Saul Tarvitz
""Our names may be forgotten, and our bones crumble to dust, but our deaths will echo through the millennia to come.""
- – The man himself, getting ready to die like a legend during the final stages of the Istvaan III Massacre
Captain Saul Tarvitz was a loyalist member of the Emperor's Children and one of the most bro-tier Space Marines ever to exist. In a legion which defined itself by the relentless, obsessive pursuit of perfection, Saul Tarvitz stood out by virtue of the fact that he was one of the very few Emperor's Children who had reached this goal. He was a very good line officer, knew that he was a very good line officer, and was content to serve Fulgrim and the Emperor as a line officer for the rest of his life, rather than striving to reach ever-higher ranks within the Legion and become something he was not suited to be. This meant that he was marked for death when the III Legion found a new master to serve, and he was chosen to form part of the speartip assault that opened the Istvaan III Atrocity.
Biography
Great Crusade
Tarvitz was a line captain throughout the Great Crusade, during which he racked up an impressive tally of victories and earned the respect and admiration of many Astartes within and without his Legion. At some point, he became honour brothers with Nathaniel Garro of the Death Guard, a bond which would prove to be key to the Imperium's survival in the future. Toward the end of the Crusade, Tarvitz was one of the Emperor's Children who landed on the planet Murder and got into a tangle with the gigantic arachnids who lived there. His decision to blow up some giant spiky trees with corpses impaled on them led to the Astartes on the ground being able to reestablish contact with the forces in orbit, but he was such a bro that he refused to openly contradict Lord Commander Eidolon when the glory-boy took all the credit for that idea.
Horus Heresy
By the time of the Istvaan campaign, Tarvitz had been marked out by Fulgrim and the other traitors in the III Legion as one of those who would never follow them in their new campaign against the Emperor. He was therefore assigned to join the speartip assault on Istvaan III. Tarvitz realized something was up, however, when he learned that Eidolon wouldn't be joining the first wave, a highly uncharacteristic move for the glory-obsessed Lord Commander. He finagled his way into remaining on one of the ships in orbit, where he learned that the Warmaster's fleet was preparing to bombard the planet and kill everyone on the surface. He immediately stole a fighter and took off for the surface to warn the loyalist forces there. Along the way he warned Nathaniel Garro on board the frigate Eisenstein, after which Garro fled the system to bring word of the betrayal to the rest of the Imperium. Tarvitz managed to make landfall and successfully convinced the majority of the loyalists to take cover, which helped them survive the initial bombardments. After that, he assumed command of the Emperor's Children contingent on the ground and directed a successful defense of the Precentor's Palace for two months, inflicting twice as many casualties as he sustained. By this time, he'd assumed general command of all remaining loyalist forces on the surface of Istvaan III, with even Garviel Loken, Tarik Torgaddon, and Solomon Demeter all deferring to him. This made his fellow captain Lucius jealous, and so Lucius decided to sell Tarvitz and the other loyalists out in exchange for being welcomed back into the III Legion's fold. Despite that, Tarvitz was able to defeat Lucius in a duel and successfully ruin Eidolon's plan of attack. Finally, however, Horus had had enough and ordered an all-out assault on the Precentor's Palace, so Tarvitz buckled down for the last stand. It is generally believed that he died as hard as he could in that last great battle, though his body was never found . . .
So, Is He Actually Dead?
That's a good question. He is most certainly dead by the time of the 41st-42nd Millennium, but his body was never recovered from Istvaan III, and so there are some who believe he might have somehow escaped the planet and gone off to be a cool renegade Blackshield. Even Warhammer Community, upon announcing his model for the Horus Heresy character series, wondered if he was really dead. (Then they said that yes, yes he was.)
Tabletop
