Editing The Justicars (section)

==Humble Beginnings==

[[File:XIII_Sacred_Band.png|thumb|300px|right|The XIII Sacred Band as recorded in ''Orders of the Day'', by Hektor Cincinnatus.]]


The first recruits for the nascent Thirteenth Legion came from the children of the Emperor's defeated enemies in the [[Unification Wars (Hektor Heresy)|Unification Wars]].  From those few who survived the gene-seed, the ten best were selected to make up the Thirteenth Squad the [[Sacred Band]] and fight in the Pacification of the Merican Hives under the command of [[Hektor Cincinnatus]].  Led by Aldous Cadigan, the Thirteenth Squad undertook reconnaissance and kill-team missions.  They were rightly commended for slaying the Psysavant Cabal of San Angelus before the battle for that hive commenced, but the six survivors of the Thirteenth Squad refused to accept decorations and asked that the honours only be awarded to the fallen.  For this reason, only the names of the slain are commemorated: Hong-Lau Shi, Zlatko Tolyan Blazić, Malik Al-Hasheem, and Librarian Kamaraj Kohli. The gesture would later strike a chord with the rest of the legion, and the legions first official tradition began.

Despite impressing with their combat effectiveness and humility, Cadigan and his men played a limited role in the Unification Wars.  New recruits were inducted into their number, now styled the Thirteenth Legion, but they held up no great battle honours.  Circumstantial evidence suggests that the warriors of the Thirteenth carried out small operations against high-value targets, particularly enemy psykers, ahead of the more glorious battles fought by other Legionnaires. Certainly ''someone'' was doing this dirty work, for the chronicles of the Unification Wars often make reference to sorcerers serving Techno-Barbarian Warlords such as Nathaniel Dume or Kalagann of Ursh, but hardly ever speak of these powerful figures intervening against the Emperor's armies after the Pacification of the Merican Hives. 

Had it not been for problems with many of the Legions activated prior to the Thirteenth, it is possible that the gene-sons of Uriel Salazar might have remained a specialist force dedicated purely to the slaying of witches.  But with the exception of Hektor's glorious [[Heralds of Hektor|First Legion]], few of the Thirteenth's elder brothers were truly ready to leap forward into the stars around Sol.  In His wisdom, the Emperor commanded that additional genetic resources be devoted to expanding the Thirteenth Legion and making them ready for the [[Great Crusade (Hektor Heresy)|Great Crusade]] shortly after the Battle of Mount Ararat and the end of the Unification Wars.  To furnish recruits to the expanding Legion, the officers of the Thirteenth Legion sent their agents into the vast subterranean prisons beneath Terra's hives, searching for children who had been born to a ruthless struggle for survival.  In explaining the new course, Aldous Cadigan wrote to the War Council that the work of his Legion, ''"can only be done by saints and monsters, and we already recruit every saint we find."''

However, those who expected the Thirteenth's new men to commit terrible atrocities were greatly disappointed.  In the first campaigns of the Fifth [[Expedition Fleets (Hektor Heresy)|Expedition Fleet]] Cadigan's "saints" kept a careful watch over their charges and the careful, disciplined compliance actions of the Legion soon won them the tongue-in-cheek nickname, ''Guardian Angels''.  Even in the bitter and bloody [[The_Justicars#The_Tartaros_Campaign.2C_813.M30|Tartaros Campaign]] against the sorcerous cohorts of the "God-Emperor" Bassal-Narassur the Undying, the Guardian Angels went into battle, staking their own lives, rather than employ orbital bombardment and inflict civilian casualties.  Bassal-Narassur was slain and the Messonian Empire brought into compliance with the Imperial Truth. But the cost of victory was high; the Thirteenth were so bloodied from the campaign that their Expedition Fleet withdrew to the Sol System to rebuild.

===Notable Campaigns===

*'''782.M30 The Battle of San Angelus''' <br/> Though they played only a limited role, the Psysavant Cabal that ruled the San Angelus Hive were a potent group of psykers, and the XIII Sacred Band's mission to eliminate these sorcerers played a pivotal role in the pacification of the hive and certainly saved many Imperial lives.


*'''813.M30: [[The Tartaros Campaign]]'''. <br/> A powerful, self-styled rival to the Imperium, the Messonian Empire were humbled by the Thirteenth in a brutal, and decisive campaign that would bring the Messonians into the Imperium, and silence all dissent in the sector for over four millennia. The Messonian Empire, largely untouched by the chaotic infighting of the Heresy, positioned itself as a major base of operations for the early Imperial pushes of the Scouring into Ultima and Obscurus.