Iron Warriors

Iron Warriors
Battle Cry	"Iron Within, Iron Without!"
Number	IV
Original Homeworld	Olympia
Current Homeworld	Medrengard
Primarch	Perturabo
Champion	Possibly Honsou or Shon'tu (Don't forget --Falk-- THE WARSMITH)
Strength	Legion Strength (Divided by Grand Companies: Typically 500 to 4000 per Grand Company)
Specialty	Artillery, Attrition, breaking enemy defense, getting shit done
Allegiance	Chaos Undivided
Colours	Burnt silver, hazard stripes and black pauldrons with gold trim

"Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured."

– Mark Twain, having never seen the Daemonculaba

"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are stronger in the broken places."

– Ernest Hemingway

"But I know The Makuta is here now, in these burnt trees, and in the dead soil. All of these things were destroyed by The Makuta, but he never left them. That is how he becomes strong. That is what The Makuta does. He destroys things."

– Matoran Kapura, Mata Nui Online

The Iron Warriors originated as the fourth of the Emperor's legions of Space Marines, and are today the siege specialists of the Chaos Space Marines.

To your average Imperial citizen or Chaos cultist, the Iron Warriors are the most inhuman of the Chaos Marines. They aren't over the top badass savages or rotting hulks, but they're just as terrifying because of their cold pragmatism. Yet this pragmatism hides the true terror of the Iron Warriors: the total abandonment of hope, virtue, and belief in good. They're masters of siege warfare. Instead of sheer ferocity or divine intervention, they rely on firepower. Instead of using prisoners for death necrophilia orgies, they use them for mine clearance and trench digging. They can build fortifications as elaborate and defensible as the Imperial Fists, if not more, and are the best Legion at storming them. Now that they no longer serve the Emperor, they are inscrutable monsters in grey plate who arrive on your world, kill your protectors, and force you to work against the Imperium you believe in.

Then they discard you once you're no longer useful, and the last thing you'll see is their ugly, jagged fortifications claiming your home. And the only reason they had you live through it was because they wanted to let you know how much they hate you and your ideals in a higher purpose. It's not enough for the Iron Warriors to reject the Imperium and destroy it; they have to drag it through the same mud they had once been made to fight and die in.

They had a vision, once. Before the Heresy, it was a vision of a beautiful and peaceful Imperium, but that dream was shattered by Olympia's destruction. Now they want to build a twisted and oppressive empire of their own. The Iron Warriors still count on their old wargear, and generally are distrustful of the Chaos gods. They have a bitterness, a rage that they suppress with cold logic. The specifics of their goals vary among their number, but they're all hell bent on destroying the Imperium.

They also have a fetish for hazard stripes, which they make liberal use of in their colour scheme. It is as though they wish to say "do not use the side of my bolter as a step" or "touching my pauldron may result in crushed fingers." Then again, considering who these guys are, these would actually be good warnings to heed. It may even be a cruel gallows humor: what’s a greater safety hazard than a Space Marine? They also appear to have an absolute hard-on for the Mark II: Crusade Armour and the Mark III: Iron Armour, and appears to be one of the few Space Marine Legions (Loyal or Renegade) to use them up to the modern period.

GW can't quite seem to figure out what they're supposed to be, so we've taken the liberty of choosing the more in-depth choice for them.

The Iron Warriors are an oddity in that they are very much Chaos Marines but without the symbols and acceptance of clear heretek you wouldn't really notice. Perhaps proof that going balls-deep into Chaos isn't necessary. If so, then it says more about the people who do it than about Chaos and the Iron Warriors would be proof...which would actually be an interesting statement about human nature. Perhaps the Iron Warriors themselves can be viewed as a statement about human nature in both the best and worst before and after the Horus Heresy.

If you like the idea of siege warfare, heavy artillery, bionics, living cannons, and building your own empire, you'll probably like the Iron Warriors.

Combat Tactics

What do you mean I've shot the wrong spot!?

"No son, you let 'em finish, then you smash it."

– Kearney Zzyzwicz, The Simpsons

"SIEGE!!!"

– The usual response of an Iron Warrior to their hated rivals' "FORTIFY!"

A Chaos Legion specializing in breaking sieges (as in, taking a fortified location, though logically this should mean that they can do this and break out of a siege) which is shown in their love of artillery and greater focus on ranged combat, which stands in contrast to the other Chaos Space Marine legions who are far more disposed to melee combat (that doesn't mean that Iron Warriors won't punch a few skulls out, though!). Their troops are excellent close-range fighters and close-quarters combatants, and they often make use of special weaponry.

Iron Warriors are also fond of using hordes of human conscripts as cannon fodder, no doubt recruited from conquered worlds and slave populations on Medrengard. The conscripts are described as wearing red uniforms and bits of black armor, and armed with assorted bolt action rifles, lasguns, and autoguns. The Iron Warriors basically zerg-rush thousands of them at enemy strongholds to play fun games such as "find the minefield", "absorb the gunfire" and "reveal the artillery emplacements". They are one of the few Chaos legions that do take prisoners, but only to send them in the first wave instead of their conscripted slaves, who are considered to be slightly more valuable due to their ability to dig decent trenches and mines. It's Also worth mentioning that they LOVE Instant fortifications and makeshift cover, which allows them to FORTIFY THEIR POSITIONS wherever they launch an attack, along with boxing-in whatever poor enemy position they may lay siege upon.

They also have a lot of Obliterators, which are a bunch of muscle blobs armed to the teeth on top of their heads (being Chaos guys, they have shit like that). Literally. They themselves are a walking arsenal, because they can MAKE WEAPONS OUT OF THEIR BODIES!

Enough to disgust even the Dark Eldar, the Iron Warriors are also the batshit insane sickfucks behind the Daemonculaba, one of the most disturbing things in the galaxy. They're the only Chaos Space Marines who don't break down in maniacal laughter constantly, as they see this as a sign of weakness. They're not terribly fond of Daemons (like the Word Bearers or the Black Legion are), though they will make use of them (unlike the Night Lords, who don't even like Chaos), and they aren't closet loyalists like the Alpha Legion.

Basically, the horror of the Iron Warriors is simply that nothing gets in the way of their pragmatism. No matter how horrific or monstrous. And the Warp has plenty of pragmatically available horrific monstrosities of atrocities available in easy reach.

History

"I DEMAND TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY."

– An Iron Warrior putting their Legion's impetus for turning traitor into simple words, courtesy of Alfabusa

The IVth prior to Perturabo being found. About the only thing Perty did was slap on some hazard stripes.

The fourth legion saw its origin on Terra back during the Unification Wars. At its inception, it was discovered that the Iron Warriors Geneseed was remarkably stable, and this allowed them to build up their numbers significantly more easily than most other legions at the time. Due to this, they saw heavy fighting in both the Unification Wars and the Solar Reclamation alongside the Dark Angels and White Scars. Due to the ease with which their Geneseed could be implanted and their reliable, steadfast nature, they received the best gear and weapons Mars could provide, and a metric fuckton of recruits when compared to other legions. Their numbers allowed them to be seconded to a huge number of Expeditionary Fleets, where they were of great use in securing Segmentum Solar. However, as the Crusade ground on, things started to turn sour for the fourth. Their ridgid, inflexible tactical outlook started seeing them suffer significant casualties when confronted with unusual Xenos opponents or cunning human holdouts. Their only real way of fighting was to overwhelm a foe with force, and when that didn't work, they simply applied more force.

While this made a number of other Legions look at them askance, the human elements of Imperial High Command absolutely loved them. Many of the Legions, especially those which had been reunited with their Primarchs, were not at all fond of placing their Astartes under mortal commanders, or splitting them up. Mortal officers could ask for Legion support, but even the most important amongst them were as likely as not to either be told to go fuck themselves, or would just never hear back at all. The Astartes, again, especially those which had found their Primarchs, chose their own campaigns, and generally these would be theatres which would come with some renown or glory. The fourth however, was not at all concerned with being lauded, nor so prideful as to refuse assignments. They would camp out in the trenches with mortal allies for as long as it took to get any particular job done. Even so, these thankless tasks did begin to wear on the fourth, especially due to the fact that eventually, everyone in the Imperial Army figured out that they could call upon the fourth to do whatever needed doing, where most other Legions would not. They became the workhorses of the Astartes, and took a sort of passive-aggressive pride in this. They began to specialize in front line artillery and mechanized assaults, which were often successful due to sheer, overwhelming firepower. However, they were embarrassingly bad at countering the unexpected, and would often suffer massive casualties due to sheer stubbornness if an enemy came to have them in a disadvantageous position. Sadly, as the Crusade continued, things never really got any better for them, mostly because they seemed to be hell-bent on someone else making things better for them rather than doing it themselves. There is even a passage when, whilst shoveling up earthworks in preparation for the Drop Site Massacre, one of the Sons of Horus literally turns to one of the Emperor's Children and asks, "Hey, why aren't the Iron Warriors doing this?" (which was a bit stupid considering that the Iron Warriors weren't even there...) You’d think the situation would get better upon finding Daddy Perturabo...

Big surprise, it didn't. In fact, it was that at that very moment that things really started to go downhill. When united with his legion for the first time, the Iron Warriors had just finished up an absolutely awful campaign on a Forge world called Calladion. The campaign had been brutal, but it had been made significantly worse than it needed to be due to the almost autistic tendencies of the Iron Warriors to only fight one particular way. They had somehow managed to lose 29,000 Astartes, and over 12,000,000 mortal troops. The mortals were one thing, but to lose that many Astartes in the taking of a single world was unheard of. As such, Perturabo looked upon them and saw that they were not all they could be and decided that they needed a bout of decimation to motivate them properly. So he had 10% of his entire legion sentenced to death.

This actually worked and changed the character of the legion from "work-horse" legion to "meat grinder" legion; Perturabo's trick taught them that casualties do not matter, only victory does. They became a legion of mathematicians, where battle strategies could be determined using formula based on available weaponry and expected attrition rates. Fortunately for them, Perturabo was expertly skilled with numbers and logistics and organised his legion extremely efficiently, therefore his legion was able to absorb such losses due to maintaining very high numbers, second only to the XIIIth Legion. In fact they could have possibly overtaken any other legion in numbers if they did not continually suffer such high casualty rates.

This casual attitude towards attrition unfortunately created an atmosphere of paranoia amongst the officer cadre, where the only way to guarantee survival was to get promoted into a position of usefulness and never, ever get into a position where something bad could be made to stick to them. Therefore their officers suffered incredible Nerdrage whenever things did not go according to plan and scrambled over each other attempting to gain the attention of their superiors.

Also, their reputation suffered amongst the allied Imperial Army auxilia, who gave the Iron Warriors the nickname Corpse Grinders, as units that were assigned to them tended to get used as cannon fodder for softening up the enemy. This tendency eventually led to the Council of Terra to only assign the Iron Warriors support from penal brigades of poor quality expendable troops, causing the reputation of the Legion to spiral further downwards. Oddly enough, the Iron Warriors were notable for having some of the most disciplined auxilia during the Horus Heresy, due to further freedom in organizing their allied forces.

This new-and-improved attitude still didn't endear them to their brother legions, though, and, eventually it was this complete lack of anything remotely resembling respect from anyone at all that would finally lead to their Primarch flipping his lid. An excellent lesson in learning how to say "no" when told to do other people's jobs for them. Or to delegate garrison duty to the Imperial Army whose existence was mostly to be used as garrison forces, rather than tying your transhuman supersoldiers up on fucking guard duty.

Heresy

As the Iron Warriors ground on, feeding soldiers into meat grinders like an old lady at the Las Vegas slot machines, Olympia became unruly. Eventually, the nobility revolted. After a grueling campaign against the Hrud, this news was taken...less than charitably. Perturabo snapped so hard that he had his Legion assault the world, enslaved the entire population, killed his sister (the only person he ever loved as a family back in Olympia), and founded an "Iron Empire" around it to feed his war machine. To their credit, a few Iron Warriors revolted against the order to burn their home and enslave their own people, only to be shot by the rest of their brethren, while Perturabo himself was secretly glad some of his sons defied his order. Perturabo feared whatever retribution the Emperor would bring for destroying Olympia, while Horus supported his actions as just and necessary. This seeming act of understanding, mixed with fear and shame was all the leverage Horus needed to bring him on side for the Traitors. The Iron Warriors duly went to Isstvan V and took part in the Drop Site Massacre.

After that, the next step was Phall, where a large chunk of the Imperial Fists fleet was becalmed. To the Iron Warriors this was everyone's birthday and Christmas thrown together, but even though they nearly destroyed the entire fleet, Alexis Polux spoiled the party somewhat by ordering an attack on the Iron Blood. Perturabo himself came under attack by Imperial Fists Terminators, which only helped to turn his paranoia up to 12. The Iron Warriors' most rational commander was also backhanded into a Dreadnought by the Primarch when it emerged that Sigismund wasn't leading the fleet. Soon after, the IV joined the Emperor's Children on a campaign where Fulgrim tried to use Perturabo's life force to ascend to daemonhood. Things were looking like business as usual.

Where the Legion had its biggest successes, they were mostly on the Loyalist side. At Paramar, Kyr Vhalen's loyalist Grand Company met an Alpha Legion force invading their favourite Forge World. The Alpha Legion told them to get with the program. Kyr Vhalen told them "do one" and while Paramar was taken, the Iron Warriors inflicted serious losses on the tricksy bastards and some lived to fight another day. The old Warsmith Barabas Dantioch humiliated his successor at the Schadenhold, and Auric Saxton killed off Lord Commander Iddinam of the Emperor's Children. Later on in the Heresy, Consul-Praevian Nârik Dreygur and the remnants of his Grand Battalion switched back to Team Imperium during the Battle of Mezoa after getting sick of the Alpha Legion using them as cannon fodder, thus ensuring a loyalist victory.

If any Iron Warrior had hoped for a better fate than being treated as a disposable trench grunt, that hope was dashed as the Heresy grounds on. For example, during the push for the Sol System, the IV^th legion were ordered to act as the rearguard to cover the Horus's flanks against loyalist legions not otherwise tied down in other fronts or already hunkered down in Terra. As you can guess, having to fight a continuous fighting retreat by yourself leads to a fuck-ton of casualties. One Sons of Horus emissary asked an Iron Warrior commander why he was raiding an enemy trench with his men. He simply said he "Wanted to remind himself that things do not change." This was made worse when said emissary gave an order to Perturabo to take his legion and go fetch Angron and drag him to join the siege that will happen soon. This practically means abandoning their position and a good chunk of the legion alone to hold the line until they die, without the support of their Primarch or the rest of their legion.

As the Heretics drew close to the Sol System, the IV Legion came into its own, crushing fortress after fortress on the world to Terra. Finally the Iron Warriors were having a good time, and it only got better on Terra as they pulled down whole square kilometres of Dorn's works. This lasted right up until Horus told Perturabo to mass everything he had and throw it right at the Mercury Wall in one big concentrated assault. Perty now realized that, for all Horus' flattery and fine words, the Warmaster still expected him to continue with the same kind of wasteful, grinding siege warfare that had caused him and his legion to snap and turn on the Emperor. He immediately threw a bitch fit at the Warmaster about how he was no different from the Emperor, then ordered his legion to down tools and head for the exits. And that was that, at least until . . .

Iron Cage

Taking inspiration from their Primarch, they display great facility in setting traps. The most notable of these was the "Iron Cage incident" at the close of the Horus Heresy, where the Iron Warriors built a twenty square kilometer fortress on Sebastus IV with a massive fortified bunker at the center. They leaked information that allowed the Imperial Fists to track them there and Rogal Dorn himself promised to bring back Perturabo in "an iron cage". The Fists assaulted the fortress, taking huge casualties in doing so as the Iron Warriors fell back to split their advance and draw them into kill zones. Eventually the Fists expended all their ammunition and resorted to knife-fighting. When the Fists finally broke through to the central bunker, they discovered it empty save for the numerous inward-pointing guns designed to kill anyone who breached it.

The entire purpose of the fortress was just to bait and exhaust the Imperial Fists' forces, turning their own legendary determination into a liability that led to their own deaths and the humiliation of their legion (albeit one that would have required the death of Perturabo to completely wipe them out, if you believe those corpsefuckers' propaganda). Just As Planned. While the Iron Cage incident was the most notable, the Iron Warriors do plenty of other things like that, but on a smaller scale. Nearly unrivalled dickery including firing fixed position guns into civilian habitation blocks to bait the enemy into counter-attacking, then evacuating through underground trenches and detonating pre-rigged explosives when the opposing forces reach the fixed gun emplacements.

The War of the Beast

This little incident that made the Ullanor Crusade look like a skirmish brought out some unusual behavior from the Iron Warriors. First of all, the threat posed by the orks against the galaxy was so great, that the Iron Warriors allied with the Imperial Fists, of all people. If that weren't out of character enough for them, they also found the orks' use of humans as literal cattle disgusting. Maybe the whole Daemonculaba thing was also too disgusting for them since Honsou hadn't been around at the time, maybe even the Iron Warriors have standards when it comes to human experimentation...or maybe the writer just didn't know jack shit about the Iron Warrior's character. It's probably that last one.

Honsou wasn't around at the time and Warsmith Kalkator, the leader of the Grand Company, was a firm anti-Chaos Warsmith - so he would have also been disgusted at the Daemonculaba. It should also be noted Warsmith Kalkator's Grand Company operated away from the other Iron Warriors in the Eye of Terror and kept his own 'mini empire.' Not like he's above doing horrible shit, as he was introduced gunning down his own human forces as they were being overrun by the Orks, which is how the Iron Warriors 'SHOULD' be - stone cold pragmatists.

And it's worth pointing out that the Iron Warriors are still Space Marines, and therefore (super)human. And part of that is generally seeing humanity as a superior species in the galaxy, especially this close to the Heresy, when they still thought and operated closer to their original legion mentality and hadn't fallen totally down the Chaos rabbit hole. Thus, seeing some Xenos, especially Orks of all things, setting themselves above humans chapped their ass mightilly. The Iron Warriors can treat mortal humans like dog shit, but they'll be damned if they'll let some Orks do it. It's the principle of the thing. Heck, Chaos Marines tend to hate aliens as much as Imperials do. Many Chaos Marines don't even see themselves as a threat to humanity but instead view Chaos as humanity's true path to dominance.

Also, he would be the first person to get a Space Marine chapter to turn traitor since the Heresy.

Post Great Rift

Perturabo spent millennia studying the defenses of Segmentum Obscurus and establishing a network of techno-Cultist informants so that with the Great Rift, he can have the Iron Warriors beset the Segmentum worlds. While gunning for Dysactis, they ended up going head to head with the Death Guards and lost.....doh!

The Unbreakable Litany

The Iron Warriors have the coolest chants in 40k too. They say it to themselves to prepare for the meat grinder.

• From Iron, cometh Strength.
• From Strength, cometh Will.
• From Will, cometh Faith.
• From Faith, cometh Honour.
• From Honour, cometh Iron.
• This is the Unbreakable Litany.
• And may it forever be so.

Iron Warriors Today

Iron Within... You. 'Cause I shot you with my big ass Autocannon. (Look at his tiny hands, though. Aww! So widdle an' cute!)

They used to be incredibly badass in 3rd edition, with special rules for having more heavy weapon options, including tanks and artillery, and no limits on Obliterators. But then 4th edition came around and instead of just toning the insanity down, Gav Thorpe (who's basically Matt Ward's BFF) decided that spikey marines should be inferior to loyalists in every way possible.

The Iron Warriors have been one of the more popular legions in fluff over the past few years. While some have put this down to them being 'grittier' or more realistic than the others, the truth is probably more functional than fanciful: The Iron Warriors are for the most part not gibbering madmen. This might seem a dumb reason but it's actually important. To write a good character they need to make sense to the reader, even when we don't agree with them we need to understand why they want to do what they do. The other legions kinda lack that. Why did you attack that planet? 'Because it turns me on' doesn't really make for an interesting character, nor does being told to by demons, wanting to kill everything all the time just really digging dead stuff or because Zeke and his drinking buddies told me to. So that leaves the Iron Warriors as being just about the only generally sane legion who do things for reasons normal people can understand.

Graham McNeill wrote a book that was mostly about them. Called 'Storm of Iron', surprisingly, and it featured a boatload of Imperial Fists, Iron Warriors (surprisingly) and a whole load of dickery, including traitorous techpriests, countless rows of geneseed, and a daemon prince. To cap it all off, this is where Honsou gets his start. Last but not least, countless Imperial Guard and Titans. (...Tell me again why the Imperials lost? There was a traitor on the inside, and about fifty thousand tons of badass at the gates. Baaaad combination. McNeill then wrote a Horus Heresy prequel called 'Angel Exterminatus', featuring Fulgrim being an even bigger dick than usual, Iron Hands Professor Farnsworth, and Perturabo actually being sympathetic for once.)

Even Ward seems to think they're cool, as he has Warsmith Shon'tu one-up both Honsou and Abaddon. How? He Invades Terra! He teams up with Be’lakor (yeah, the same guy from Fantasy battles) and uses Phalanx's warp door (yeah remember that from the Soul Drinkers book) to invade it hoping to take it over and bomb the Emperor's palaces. Even the combined plot armor of the Imperial Fists AND the Legion of the Damned is still just barely enough to force a stalemate.

John French, on the other hand, doesn't seem to like them much at all. This is a shame since they tend to be his go-to antagonists.

Anyway, here is their theme, done by HMKids, which includes in the lyrics quotes from Dawn of War Chaos Space Marines for extra-flavour! They are METAL indeed!

An Iron Warrior named Valicar, serving a priestess of the Dark Mechanicus, became the first fleetmaster of the Black Legion. If not for his actions, Abaddon would have been trapped on the Eternal Crusader after his duel with Sigismund during the First Battle of Cadia.

The German Death Metal band "Debauchery" also wrote a song and video here [1], and it is badass.

Bruva Albufasa distilled the Iron Warriors and Imperial Fists' enmity into a few minutes of video, naturally emphasizing the "SIEGE!"-"FORTIFY!" dichotomy

Iron Warriors Character

Personality-wise, the Iron Warriors are one of the most… unpleasant Traitor Legions. They are bonded by a mutual brotherhood forged by their hatred of the Imperium, their will to conquer, and their bitter paranoia, yet even then rivalries can surface and lead to some serious backstabbing. Makes you understand just what the appeal of the honest brotherhood of the Black Legion is. They value their hatred and opportunities to express it, and treat most they know as tools to express their hatred and accomplish their goals. To an Iron Warrior, everything boils down to a resource to be used and/or an obstacle to be cleared. War is a mathematical equation that has to be solved for victory. Humans are slaves, expendable soldiers, breeding stock, and ultimately something to be fed (literally) into the Iron Warriors's war apparatus, making their lives a living, nightmarish hell beforehand. Fellow Iron Warriors are expected to carry out their brutal, violent work without question. They carry a powerful sense of brotherhood and an unflinching loyalty to their Legion, forged by a bitter hatred of their enemies and their cruel urge to dominate and enslave. At best, they view fellow Iron Warriors as coworkers or brothers-in-crime, or at worst, as hated rivals. Warsmiths ally and deal with each other to stave off the next battle so they can go to war on more hated targets, but if they smell weakness among their ranks, or a slight directed at one of them, they might decide your soldiers and your fort would be better off under their leadership, no matter the cost to get it. Grimdark.

When the Iron Warriors go to war, everyone is expendable. Eve-ry-one. Back in the days of the Great Crusade they spent Astartes lives like bolter rounds, and human lives like lasbolts autogun bullets, and they haven’t exactly gotten better with time. Their pure, unadulterated contempt for life is such that, in the Siege of Castellax, they refer to their mortal servants simply as “flesh,” and place orders for more like they're fast food (battalions 3-5 were wiped out today. I’ll have four more, to go, and hold the pickles). Speaking of food, when rations started to get low, the Iron Warriors started feeding their people the rendered down remains of the dead. (It's not like the Imperium doesn't do the same on the regular basis, though.)

The Iron Warriors are basically the very epitome of the concept of "bad boss". If you fuck up on the job, do something your way, or show any degree of insubordination, you're done for, end of story. If you do the job right, they keep pushing until every last ounce of usefulness is squeezed out of you (basically stable Sith Lords). The Night Lords may send the populations of entire worlds to the skinning pits just for shits and giggles (and record it all for future shits and giggles), and the Emperors Children may be impulsive, sociopathic sado-masochists who live and breathe to inflict pain, but even they would break under the brutal regimen of the Iron Warriors, where there is no room for impulsive behavior. There is only ruthless efficiency; grinding, crushing pragmatism and nothing else.

Notable Members

• Perturabo: Primarch of the Iron Warriors, Lord of Iron, the Hammer of Olympia, and Galaxy's Saltiest Man. Had a crippling martyr complex and rage issues to match Angron's. Was incredibly loyal to the Emperor at first, even when he got pigeonholed into siege work instead of engineering and diplomacy like he'd have preferred, but ultimately the relentless grind of the Crusade got to him and he snapped when he found out his home planet had rebelled. Joined Horus on principle, but bailed at the Siege of Terra after deciding that his brother wasn't treating him any better than their dad had and went to go do his own thing. Is now a daemon prince of Chaos Undivided, even though he spent all of the Heresy hating Chaos.
• Kydomor Forrix: A member of the Trident, Pert's advisory council, and one of the few Iron Warriors who had his shit together. In addition to being a competent leader and colleague, he was also surprisingly human for an Iron Warrior. He had a sentimental attachment to Olympia even if it wasn't his native homeworld (even discussing with Ahriman of all people how its mountains inspired philosophical thoughts of his place in the universe), and deeply regretted Perturabo's massacre of the planet for its rebellion, though as a good soldier first and foremost, he still carried out his orders. Became increasingly disillusioned with Perturabo and Horus and burned out on the traitor cause after the Heresy was over, continuing to fight for Chaos only because he didn't have another option. Died on Hydra Cordatus in M41 when a Warhound Titan shot him to bits.
• Barban Falk: First a warsmith, now the Warsmith. Served alongside Forrix and Kroeger during the Crusade and Heresy and decided that Chaos was pretty neat. Eventually discarded his name to become The Warsmith and ascended to daemonhood after stealing a ton of Imperial Fists gene-seed from Hydra Cordatus in M41.
• Kroeger: A belligerent trooper promoted to Warsmith and the Trident after his superior, Harkor, was dismissed and disgraced by Perturabo for a wasteful meat grinder frontal assault. Pert brought him to the Big Boy's Table because he thought Kroeger would be an outside thinker since they were kind of stuck in a rut, and his smooth-brained full-monke tactics would be just the thing to shake off their rust (heh). That being said, despite his brutal nature and tactics looking like they'd be right at home with the World Eaters except with more GUN, Kroeger was actually sharper than he seemed, which made sense given that he's an Astartes with enhanced intelligence. He led the assault on Lion's Gate Spaceport (granted, because Perturabo thought Dorn was expecting a 4D-chess strategy and wouldn't expect DUMB tactics) against his opposite number (and fellow smarter-than-he-looks-fighty-guy-in-stoic-Legion character) Fafnir Rann, and had the ADAMANTIUM BALLS to challenge his own Primarch in the Iron Warriors' simulation of the Siege of Terra. His temper ultimately got the better of him as he devolved into a full-on Khornate Berzerker and got killed by a mortal slave powered by the daemon in his armor.
• Berossus: Warsmith who got punched into a Dreadnought (as in he was crippled enough that they had to stick him in one) just because he was the one who told Perturabo that Sigismund wasn't in charge of the fleet they were fighting at Phall. Got killed by Honsou ten millennia later.
• Barabas Dantioch: I think Warsmith is a pretty cool guy. Eh kills traitors and doesn't afraid of anything. A veteran warsmith and hardcore loyalist who got exiled to nowhere after following bad orders that got his grand company mangled by Hrud, even though he'd pointed out why those orders were bad. He built himself a kino fortress, then drowned it in lava rather than let the traitors have it. Went on to help FORTIFY Imperium Secundus and learned how to operate the Pharos while forming an unlikely bromance with Alexis Polux of the Imperial Fists. Died by overloading the Pharos to wipe out an attacking Night Lords strike force, causing a warp flare that caught the attention of the hive fleets. Whoops.
• Nârik Dreygur: Consul-Praevian, also known as the Gravewalker. Fought for the traitors at first during the Heresy, then flipped them the bird after being shit on one too many times by the Alpha Legion and rejoined the loyalists, serving with Cassian Dracos of the Salamanders.
• Kyr Vhalen: Loyalist warsmith who told the Alpha Legion to get fucked at Paramar V and lived to tell about it. Also known as "Shatterblade" for one battle where he spent nine hours killing xenos with one of their swords lodged in his chest.
• Volk: Random Iron Warrior who's only important because he became the very first Obliterator when a daemon possessed him not long before the Siege of Terra.
• Honsou: Warsmith with chimeric gene-seed and a sick fuck rivalling Fabulous Bill himself. Was responsible for the Daemonculaba, which is really all you need to know about how messed up this guy is. Has a necrodermis arm and a vendetta against Uriel Ventris because Uriel keeps fucking up his plans.
• Shon'tu: Crazy-ass warsmith who thought he was the reincarnation of a legendary warlord from the Dark Age of Technology. Had a hate-boner for Imperial Fists in general and Darnath Lysander in particular, and once stuffed a Space Hulk full of Tyranids and launched it at Terra. Kept escaping Lysander's wrath while yelling "I'll get you next time, Fist! NEXT TIIIIIME!" until he was unceremoniously killed to death by some random IF Terminators when trying to hijack the Phalanx right before the Great Rift opened.

Daily Routines

• 04:00 - Morning Reveille: The Iron Warriors emerge from their artillery batteries and fortifications.
• 04:20 - Morning Maintenance Rituals: The Iron Warriors ensure their instruments of war are in tip-top shape. A slave is turned into a servitor for every warhead that fails to detonate.
• 05:00 - Morning Prayers: The Iron Warriors begin to pray to all four Chaos Gods. Their prayers are shorter than those of the Word Bearers and Black Legion as they view Chaos only as a weapon they can use, thus each prayer to each God lasts only 30 minutes.
• 07:00 - Morning Firing Rites: The Iron Warriors test fire their artillery and siege weaponry at captured civilians and fortifications. Any Iron Warrior who manages to miss a stationary target is also used as a target.
• 10:00 - Close Combat Practice: The Iron Warriors descend in a cage for close-quarters combat practice. Servitors are used, as normal people are too squishy and die too quickly.
• 12:00 - Tactical Indoctrination: The Iron Warriors gather to discuss which fortifications to destroy or which monument of Rogal Dorn to defile, along with directing their laborers and human auxiliary forces.
• 13:00 - Afternoon Wargames: The Iron Warriors set up miniature pieces representing their forces on an open table with complex rules and dice to test each others' grasp of strategy. Known as BattleMace 5,000,000 Perturabo sometimes joins in on the 'fun'. An ancient Terran snack known as 'The Doritos' are brought by the truckload and are complemented by an equally ancient Terran beverage known as 'Mountain Dew'. Those who consume 'The Doritos' are not allowed to touch field operation manuals until they ritually cleanse and scrape their fingers. Anyone failing to do so will find their hands in their next meal. Of course, none of this is fun. Rules Lawyers, Munchkins, Powergamers: every single stick-to-the-book archetype you can think of is exercised here, and they won't have it any other way.
• 14:00 - First Evening Meal: A feast is prepared by the legion serfs. Due to long hours without eating, some Iron Warriors may have already begun to eat bits off their slaves.
• 15:00 - Evening Firing Rites: The Iron Warriors practice their artillery marksmanship on moving targets. Aerial targets are also available for those looking to impress their superiors. Any found using airburst or guided ordinance will find themselves and their arsenal fed to the nearest Obliterator.
• 18:00 - Battle Practice: The Iron Warriors descend into the labyrinthine trench lines. Heavy weapon ambushes and kill zones are the most popular tactics in the narrow trenches.
• 20:00 - Second Evening Meal: Another feast is prepared by legion slaves. Those slaves who have parts of their bodies eaten by hungry Iron Warriors are gifted bionic implants to make them useful again.
• 21:00 - Evening Wargames: A game of Galactic Cyclonic War is set up, where the only winning move is not to play. Any Iron Warriors foolish enough to play will be assigned to minesweeper duty. The remaining Warriors continue their earlier wargames.
• 22:00 - Bitching about the Imperial Fists and the sons of Dorn: A period is held for the Iron Warriors to bitch and moan about the Imperial Fists and why they can't wait to tear down Rogal Dorn's statue on Terra. Sometimes Perturabo joins in the bitching.
• 23:00 - Evening Maintenance Rituals: Many Iron Warriors continue bitching about the Imperial Fists and the sons of Dorn during this time, infusing their equipment with their contempt.
• 00:00 - Rest Period: The Iron Warriors retire to their artillery and siege vehicles.

Gallery

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  doomer sieging intensifies

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  OI BLYAT

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  Warsmith Dantioch

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  Good Times

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  Cannon go boom

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  It's like this CONSTANTLY

The Traitor Legions and Warbands of Chaos
Chaos Legions:	Alpha Legion - Black Legion - Death Guard Emperor's Children - Iron Warriors - Night Lords Thousand Sons - Word Bearers - World Eaters
Legion Offshoots:	Apostles of Contagion - Bloodborn - Broken Aquila Foresworn - Mouldering Claw - Plague Fleet - Prodigal Sons The Consortium - Warband of Subsector Aurelia
Fallen Chapters (Including Judged):	Adharon's Reavers - Blood Gorgons - Company of Misery Corpus Brethren - Crimson Slaughter - Deathmongers Death Shadows - Invocators - Lords of Decay Oracles of Change - Red Corsairs - Shriven The Brazen Beasts - The Flawless Host - The Scourged Skyrar's Dark Wolves - Steel Cobras - Voidrippers
Unknown/ Other:	Apostles of Minthras - Claws of Lorek - Disciples of Destruction Dragon Warriors - Extinction Angels - Hakanor's Reavers - Punishers The Cleaved - The Purge - The Pyre - Sons of Malice - Sons of Vengeance The Reborn - Violators - Warp Ghosts - Bleak Brotherhood