Black Legion
| Black Legion | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Battle Cry | "Death to the False Emperor!" Luna Wolves: "Kill for the living, kill for the dead!" or "Lupercal!" Sons of Horus: "For the Warmaster!" |
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| Number | XVI | |
| Original Name | Luna Wolves, later Sons of Horus | |
| Original Homeworld | Cthonia | |
| Current Homeworld | Vengeful Spirit | |
| Primarch | Horus | |
| Champion | Ezekyle Abaddon | |
| Strength | Actually quite large, despite Abaddon's best efforts. | |
| Specialty | Flexible organization, destroying enemy leadership | |
| Allegiance | Chaos Undivided | |
| Colours | Black, formerly Pale Green, formerly Grey | |
The Black Legion (Legion XVI) are one of the nine Space Marine legions which betrayed the Emperor during the Horus Heresy. Their Primarch was Horus. Originally called themselves the Luna Wolves before changing their name to The Sons of Horus. They eventually changed their name to The Black Legion, possibly ashamed to carry the name of one who failed to conquer the Imperium (Though ironically, they now serve an even bigger failure). Canon has now been muddled further with the new ADB novel series making it clear that the Black Legion is NOT just a changing of names but a rejection of their previous identities regardless of what legion they previously belonged to and a commitment to fighting the Long War.
The Black Legion is generally depicted as the "vanilla" Chaos Space Marine legion, similar to how the Ultramarines are with the loyalists. For a long time they were mostly overlooked fluff-wise, because like the ultrasmurfs they weren't that interesting being the 'middle-of-the-road' chaos marines. Now though they had their own 6th Edition Codex Supplement and actually got their own character at last.
History
When they were still loyalists, there were known as the greatest and most powerful legion during the Great Crusade. They won many victories and brought many worlds into compliance. After Horus won the Ullanor Crusade, he was given the title "Warmaster" by the Emperor. This gave him almost complete control of all the space marine legions and the Imperial Forces.
After Horus was severely wounded on Davin, he received visions from the Chaos Gods who told him that the Emperor would cast him and his brother Primarchs aside once he attained full God-hood. After seemingly being easily convinced by them, Horus turned traitor. He corrupted most of his brother Primarchs, the majority of the Imperial army and half of the Adeptus Mechanicus to his side. After Horus' defeat during the siege of Holy Terra, the traitor legions fled to the Eye of Terror. You know, instead of saying "Well Horus is dead but so is your Emperor" and continuing to attack the Imperial Palace where they might have won. Rowboat Girlyman was hot on their heels along with The Lion and Leman Russ. Kinda the whole reason Horus wanted to finish it decisively.
Their leader, Warmaster Abaddon (A.K.A. Failbaddon), is known for launching 13 black failsades against the Imperium. As mentioned above, he is an even bigger failure due to all of his crusades being total failures. Though his 13th crusade may have won him a foothold in Cadia, it is technically a Pyrrhic victory. This is due to the remaining Black Legion forces having no way of reinforcing their current forces. In turn, this forces a war of attrition, which Space Marines never win anyway as such a war is devoted to who can replace their losses the quickest. It is,
however, exactly the sort of combat the Imperial Guard shines. Nice going, dumbass. It is unknown exactly how they managed to survive for so long due to Failbaddon's incompetence and poor leadership skills (plus, his failed Black Crusades could have left them largely undermanned). And they can't actually do anything to him due to the Chaos Gods protecting him from possible assassinations or getting Sindri'd, and likewise, Failbaddon cannot do anything to them due to not having arms (He could still try to kick them, but it would have little to no effect). It may be possible that they receive millions of volunteers due to their paint job looking awesome. Another reason is because they allow Chaos Marines from other Chaos Legions (or from renegade chapters) to join them in their ranks (an example is Eliphas the Inheritor, who originally came from the Word Bearers). The new ADB novels indicate that the Black Legion is an open institution for anyone who is serious about waging the Long War against the Imperium (and not just raiding / pillaging / winning favour with the chaos gods / feeling sad about it) and is strong enough to prosper. The founding members came from a variety of different legions.
There have only ever been four awesome members of the Black Legion: Araghast the Pillager, Neroth, Kain, and Eliphas (who wasn't even originally from the Black Legion). And the middle two are kind of iffy on the cool factor. Neroth is a whiny bitch, but he makes up for it by shitting free doombolts. Kain knows better than to speak given most of Chaos' shitty Failbaddon admiring script, which makes him cool.
However it is only a matter of time before someone overthrows Abaddon, we're betting on Eliphas, a revived Araghast, or Huron...probably Eliphas (it's in his name after all, Eliphas, the Inheritor of the Black Legion)...but still...BRING ARAGHAST BACK!
HMKids have done a good job for their theme, it's full of energy and fury towards the emperor and his slaves!
Noted members