteen as 'the counting of the wolf.' Black Legion Colour Scheme as displayed by Brother Narghast, who has wielded his Hateslaker for millennia, and has put it to gruesome use on countless planets throughout the.It is said that the Astartes of the XVI th Legion were unleashed to begin and end wars their enemies did not even know they were fighting. They would come out of the night or in the dawn, carried in the holds of and, flanked by squadrons of escorting.

Those who witnessed such attacks say that the XVI th Legion were fighting eye-to-eye with the enemy before the thunder of their first volley of missiles and shell-strikes had faded.The warriors who fought these battles were of a character wholly in keeping with their reputation. Proud, little given to humour or empathy, nor to mysticism or even the ritual of the military elite, they were a breed apart from the true human forces that had fought at their side.