Alternate Legion - The Scions Hospitalier

[bluntblade]

Occurs to me that with the Scions being a big Legion and Iona, at least initially, not being all that populous, Pionus should probably retain recruitment rights from Terra and/or acquire them for other planets.

[Slips]

It was made mention in their fluff section at least that they have recruiting rights over their original grounds on terra and, if not all, pretty much most of the Water Worlds they bring to compliance.

[bluntblade]

I evidently forgot. Sweet

[Slips]

Just know that there are not-quite-as-great-or-majestic Miniature Ionas out there :p

[bluntblade]

How should XIX Legion battalions and task forces be designated? Thinking battalions could have numbers or soemthing more poetic, while the task forces they are formed into for each campaign are identified in a more clinical way.

[Slips]

Good question.

 

Could be simple as having each letter of the greek alphabet being a Task Force's callsign (Taskforce: Alpha, Beta, etc.).

 

Battalions, what would you have in mind?

[bluntblade]

Ancient Greek myth, specifically watery stuff. Plus one called the Striking Sea - their sigil being a serpent's mouth emerging from the shape of a wave. I might try and sketch that. Edited April 16, 2017 by bluntblade

[bluntblade]

WIP:

 

It is for good reason that the Qarith War has gained such significance among the campaigns of the Great Crusade. The aliens were a menace to rival any other, and all the more abhorrent for their origins. For just as Medusa, Huron and Madrigal were found in the few surviving records of Old Night, so too was Qarith Prime famous as a paragon of human civilisation. As the Age of Strife descended, however, some combination of uninhibited gene-manipulation and outright mutation twisted the Qarith people so proundly that they could no longer even be called abhuman. When their true nature was discovered, one senior Adept of the Magos Biologis remarked that the Qarith had undergone in five millenia a degree of degeneration that ought to have taken aeons.

 

Now they butchered their way across the Galactic south, preying on baseline humanity for fresh stock and amassing frightful arsenals as they constructed their empire. Even Ork hordes and Mechanicum Forge Worlds fell under their attacks in the centuries before contact with the Imperium. several Ork Waaaghs! have since been linked to the Qarith, driven out of their own territory and seeking either to flee or amass the stength to retaliate. At the time, however, their apparance was utterly unexpected, and the Imperium would pay dearly. It is reckoned by many historians and military scholars that, had the Emperor’s armies not been bolstered by the fruits of conquest and tempered by nearly two centuries of war, they might have suffered even more than they did in the Rangdan Xenocides.

 

The Qarith certainly exacted a murderous toll, overunning swathes of Imperial worlds and laying waste to Legiones Astartes Chapters, Imperial Army regiments and Titan Legions. Elements of ten Legions ultimately participated in the fighting, which raged for six years. The Steel Legion were the first to engage the Qarith, and swiftly became embroiled in savage combat over several systems. The conflict soon drew in the Crimson Lions and Predators, and Hectarion went so far as to summon almost his entire Legion to the theatre. Elements of the Halcyon Wardens and Lightning Bearers, their Primarchs and main strength embroiled in the Koloss Syntheticide, set forth. Even a small detachment of Grave Stalkers took a hand, and a last-ditch attack by the Qarith on Imperial space would be interdicted by the Iron Bears. The most reliable records put the number of Army troops in the region of thirty million.

 

But the Qarith’s aptitude for thriving on Water Worlds and other, similarly inhospitable planets, ensured that two Legions above all would prove vital to breaking them. The Scions Hospitalier and the Drowned arrived, fleet by fleet, over six months, and before long Pionus Santor had assumed overall command of the campaign. He was the earliest found of the Primarchs in this theatre, and neither Morro nor Hectarion would countenance deferring to one another.

 

For two years the Imperial advance was a slow, grinding affair, fought across hundreds of worlds, and several times it was necessary to repulse Qarith incursions into Imperial territory as well as press the attack. Pionus had assembled over three quarters of his Legion, and seven of the Scions’ senior Déka echelon served directly under him. This force he dispersed widely among the Imperial forces, keeping between a third and half of them at his side throughout. Along with their fellows in the XVI Legion, the Scions prioritised the ocean worlds where the Qarith abounded, and in these uniquely unforgiving warzones they crossed blades with the xenos again and again. Alchem-weapons normally held in reserve were unleashed dozens of times in the urge to extirpate the Qarith. Compliant populations became ravening monsters, forcing the Imperium to put them to the sword. Whether on land, sea or in the void, the fighting had a truly existential ferocity to it.

 

When First Captain Antonidas discovered the once-human origins of the Qarith, and confirmed the existence of psychic “queen” organisms, the Imperials gained the advantage they needed to cripple Qarith forces. These creatures gave the Qarith their pretenatural coordination, and killing them was shown to cast the xenos into disarray. The offensive gained momentum, though they still bled for every inch of soil, and three years later Legiones Astartes vessels tore free of the Warp, and into the Qarith home system.

 

Battles still raged over nineteen other systems, and Pionus had found it expedient to blockade several points along Warp routes to the system, but this was still a flotilla capable of breaking worlds with ease. The four Glorianas formed spearheads, and carved through the fleets and defence stations in their path. The Qarith system boasted six planets, each with a number of moons, and detachments peeled off to assault them as they progressed. Some were broken open with cyclonic torpedoes or massed bombardments followed by swift deployments of space marines and Army troops, but Qarith Prime would clearly prove a far harder prize to take.

 

Pionus and his brothers might have simply blasted the world to atoms, if not for the Emperor’s instructions. Qarith Prime was too important for such a fate. In its fall, it must become a monument to the inexorable advance of Mankind. To this end, the Astartes must make planetfall and scour the Qarith from every corner and crevasse of the world. The world was, like Old Earth hundreds of aeons before, covered with water, save for a supercontinent to the planet’s south pole. The first blows would have to land here, to carve out a foothold from which the XIXth and XVIth could take to the seas, while their cousins completed the land conquest.

 

The Qarith were as aware of this as the invaders; the landmass was forested from shore to shore with fortifications. Defence shields glimmered over their grotesque spires, and high walls and bunkers ran the length of the coastline. Submersibles lurked in the seas, laden with ordnance to be turned against descending aircraft. Any first wave would be shattered within minutes of landing if the defences were allowed to stand.

 

The solution, Antonidas reasoned, was to target not the landmass, but the oceans. Three ships taken from the enemy were dragged to high orbit and positioned to plummet onto shallow regions of the sea fifty kilometres apart, close to the coast. Ranging from six to fourteen kilometres in length, the massive vessels struck with cataclysmic force. Submersibles close by were destroyed or scattered by the resulting tidal waves, and tectonic shocks laid waste to the coastal defences.

 

Into the shallow water of the breaches, drop-pods and gunships descended. At one, the Drowned led the way, supported by the Predators. At the second, Hectarion led his warriors from the front, covered by the Steel Legion’s superlative gunnery. But the largest was assaulted by the Scions Hospitalier; fully half the XIX^th, accompanied by the Lightning Bearers and Halcyon Wardens.

 

The V Legion contingent was especially important to Pionus’ plans, owing to their prowess in phalanx warfare, while the Scions made little use of breacher units. Backed up by heavy support squads and gunship fire, these carbed out an initial foothold which was swiftly expanded by the arrival of regular companies. The Qarith were already responding, directing hundreds of thousands of warriors to the breaches. Pionus made landfall at the heart of the crater with the entire Depthstrider company, the first time this elite body had brought its full power to bear in one place.

 

On either side of the command force, the Déka captains led their troops into contact. Each had been assigned a taskforce consisting of several battalions. Odyssalas broke the Qarith line at his location with a spearhead of Cybernetica robots and dreadnoughts. As the machines carved their way through the infantry, his veteran companies struck at the xenos' exposed flanks, matched every step of the way by the Lightning Bearers under Sentinel Empyon. Nonetheless, their progress was resisted tenaciously as the enemy responded. Gunfire rained down from passages built into the ravaged walls, and beyond these were several kilometres of bunkers, depots and hangars, all fortified and well-garrisoned. Qarith walkers, foul insectoid contraptions, were already taking to the field in response to the dreadnoughts and automata. To counter this, Devastator squads were brought forward, guarded by breachers and veterans, turning heavy weapons against the enemy line-breakers.

 

The Astartes paid in blood for every stride they took, with thousands falling wounded or slain at each escalade. The initial hours of the battle were to prove among the costliest of the Great Crusade. But steep as the price was, they inflicted worse upon the xenos. Bombers scoured guns from the vast walls, and as fighter wings clashed and siege tanks brought down still more of the fortifications, the balance shifted steadily in favour of the Astartes.

 

With the enemy locked in combat with Bepheros’ taskforce, Antonidas led a host of assault marines to capture the towers beyond the walls, preventing the enemy from installing any field artillery. With Qarith armour and war machines, roughly analogous to Titans, rapidly approaching, this was vital to the Scions’ offensive, enabling them to deploy tanks and their own behemoths. The Scions paid heavily, but they were unfaltering in the advance, and with the beachhead secure Pionus could bring the full might of his strike force to bear.

 

The Knights of House Toho were the first to engage, emerging from their landers with battle-horns blaring and their guns already seeking out targets. With them came the first tanks and yet more tactical squads, followed by the full might of the Titan Legio Gojira. Existing breaches in the walls were widened by their guns, and new ones torn open. War machines and tanks that would have troubled the Scions' dreadnoughts and automata were little more than a nuisance to Gojira, and they set about the enemy Titan-analogues with their accustomed ferocity. The Nightguard Rex Monstra, the Legio's Primus, accounted for a dozen enemy machines in this phase of the battle.

 

In dozens of places along the battlefront shield walls fragmented, disengaging swiftly. After so many engagements, the Qarith recognised the ruse and fell into retreat, but even so they were savaged by massed bolter fire and cut down in their thousands as Predators, Land Raiders and Sicaran battle tanks rumbled through gaps in the XIX Legion formations. With the second wave, the Scions discarded the phalanx, falling seamlessly into the next phase of their attack as the first regrouped and moved out in their wake. Behind them came the proud cohorts of the Solar Auxilia and war maniples from other Titan Legions. By the time the Qarith had mustered their second counterattack, the armies had swollen to millions of troops and contested hundred of kilometres.

 

Moving inland, the Scions formed up around the Knights and Titans, bringing in Legion and Army aircraft to support the advance. Over two days of constant fighting the Imperial juggernaut forced its way seventy kilometres into the interior, deploying more men and machines every hour. Through it all, Pionus was on the front lines, relentless and unstoppable. He drove his men on, even when they had to force their way over mounds of corpses, both metal and flesh.

 

With ever more Army regiments landing to consolidate their gains and link the space marine forces, Pionus left the ground war to Hectarion and took to the sea. Morro did likewise, and the Scions and Drowned began their campaign of extermination with all the tenacity it required. Above and below the water, infrastructure was made the first priority for destruction. Without power, defence systems fell silent, sustenance became harder to replenish and the failure of waste filtration spread disease throughout Qarith populations. Then the Emperor’s soldiers would turn their guns upon the factories and spawning hives.

 

Fought over four months, the battles beneath the waves took many forms. Amphibious gunships and fighters harried vast Qarith submersibles, Phantom squads descended into hives to loose sudden carnage, and armies of space marines and their Cybernetica allies gave battle on the ocean floor, fighting in the monstrous shadows of Toho and Gojira. Solar Auxilia, marinaded in void combat, ably supported the Scions while the Drowned worked alone. The great hives of the aliens were broken open and purged of life. For all their might, they had been constructed with the expectation that any enemy would want to take them. Once an invader decided to simply destroy them, the pressure of the sea could be used to do much of the work in tearing them down.

 

When the Astartes came to the final fortress, it was with little of the bombast that had accompanied planetfall. The Qarith had built it into a huge crevasse, pulling all their remaining forces back to it for a last stand. Pionus, however, saw no reason to indulge them, and the majority of the armies which had assaulted the world were already moving on to new campaigns when the last phase began. Automata were equipped to tunnel deep into the crust, carving out tunnels which were filled with explosives. Detonated from afar, these opened voids that were swiftly filled by the water, tearing loose whole districts of the fortress and sending them to the bottom of the trench. The Scions and Drowned followed, Titans and Knights reducing stone to molten slag while the Astartes delved into the tunnels, using rad-weaponry and flesh-eater alchem weapons to ensure that no trace of the xenos remained. The kill-teams prowled the ruins for four days until Pionus was satisfied that the last of the Qarth were slain.

 

Setting a course for Laeran, he left Qarith Prime to the Mechanicum, who would shape it in preparation for the epochal Triumph. The explosion in remembrancer works depicting the war for Qarith Prime testifies to the importance men had already begun to ascribe to the campaign, as a turning point in the Crusade. Yet the immensity of the conquest would be overshadowed within a year, and the victory parade would change the destiny of Mankind perhaps more profoundly than any battle fought in the Crusade.

Edited October 15, 2017 by bluntblade

[simison]

No mechanical errors, and I really appreciate the level of detail here so far. It'll perhaps be the only in-depth piece we will have in showing off the Qarith war.

[bluntblade]

Is Ullanor one for the Sons of Horus?

[simison]

No. Luna, Gorro, and a new location were the SoH's exemplary battles. 

[bluntblade]

Huh. Ullanor always seemed to end too quickly and easily for a grand crusade, for me. Hoped there'd be more on it.

[simison]

Huh. Ullanor always seemed to end too quickly and easily for a grand crusade, for me. Hoped there'd be more on it.

 

Hm. *runs through memory of 30k* Yeah. I don't think we've seen any real description of Ullanor, have we?

[bluntblade]

All I know for sure is that all the Justaerin with Horus were killed except for Abaddon. Which is weird, given that nothing is mentioned of that in Horus Rising.

[bluntblade]

As an additional bonus, Drak has a painting in progress for the Scions' assault on Qarith Prime.

 

It is for good reason that the Qarith War has gained such significance among the campaigns of the Great Crusade. The once-human aliens were a menace to rival any other. It is reckoned by many historians and military scholars that, had the Emperor’s armies not been bolstered by the fruits of conquest and tempered by nearly two centuries of war, they might have suffered even more than they did in the Rangdan Xenocides.

 

The Qarith certainly exacted a murderous toll, overunning dozens of Imperial worlds and laying waste to Legiones Astartes Chapters, Imperial Army battle groups and Titan Legions. Elements of ten Legions ultimately participated in the fighting, which raged for six years. The Steel Legion were the first to engage the Qarith, and swiftly became embroiled in savage combat across several sectors. The conflict soon drew in the Crimson Lions and Predators, and Hectarion went so far as to summon almost his entire Legion to the theatre. Elements of the Halcyon Wardens and Lightning Bearers, their Primarchs and main strength embroiled in the Koloss Syntheticide, set forth. Even a small detachment of Grave Stalkers took a hand, and a last-ditch attack by the Qarith on Imperial space would be interdicted by the Iron Bears. The most reliable records put the number of Army troops in the region of thirty million.

 

But the Qarith’s aptitude for thriving on Water Worlds and other, similarly inhospitable planets, ensured that two Legions above all would prove vital to breaking them. The Scions Hospitalier and the Drowned arrived, fleet by fleet, over six months, and before long Pionus Santor had assumed overall command of the campaign. He was by some way the earliest found of the Primarchs in this theatre, and neither Sorrosworn Morro nor Hectarion Mycenor would countenance deferring to one another.

 

Within the first year of the war, Pionus had received almost all the Legion reinforcements he could expect, though the war would necessitate a steady stream of fresh Army regiments to secure the conquests made. For two years the Imperial advance was a slow, grinding affair, fought across hundreds of worlds, and several times it was necessary to repulse Qarith incursions into Imperial territory as well as press the attack. Pionus had assembled over three quarters of his Legion, and seven of the Scions’ senior Déka echelon served directly under him. This force he dispersed widely among the Imperial forces, keeping between a third and half of them at his side throughout. Along with their fellows in the XVI Legion, the Scions prioritised the ocean worlds where the Qarith abounded, and in these uniquely unforgiving warzones they crossed blades with the xenos again and again. Alchem-weapons normally held in reserve were unleashed dozens of times in the urge to extirpate the Qarith. Whether on land, sea or in the void, the fighting had a truly existential ferocity to it.

 

When First Captain Antonidas discovered the once-human origins of the Qarith, and confirmed the existence of psychic “queen” organisms, the Imperials gained the advantage they needed to cripple Qarith forces. The offensive gained momentum, though they still bled for every inch of soil, and three years later Legiones Astartes vessels tore free of the Warp, and into the Qarith home system.

 

Battles still raged over nineteen other systems, and Pionus had found it expedient to blockade several points along Warp routes to the system, but this was still a flotilla capable of breaking worlds with ease. The four Glorianas formed spearheads, and carved through the fleets and defence stations in their path. The Qarith system boasted six planets, each with a number of moons, and detachments peeled off to assault them as they progressed. Some were broken open with cyclonic torpedoes or massed bombardments followed by swift deployments of space marines and Army troops, but Qarith Prime would clearly prove a far harder prize to take.

 

Pionus and his brothers might have simply blasted the world to atoms, if not for the Emperor’s instructions. Qarith Prime was too important for such a fate. In its fall, it must become a monument to the inexorable advance of Mankind. To this end, the Astartes must make planetfall and scour the Qarith from every corner and crevasse of the world. The world was, like Old Earth hundreds of aeons before, covered with water, save for a supercontinent to the planet’s south pole. The first blows would have to land here, to carve out a foothold from which the XIX and XVI could take to the seas, while their cousins completed the land conquest.

 

The Qarith were as aware of this as the invaders; the landmass was forested from shore to shore with fortifications. Defence shields glimmered over their grotesque spires, and high walls and bunkers ran the length of the coastline. Submersibles lurked in the seas, laden with ordnance to be turned against descending aircraft. Any first wave would be shattered within minutes of landing if the defences were allowed to stand.

 

The solution, Antonidas reasoned, was to target not the landmass, but the oceans. Three ships taken from the enemy were dragged to high orbit and positioned to plummet onto shallow regions of the sea fifty kilometres apart, close to the coast. Ranging from six to fourteen kilometres in length, the massive vessels struck with cataclysmic force. Submersibles close by were destroyed or scattered by the resulting tidal waves, and tectonic shocks laid waste to the coastal defences.

 

Into the shallow water of the breaches, drop-pods and gunships descended. At one, the Drowned led the way, supported by the Predators. At the second, Hectarion led his warriors from the front, covered by the Steel Legion’s superlative gunnery. But the largest was assaulted by the Scions Hospitalier, accompanied by the Lightning Bearers and Halcyon Wardens.

 

The V Legion contingent was especially important to Pionus’ plans, owing to their prowess in phalanx warfare, while the Scions made little use of breacher units. Backed up by heavy support squads and gunship fire, these gouged out an initial foothold which was swiftly expanded by the arrival of regular companies. The Qarith were already responding, directing hundreds of thousands of warriors to the breaches. Pionus made landfall at the heart of the crater with the entire Depthstrider company, the first time this elite body had brought its full power to bear in one place.

 

On either side of the command force, the Déka captains led their troops into contact. Each had been assigned a taskforce consisting of several battalions. Odyssalas broke the Qarith line at his location with a spearhead of Cybernetica robots and dreadnoughts. As the machines bludgeoned and blasted their way through the infantry he and his veteran companies struck at their exposed flanks, matched every step of the way by the Lightning Bearers under Sentinel Empyon. Qarith walkers, foul insectoid contraptions, were already taking to the field in response to the dreadnoughts and automata. To counter this, Devastator squads were brought forward, guarded by breachers and veterans.

 

With the enemy locked in combat with Bepheros’ taskforce, Antonidas led a host of assault marines to capture the ridges that overlooked the battlefield, preventing the enemy from installing any field artillery. With Qarith armour and war machines, roughly analogous to Titans, rapidly approaching, this was vital to the Scions’ offensive, enabling to deploy tanks and their own behemoths.

 

The Knights of House Toho were the first to engage, emerging from their landers with battle-horns blaring and their guns already seeking out targets. With them came the first tanks and yet more tactical squads, followed by the full might of the Titan Legio Gojira. In dozens of places along the battlefront shield walls fragmented, disengaging swiftly. After so many engagements, the Qarith recognised the ruse and fell into retreat, but even so they were savaged by massed bolter fire and cut down in their thousands as Predators and Sicaran battle tanks rumbled through gaps in the XIX Legion formations. With the second wave, the Scions discarded the phalanx, falling seamlessly into the next phase of their attack.

 

Moving inland, the Scions formed up around the Knights and Titans, bringing in Legion and Army aircraft to support the advance. With Army regiments landing to consolidate their gains and link the space marine forces, Pionus left the ground war to his brothers and took to the sea. Morro did likewise, and the Scions and Drowned began their campaign of extermination with all the tenacity it required. Above and below the water, infrastructure was made the first priority for destruction. Without power, defence systems fell silent, sustenance became harder to replenish and the failure of waste filtration spread disease throughout Qarith populations. Then the Emperor’s soldiers would turn their guns upon the factories and spawning hives.

 

Fought over four months, the battles beneath the waves took many forms. Amphibious gunships and fighters harried vast Qarith submersibles, Phantom squads descended into hives to loose sudden carnage, and armies of space marines and their Cybernetica allies gave battle on the ocean floor, fighting in the monstrous shadows of Toho and Gojira. The great hives of the aliens were broken open and purged of life. For all their might, they had been constructed with the expectation that any enemy would want to take them. Once an invader decided to simply destroy them, the pressure of the sea could be used to do much of the work in tearing them down.

 

When the Astartes came to the final fortress, it was with little of the bombast that had accompanied planetfall. The Qarith had built it into a huge crevasse, pulling all their remaining forces back to it for a last stand. Pionus, however, saw no reason to indulge them, and the majority of the armies which had assaulted the world were already moving on to new campaigns when the last phase began. Automata were equipped to tunnel deep into the crust, carving out tunnels which were filled with explosives. Detonated from afar, these opened voids that were swiftly filled by the water, tearing loose whole districts of the fortress and sending them to the bottom of the trench. The Scions and Drowned followed, Titans and Knights reducing stone to molten slag while the Astartes delved into the tunnels, using rad-weaponry and flesh-eater alchem weapons to ensure that no trace of the xenos remained. The kill-teams prowled the ruins for four days until Pionus was satisfied that the last of the Qarth were slain.

 

Setting a course for Laeran, he left Qarith Prime to the Mechanicum, who would shape it in preparation for the epochal Triumph. The explosion in remembrancer works depicting the war for Qarith Prime testifies to the importance men had already begun to ascribe to the campaign, as a turning point in the Crusade. Yet the immensity of the conquest would be overshadowed within a year, and the victory parade would change the destiny of Mankind perhaps more profoundly than any battle fought in the Crusade.

Edited October 14, 2017 by bluntblade

[simison]

"...sea didty kilometres apart..."

 

"...these carbed out an..."

 

These are the only two errors I found. Looking forward to the art piece. Going to bed now.

[bluntblade]

Amended

[bluntblade]

My attempt at Pionus' blurb:

 

Pionus, Hunter of the Depths, led the Scions Hospitalier for so long that few could remember a time when the XIX Legion did not fight under its Primarch. While he had not known violence beyond the pursuit of aquatic beasts before the reunion, under the tutelage of his elder brothers he became a brilliant general and consummate warrior. Upon that foundation, Pionus would spend the best part of a century and a half building. Decades later he would oversee the prosecution of entire theatres; even some of his brothers would acquiese to serve under him.

 

Few, if any Primarchs were less mysterious to their people as Pionus, his astonishing physical gifts having examined extensively by the scientists of Iona and then Pionus himself. In the decades on Iona this proved a double-edged sword, leaving the young Primarch intensely aware of the gulf between him and his adopted people. At the same time he took heart from what he perceived as the careful design of his biology, and resolved to do what he could to improve the lives of his people. This led him to explore the depths of Iona’s seas and confront the monsters that dwelt there, so he could wrest back the lost technologies of Iona.

 

Pionus’ studies ensured that his knowledge of biology - whether of alien, mortal or space marine - was ever his most remarkable weapon, but his personal armoury no less fearsome for that. He wielded grav-technology as a weapon in its own right to hinder or immobilise his foes, and bore a trident fashioned by Daer’dd himself. All these weapons, and every iota of his keen intelligence, would be needed when the trap was sprung.

[bluntblade]

And here's our cue for trying to sketch out how the Phaeton looks:

 

Phaeton-pattern Storm Eagle, Eurdis

 

The Phaeton pattern was designed at the instigation of Pionus, despite the objections of several senior figures in the Mechanicus. The chassis was outfitted with hatches derived from submersible STC designs, to enable the deployment of Astartes underwater. Ironically, this proved more difficult to achieve than the other adaptations required for submarine duties, as some magi deemed such technological cross-pollination to be dangerously close to heresy. Still, a Primarch was not to be denied, and the Phaeton became a vital element in the XIX Legion arsenal.

 

Eurdis deployed during the Battle of Untara, first covering the retrieval of Pionus from the surface and then taking to the waters in search of Second Captain Odyssalas as the Scions began to withdraw. While unsuccessful in this effort, the crew managed to retrieve eleven battle-brothers, evading enemy fighters to escape aboard the strike cruiser Riptide.

Edited April 22, 2017 by bluntblade

[bluntblade]

Hadn't been aware that bio-artificing was actually widespread among the Legions beyond synthskin. The Scions, given the stated difficulty for most Legions in getting augmetics to interface with armour systems, should probably have very, very few of their casualties fitted with bionics. Same should probably go for The Drowned, but the Scions' medical tekkers lends itself to that.

[Slips]

Pretty much, yes. While synth skin is readily available, vat grown replacements take a while which is why some marines prefer to get bionics since its one and done.

 

Scions most likely have a specialized method of vat growing replacement parta that shortens the duration of the procedure.

[bluntblade]

Indeed. Which means I need to rejig Odyssalas' personal project.

 

Might do a Librarian for one of the specimen Legionaries, partly to highlight that they're very much around on the DoR. Also, how should we handle Odyssalas rejoining his Legion? I'm thinking he builds a new company out of broken squads, though whether they're the new Second or not, I'm undecided.

[Slips]

An interesting thing might be that, if he's gone for an extended period, that the whole of the Deka is reformed with new members since, AFAIK, hes presumed KIA which might present an interesting quandary.

[bluntblade]

I was thinking the same. I make it at least half a year for him to be gone, what with being found, how long the Martian War takes, and finally getting to Iona.

 

I reckon the Scions would do the pragmatic thing and simply have a Déka of eleven.

[Slips]

Probably the most likely route, yeah; I don't really see them making him special rank/role within the Legion just 'cuz its him. That and he's going to be leaving the legion at a later date, wont he?