Iron Hearts Legion

Iron Hearts
Battle Cry	"Life Eternal! Death Eternal!"
Number	XVII
Primarch	Rubinek
Homeworld	Rust
Specialty	Resilient Infantry, Farseeing, Survival
Allegiance	Dark Imperium
Colours	Iron and Bronze, corroded and tarnished.

The Iron Hearts are the seventeenth legion in the /tg/ alternate history 40k timeline Imperium Asunder. Even before the onset of the Heresy, the Iron Hearts experienced the full scope of death and destruction between Astartes fighting Astartes. Upon his introduction into the Imperium, Rubinek swore to his father that he would forsake the old ways and spread the Imperial Truth.

Ultimately to lead his marines safely through the ravages of the frontlines of the Great Crusade, Rubinek made use of every tool available to him -- including the power that provided him with his Iron Heart. This haunted obelisk had provided the mechanical heart that saved Rubinek's life, and in turn the Primarch passed this blessing onto his children as the Crusade battered them with relentless casualties. Unfortunately the use of this ancient and forbidden technology had been expressly disallowed by the Emperor.

In the latter half of the Crusade the Iron Hearts had steadily gained more and more for the Imperium, but all the while they had been kept whole and fighting by blasphemous artifice. When the Emperor learned of this, he cast Rubinek out, and unleashed the Bloodhounds on his legion.

Summary of Legion VII

Homeworld

The Iron Hearts were primarily based in a small cluster of all-but-abandoned worlds, including their homeworld Rust, which contained many unexplored lairs of Dark Age technology. After their near-total destruction by the Bloodhounds, the Iron Hearts became a fleet-based chapter, their homeworlds having been leveled at the Emperor's merciless command.

Tactics

In a word, the Iron Hearts Legion is unyielding. Blessed with prodigious endurance by the gifts of their Primarch, the sons of Rubinek possess personal fortitude well beyond those of other Astartes. Their relatively poor ability to reinforce their numbers and constant struggle for survival has lead to the use of exceptionally conservative, defensive tactics - the Iron Hearts are masters of weathering the storm, able to advance slowly but surely through the thickest of enemy firepower. It is a truly foolish foe that attempts to engage an Iron Hearts fortification head-on.

Iron Hearts divisions are generally smaller than average, padded out with Bronzeborn auxiliaries; the difficulties they face in replenishing their numbers necessitates that they often make do from a position of numerical inferiority. Luckily, this shortage of manpower is offset by the individual excellence of the Iron Hearts Marines, who boast abilities far in excess of a standard Astartes. A further advantage lies in the logistical needs of such a force. The Iron Hearts cannot hope to maintain Legions as vast as those of their fellow Astartes, but they also do not need to equip nearly as many Marines. This, combined with the advanced technologies and manufacturing processes at the Iron Hearts' disposal, often means that individual Marines of the Legion are equipped with the finest and most lethal of technology, boasting widespread use of weaponry and equipment that would be impractical to spread so widely in any other Legion.

Equipment

• Bronzeborn Equipment: Not a match for a standard Astartes, but far superior to most human combatants, the Bronzeborn often see supportive combat duty, operating heavy weapons emplacements and select vehicles. When deployed on the front lines, they are generally equipped in a manner similar to a Space Marine Scout, utilizing light armour and mass-produced Bolters as their primary arms. In engagements with Astartes, the Bronzeborn typically have a long-range role, and very often make wide usage of Atrox Pattern boltrifles, supporting their Ironborn brothers from afar.
• Volkite Weaponry: Volkite arms were, during the earliest days of the Great Crusade, the standard weapon of the Space Marine Legionnaire, though the logistical problems of equipping a galaxy-spanning army eventually leading to the switch to more easily-produced bolter firearms. The Iron Hearts do not have these logistical problems, and as such the Volkite Charger remains the standard issue firearm for Ironborn Marines of the Legion. Over the years, the Iron Hearts have refined and improved these designs, boasting several unique designations of Volkite weaponry. The extreme load-bearing capacity of the Iron Hearts makes them capable of advancing swiftly while firing even the heaviest of Volkite arms, and many foes have been brought low by a steadily-advancing wall of Ironborn equipped with Volkite Calivers and Culverins.
• Magnetic Armaments: The Iron Hearts' affinity for working with metal extends to their battlefield doctrine, and they employ a large number of unique weapons derived from archeotech designs that make use of electromagnetic field manipulation. Haywire weaponry is commonplace, as is Magnetic Impulsion tech - a series of weapons of brutal effectiveness against war machines of nearly any size, projecting a wave of electromagnetic forces that accelerate the target away from the weapon at devastating speed.
• Terminator and Artificer Armour: Considering the low number of Marines in service to the Legion at once and the startling productivity of the Fortress Worlds, it should come as no surprise that the Iron Hearts outfit a relatively large proportion of their forces in Terminator or Artificer armour.
• Heavy Metal: The Iron Hearts take full advantage of their prodigious strength, fielding large numbers of heavy weapons normally top bulky and unwieldy to be carried into battle by regular Marines. Assault Cannons, Gatling Rocket Launchers, and even Neutron Lasers can all be expected in the hands of an Iron Heart Legionnaire. Terminator units of the Legion typically prefer volume of fire over close combat capability, often sporting paired Assault Cannons or Volkite Culverins.
• Marduk Pattern Terminator Armour: Sometimes Terminator tough ain't tough enough. It is for such occasions that the Marduk was concieved. The bastard middle child between the Contemptor Pattern dreadnought and standard Terminator armour, the Marduk exemplifies Iron Hearts combat doctrine, essentially a slow (but purposeful) heavy weapons platform in the vague shape of a man. Sporting a strengthened refractor field generator and enough plasteel plating to make a Land Raider blush, the Marduk is a beast of its very own caliber, typically outfitted with shoulder-mounted Vengeance Missiles and paired Demi-Culverins, though other variants have been observed.

Legion History

Rubinek's Discovery

Primarch Rubinek was found by nomads on a world of caustic wastelands and rusted mechanical predators. When grown he became the leader of his tribe and guided them through the wastes. They prospered, thanks to prophetic dreams that time and time again led him true.

One year he dreamt of a hellish metal fortress, lair of the world's beasts, and beyond that, a valley paradise. He led his nomads against the horrors and reached their leader, a massive beast of blood-slicked gears and rusted blades. While the tribe's survivors fled to salvation Rubinek fought the colossus blade to claw, knowing how his fight would end: buried with his enemy, speared through the heart. So he had dreamt, so it was. The tribe settled in the valley and mourned.

After a time of only darkness Rubinek realized he yet lived. Weak, he extricated himself from a mountain of metal and found his people. A priestess tended to his ruined chest for a day and a night, and in the end he was made whole thanks to a miraculous mechanical heart. She explained that a great obelisk whispered to her the secrets of life, and gave her this heart.

The Rubrik virus

A horrid fate awaits those who are incompatible with the monolith, for only the monolith deems who may take its gifts and any who are unworthy are transformed into skeletal robotic creatures that feel no pain and have no emotion, bound in runed armours that act more as cells or storage devices for the being within. In battle energy surges through the armour and manifests tides of swirling green energy, unlike the energies of psykers, and even appears invisible to the eyes of daemons.

Gene-Seed

The Sickly Ones

Rubinek's gene-seed marked him as a nigh-irredeemable abomination in the eyes of his Father, barely fit to live and ever an embarrassment to the Master of Mankind. Weak and frail by Primarch standards, his body was wracked with mutations only stabilized by the implantation of the Iron Heart. Thus was it so for his sons - the first attempts at forging warriors from Rubinek's gene-seed were dismal failures, producing creatures unfit to have any part in the Emperor's grand design. It was only through the secret usage of forbidden techno-sorceries gleaned from the ruins of his homeworld, that Rubinek could mold his sons into soldiers worthy of his Father's cause.

The Monolith Men

The Iron Hearts Legion is an army of cyborgs, their faulty gene-seed bolstered and in many ways improved by the usage of esoteric Golden Age technology. The process of implanting this mystical archeotech into a human body is not fully understood by even the Legion itself, and full of peril; it does not always produce a true Astartes, and in many cases results in a braindead being barely fit for servitorhood. Those that survive the implantation process are split into four distinct categories based on their adaptation to the ancient technology. It is important to note that there is the Iron Hearts themselves do not scorn those with lesser tolerance for these implants - Rubinek's sons are closely-knit and highly communal, bonded by their natures as outcasts and offscourings.

Bronzeborn

Most initiates that survive the bonding process are Bronzeborn. Though enhanced in many ways beyond any standard human, the Bronzeborn are by no means true Astartes; a crucial error in their metabolization of the Monolith's technology causes a nullification of many Space Marine traits. They are strong and enduring, but not nearly to the extent of a true Space Marine, and they usually lack most of the supplementary organs and abilities that define an Astartes. Pale and lean, they tend to be highly vulnerable to infection, and spend much of their time in sealed environments or suits. They serve a support and auxiliary role within the Legion, more than a match for any Guardsman though not nearly of the same caliber as a true Space Marine.

Ironborn

These are true Space Marines, gaining the full range of Astartes abilities, plus a few extra gifts provided by the Monolith technology. Ironborn Marines are extraordinarily durable and strong even by Astartes standards, boasting skeletons of tempered plasteel and a baffling network of internal redundancies that keep them moving through injuries that would cripple or outright kill a normal Space Marine.

Steelborn

A rare blessing, Steelborn are those to whom the ancient technology of the Monolith adheres with extraordinary ease. More anarcheotech than Astartes, these Marines are immediately identifiable as something utterly removed from their brothers. Their skin is a sheath of regenerating plasteel, their joints reinforced with adamantine servo-thrusters. Cords of metallic reinforcement twine through their muscles, granting them extraordinary strength, and internal targeting systems worked into their irises constantly feed tactical information into their brains. In some cases, the Steelborn even develop more advanced adaptations - personal forcefield emitters, palm-mounted energy weapons, and clandestine monomolecular blades have all been reported among Steelborn Marines. In a few exceptionally rare cases, Steelborn of the Iron Hearts have been blessed with the ability to project a searing volkite pulse from their eyes.

The Aurelian

Less than one-in-a-thousand godsends, the Aurelian achieve perfect synthesis of man and machine, arising from the implantation as metallic demigods. Their skin a radiant hue of electrum, these enhanced Astartes stride through the thickest of and most punishing volumes of firepower, laying their foes low with retinal blasts of searing volkite energy and crumpling Terminator armour bare-handed. Treasured beyond measure, these chosen few are revered as the greatest sons of Rubinek, and only they may sit at council with his holy spirit in the halls of the Great Monolith.

Characters

Pargashtan Grendel, Equerry of Rubinek

Pargashtan Grendel had been legion master at the time Rubinek was reunited with his legion. In many ways, Pargashtan represented what was best and worst in his legion. Dedicated, unrelenting, and tough, Pargashtan was also known for a rancorous disregard for anyone outside of his brotherhood. Part of this, doubtlessly, was the genetic instability of the legion, for despite the Emperor's assurance that the legion would not be purged, even if their primarch proved unable to stabilize their gene-seed, but would instead be granted an honorable death in combat, Grendel feared that the Emperor would reneg on his promise should he discover the worst of the mutations. As it was, Grendel was mostly bionic by the time his primarch came. The promise of salvation made him and the rest of of the legion fanatically loyal to Rubinek, regardless of where that path might lead.