Iron Guard

The Iron Guard
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Battle Cry	WIP
Number	XII
Founding	First Founding
Successors of	N/A
Successor Chapters	WIP
Chapter Master	WIP
Primarch	Zelbezis Dyestes
Homeworld	Novi Zhelezem
Strength	WIP
Specialty	Co-ordinated Mass-theatre Warfare, Retribution and Counter-insurgency campaigns, Psychological Warfare, Targeted Decimation
Allegiance	Separatist
Colours	Drab with black right arm and helm with red trim

This page is part of the Warmasters Triumvirate, a fan re-working of the Warhammer 40,000 Universe. See the Warmasters Triumvirate page for more information on the Alternate Universe.

The Iron Guard were the XII Legion of the original twenty-one Space Marine Legions under their Primarch Zelbezis Dyestes.

History

Pre-Primarch history and reunion

Created along with its brother Legions during the latter days of the Unification Wars, the XIIth Legion would find its origins in those peoples of Terra that bowed to the nascent Imperium of their own accord. As gift to their new liege, the various warlords and generals gave their sons to form the basis from one of his armies of gene-enhanced warriors. Compared to the preceding Tenth Legion, the stability of the Twelfth would prove exceptionally stable in those early days, with little deviance from the Standard Pattern. As an experiment on the Imperium's part, new psycho-indoctrination techniques were introduced, aiming to increase the warriors' efficiency by inducing a drive towards total war doctrines: anything less than complete eradication of the enemy would be seen as unsufficient in the new legion's eyes.

The first recorded deployment of the XII Legion as a self-sufficient entity would be the Compliance of Sotho, which would pave the way for the later conquest of Sa'afrik. There, three thousand Astartes fought against twenty times their number of irregulars and mercenaries gold-sworn to the Oligarchs of Sa'afrik in rad-swept plains. The campaign would be one of skirmishes in small settlements as the wasteland offered no useful cover. From town to town, the legion would hunt its prey and deliver a heavy decapitating strike before cutting down those who fled. No prisoner was taken, no survivor tolerated. To this day, the only accounts that remain from the Sotho Compliance hail from the Imperium, as no opponent was left to testify.

Rise of the Iron General

When the infant Primarchs were scattered through the stars, the one bearing the numeration XII would land on a world whose original name has been lost to history. Fragmentary records render it as either Dherzel or Tarzhalas. The planet had suffered heavily from infighting during Old Night, having reached its electrical revolution mere decades before the Primarch landed. This industrialisation had been led by a feudal system, whose various houses had united to conserve their power into a global High Kingdom. However efficient this system had been for the development of technology, it thrived off the blood of the poor, and many voices rose against it. In remote mountainous areas, the people had rejected the oppressive rule of the High Kingdom, calling themselves Liberated Zones. An uprising was inevitable. It was in one such free zone that the young primarch would land.

His arrival would be seen as an omen that the time was right. He was named Zelbezis, a name pre-dating the rise of the High Kingdom, and held as a sign that the time was right. He soon showed prestigious abilities to learn, and he was taught in all matters of war and statecraft. From siegecraft to guerilla, from dialectics to cryptography, from gunsmithing to the arts of the blade, he was to be the perfect revolutionary. His very first raids against the High Kingdom's, railway sabotage and warehouse pillagings, were flawless, and he soon rose to coordination roles. It was around this time he took the nom de guerre of "Dyestes".

Legion Doctrine

Legion Organization

When the Twelfth Legion, then named the Warmongers, was reunited with its Gene-Sire, its command structure had become a mess of informal designations and personal concurrence between glory-seeking officers. Thus the first major change to the legion was the rebirth of the Opsequarion, a disciplinary corps present at the birth of the Legiones Astartes but dissolved as the Primarchs were discovered, their presence sufficient to ensure compliance in most cases.

Gone would be the flexible structure of the Warmongers, and their champion-culture. In its place, the Principia Bellicosa would be enforced and expanded upon, with the creation of two additional levels, one tactical, the other strategic.

The first would be the Platoons, elements of one hundred Astartes, more suited to enclosed quarters fighting than isolated squads or vast companies. A Platoon would possess a sufficient variety in squad designations to cover every aspect of warfare, should the conditions of battle change over the course of a single operation.

The second would be the Brigade, a grouping of two companies, with a theoretical nominal strength of two thousand legionnaires. Adapted to wider campaigns, a myriad-strong Division could strike in better coordination and higher strength when divided in five parts than ten, without two Captains vying for power when a single Brigadier could command the entire operation.

Naval Assets

The Will to Power

The pinnacle of the Iron Guard fleet, the Will to Power may however have been one of the outwardly least modified Gloriana-class flagships among the 21 Legions. While replete with the aggressive iconography of the XIIth Legion, her main visible divergence from the standard pattern is a greater number of medium-sized hangars and a preference for torpedo and missile based weaponry, including the Curtain, a battery of long-range weaponry running the entire length of the ship's keel. The Will to Power's hangar space is optimised for quick deployment of a vast complement of dropships, according to the Iron Guard's strategy of overwhelming, suffocating force. In void warfare this translates to harrying actions under massed fire, coupled with extensive boarding operations. The second major addition to the flagship of the Iron Guard is an extended short-range vox-array, hailing the coming of Imperial --and later Union-- compliance to the enemy, and the mailed fist of the Angels of Death with it. Propaganda and threat, the twin tools of the Iron Guard, are broadcast to all present in the system. This also serves to further fleet coordination among the XII Legion, ensuing flawless following of strategies among the various spheres of engagement.

Notable Members

Juvan Verkovic, first General of the Iron Guard, Decemvir Primus

Initially a member of the twelfth Division's support cadres, Verkovic's ascension through the ranks would show him as a bloody-handed ruler. On several occasions, he would order a hive razed in example to an unyielding population. Yet unlike several commanders in the Legion, he gave little ceremony to these displays of power, seeing it as punishment that would have no place in a perfect Imperium. This sorrowful character gave him the favour of the Primarch, who preferred to be surrounded by such men than bloodthirsty warlords.

Taskmaster Nausis, master of recruits of the Iron Guard

One of the earliest Zhelezites inducted in the Legion, and a fanatic follower of Dyestes in his homeworld's conquests, Nausis was devoted to enforcing his Primarch's restructuration of the Legion. This devotion and an inspiring presence earned him a place in the Opsequarion, tempering his Terran elders' individualist streaks and helping forge his new legion's culture.

When wounds suffered in the Salucian Xenocide removed him from the frontline, he was assigned on Novi Zhelezem on training duties. Neophytes trained under Nausis show the same drive for order as the taskmaster, resulting in efficient legionnaires and strong-willed commanders.

Rheus Astavic, 2nd Brigadier, 1st Division

Initially assigned to recon duties, Legionary Astavic displayed a surprisingly accurate ability to estimate enemy locations when out of sight. Common sense would have decreed that he become a Vigilator, yet it would not be. During the compliance of Hanesva, his squad would fall prey to an ambush, leaving him stranded alone in the mazelike corridors of the underhive, his bolter destroyed. For days on end, he roamed the hive with but his combat blade, always one step ahead of the hive-millitia. When extraction came and victory was decreed, he demanded re-assignment to purgation cadres, and took the moniker of "Bloodied Hand in Darkness"

Janos Terzi, First of the Iron Guard.

An officer in the Youth Guard during the parade displayed to the Emperor's Dragoons when Novi-Zhelezem was found by the Imperium, Terzi would be elected by his Primarch to recieve Astartes augmentation. Of all his fellow sargeants, he would be the only one to survive the process. A fervent believer in his gene-sire's revolution on his homeworld, he would be called a fanatic by many, and bear the banner of the Legion in its early days, serving as the voice of Zelbezis Dyestes, and the closest the Primarch would have to an equerry. To him is attributed the single-handed compliance of Locrius, such was his silver-plated tongue. He would meet his end on Ullanor, and it is said that losing this Herald caused Dyestes notable grief.