Legio XVIII: Doom Reavers

Legio XVIII - Doom Reavers

Primarch’s Name: Marvus
Homeworld: KNG-8013
Background: Ruler
Psychic Potential: Normal
Gene-seed: Stable
Talent: Spymaster
Colors: Acid Yellow (often bleached, mottled or tarnished due to radiation, chemical exposure and minor combat damage)
Battle Cry: Death! Hate! Perdition!

History

Little is known of the 18th Primarch's pre-Imperial history. He was found by the forces of the 80th Expedition Fleet, near the 13th planet they had brought into compliance. An ancient star chart only refers to the system with a three letter code - KNG - and the remark 'colonizable, with one potentially habitable planet'.

There is clear evidence that a rather well-developed human civilization must have existed in this system up until quite recently, but frustratingly little can be ascertained of the traces and remains. The aforementioned star chart and the accompanying data do not mention any actual colonies or colonization attempts, so this civilization must have emerged well after the ancient records were last adjusted.

The one habitable planet of the KNG system was the focal point of local human settlement, though there was also a considerable level of space colonization. Several moons and planetoids had been colonized, and a considerable number of orbital colonies & space colonies were established as well. The system must have gone through a phase of considerable success and development, though it is also clear that KNG-8013 went through some sort of catastrophe - likely a global war or major invasion - that destroyed most of the system's civilization and rendered the planet itself uninhabitable. The bulk of what's left of the system's human population dwells in the surviving space & orbital colonies.

When the forces of the 80th Expedition Fleet entered the system, they did not encounter any organized resistance beyond the occasional local militia. The system was by en large lawless, with the most formidable forces being those of local corsair-scavengers. The only difficulties encountered in bringing the system into compliance occurred with the campaign to subjugate the few remaining enclaves on KNG-8013's surface, and these were the minor difficulties that can be expected from rooting out vault- and bunker-dwellers on planets with hostile atmospheres.

The only notable development concerning this system was that a Primarch was found here.

Marvus, leader of a local band of corsair-scavengers and later identified as the 18th Primarch, avoided contact with the Imperial forces during the initial invasion. But once the bulk of the Expedition Fleet was gone, his warband launched a remarkably successful raid that resulted in them seizing the frigate Arl's Revenge while it was docked at one of the main planet's orbital colonies.

Marvus and his warband used the frigate to escape the system, which was no mean feat for a scavenger warband hitherto unfamiliar with Warp travel. Marvus successfully coopted most of the crew, and he correctly ascertained the importance of the ship's Navigator. He may well have gotten quite far, had he also correctly ascertained the role and importance of the Astropath that was aboard.

The Astropath led the Imperial forces to the Arl's Revenge, and informed them that the one leading the warband was almost certainly a Primarch. Hence, Marvus' capture was relatively easy; after finding out that he was severely outmatched, he decided to cooperate. Though he was distant, wary and occasionally somewhat agitated throughout the travel to Terra, he remained cooperative.

Marvus was reunited with the Emperor, and he was given command over the 18th Legion. The 18th did not undergo considerable changes after being united with its gene-sire, though Marvus did change the Legion's name to Doom Reavers a mere few years after taking command.

Characteristics

I would say that honour does not get one anywhere, but I'd be lying - I have seen too many dark, despicable fates begotten by adherence to 'honour'

-- the Primarch Marvus

The 18th Primarch is not known to be social animal. Known for maintaining a strict composure at all times, Marvus is a man who seldom gives in to emotion. He does not indulge in pleasantries or sentimentalities, and is generally reserved and serious. He does not try to get close to others, nor does he allow others to get close to him. He seems to avoid bonding with others, will politely decline if invited to partake in celebrations (even if they concern his own victories), and refuses to discuss his past.

There is a certain harshness in his overall attitude. Marvus does not value honour, glory, ideals, abstract values, or even ethics, and he is strictly pragmatic when it comes to his duties. He is also known for being wary and distrusting, never just taking someone's word for anything.

Nonetheless, he seems to have considerable insight in the human nature and the workings of the human mind. Though he will never put his trust in those who are not under his strict discipline, he is skillful at using and manipulating agents, mercenaries and adversaries alike. In line with his pragmatism and his rejection of honour or ethics, Marvus is not above using those whom he does not feel he can trust.

Though he takes his duties very seriously, his personality and overall approach have done nothing to endear Marvus to his brothers. At best, he is respected but kept at arm's length. At worst, he is openly rejected and condemned.

To his gene-sons and underlings, Marvus is a respected leader and a master disciplinarian. He is considered fair and reasonable, though strict, seldom friendly, and never forgiving. His fully-fledged Astartes are among the few that Marvus is willing to trust at all, and breaking his trust is considered one of the very worst offenses within the Legion.

Legion Beliefs and Practices

The Doom Reavers are a Legion that heavily uses incorporated mortal agents and auxiliaries along with the Astartes forces. Intel, espionage, covert operations and counterintelligence are as valued as the Astartes' raw military power.

Not satisfied with the Imperial Army, Marvus established his own regiments of mortal, cybernetic, and armoured forces to accompany his Astartes. Additionally, the Primarch also established his own intel bureau, complete with its own training program, network of agents, and arsenal of secret weapons. Marvus wants his Legion to be able to operate even without any outside support, and he would rather not resort to other Imperial institutions as long as he doesn't have to.

The role of the Astartes within the Legion can be described as the role of heavy weapons in a much greater arsenal that also includes weapons as subtle as darts and scalpels. Thus, the Doom Reaver Astartes are fairly conventional as far as Space Marines go; hard-hitting super-soldiers that don't shy from facing threats head-on.

The mainline Marine is be expected to be a team player who does as he is told, no matter how dirty or disgraceful the job is. There's no room for mavericks in the mainline Doom Reaver forces. Though, typically as punishment, such mavericks and other disgraced individuals occasionally end up as lone operatives or in mixed irregular units.

Officers are given more leeway, but they are also subjected to special (and much more intensive) training. Though still expected to stick with the Primarch's orders and not get out of line too much, they are given enough freedom to act independently and take initiative whenever necessary.

And again; discipline and obedience are ingrained into the minds of the Doom Reaver Astartes like nothing else. The Astartes, especially, are expected not to let emotions, or even their basic sense of humanity, stand in the way of that. This is also reflected in the Astartes' training program. At the beginning of his training, each recruit is given a young companion animal to raise and bond with. They are to watch over it, care for it, and are held responsible for everything that happens to this pet. (aside from bonding, this is also part of their training in dealing & cooperating with comrades/underlings who are different and weaker than they are)

And when the training process nears completion, they are instructed to snap the pet's neck as a final rite of passage. That rite not only serves as a test of discipline and obedience, but also as a symbolic act of rejecting/killing the mortal existence they're leaving behind.

The Doom Reavers are also particularly well-known (not to mention notorious) for their use of weaponry commonly considered taboo among most other segments of the Imperial military. Rad weaponry, chemical weaponry, viral weaponry, and weaponry employing unstable exotic matter (such as the dreaded phosphex weapons) are readily used, and Destroyer squads are a common sight whenever the Doom Reaver Astartes march to battle.

Consequently, the Doom Reavers are one of the Legions that typically get sent only towards the vilest, most resilient enemies. Wars of destruction, especially against especially dangerous Xenos species, are the Doom Reavers' usual fare.

That said, the Doom Reavers are nonetheless just as competent at seizing civilized worlds, even without much collateral damage. Thanks to the extensive use of espionage, bribery, mercenaries, false flag operations, subversion, pinpoint strikes, and small-scale yet highly poignant atrocities to break or demoralize the enemy, the Doom Reavers are more than a little capable of conquering developed worlds essentially intact.

But the other Primarchs and the authorities at Terra tend to judge the Legio XVIII by its reputation rather than its actual competence - and thus the Doom Reavers get forced into wars of destruction and Xenos-hunting on more than a few occasions. Other Legions and Expedition Fleets sometimes even go out of their way to pick off valuable targets before the Doom Reavers can claim them.

Legion Organization

The organization of the Astartes forces is rather simple: companies of roughly a hundred and battalions of a few thousand (generally two- to three-thousand) are the main units. Larger units are used (typically referred to as a battlegroup) but these are always temporal.

The Doom Reavers' officer corps is divided in several tiers: the third tier is that of company captains, the second tier that of battalion commanders and cruiser captains, and the first tier is the inner circle of commanding officers that answer directly to the Primarch. First tier officers are typically assigned to fleets, flotillas and battlegroups. If the Primarch is not present, a campaign is usually led by three or four cooperating first tier officers.

Fourth tier officers also exist, but only among the non-Astartes forces.

Some examples of notable officers

Javir Hrasnac - 1st tier, Captain of the Sunderer (the Primarch's flagship)

Szando Contarades - 1st tier, "the General", one of the Legion's most competent tacticians

Lascar Elthaman - 1st tier, "the Marshall", the Legion's oldest senior officer and former Master of the Legion

Melchior Darbassa - 2nd tier, Commander of the 6th Battalion, one of the oldest veterans & renowned for his dedication to his men and his overall rather humane mindset

Farras Timai - 3rd tier, Captain of a notorious all-Destroyer company

The Great Crusade

Fairly or not, the Doom Reavers enjoyed a sinister reputation amongst the Imperial forces, even if subsequent records shed a considerably more flattering light on their activities. While the Eighteenth Legion was never in the forefront of its brethren in terms of the number of worlds brought into compliance, it was often tasked with facing the more entrenched hostile human empires, or, even more frequently, various deviant human or xenos breeds considered too dangerous for any half-measures, where total extermination and scorched earth tactics were believed to be acceptable. Naturally, such campaigns were also less suitable for Imperial propaganda purposes, either because the nature of the threats defeated by the Doom Reavers was deemed too unsettling for the ordinary citizens to know about, or because the measures undertaken by the Legion were too extreme even for the best Imperial propagandists to put a positive spin on.

Because of this, the Eighteenth Legion had an inordinate number of campaigns that remained obscure to all but the highest ranking Imperial officials trusted with highest possible clearance. While some of the leaders of the Imperium were fully cognizant of the Legion’s and its Primarch’s capabilities, the popular perception remained that the Doom Reavers were a blunt force weapon with little restraint or concern for collateral damage. This led to Marvus falling out with a number of Primarchs, especially those who began to believe the hearsay despite the sealed records providing evidence to the contrary.

Due to Marvus’ reputation as a butcher, he was never invited to take part in the Council of Terra. The more politically astute Primarchs believed that associating themselves with him would harm their own political narrative, while the leaders with more humanitarian bent would typically not lower themselves to dealings with a suspected war criminal. Because of this, Marvus made few friends amongst his brothers, with only Mohktal enjoying a truly amiable relationship with the Eighteenth Primarch.

During the Heresy

As long as the Great Crusade proceeded apace, the tense relationship between Marvus and most of his brothers was greatly aided by the distances between their respective forces. When Iskanderos declared against the Council, the Doom Reavers were briefly considered as the vanguard of Operation Starfall, however, the Council decided to use the more psychically attuned Iconoclasts and Gargoyles instead. In Rogr Hemri’s eyes, it was sufficient that two of the more unscrupulous Legions were attached to the Council invasion force; while he could justify their presence at Apella, sending Doom Reavers would have sent a wrong message to various factions holding power across the galaxy.

The disaster at Apella made the Council reconsider their earlier decision to overlook Marvus. Despite the Eighteenth Primarch’s dark reputation, the leaders of the Council, most of them Rogr Hemri and Nyxos, were fully cognizant of their brother’s potential as a general and a leader of men. They were willing to look past the image of Marvus as a cold-blooded, thoughtless destroyer, and realized that the Doom Reaver campaigns were considerably more thought-out and disciplined than the Legion’s detractors claimed. It was, therefore, the Council’s hope that not only was Marvus a general capable of defeating or at least severely hurting Iskanderos, but that the Eighteenth Primarch’s reputation would allow them sufficient deniability should he engage in practices of total, unrestrained war.

Under most circumstances, Marvus would have refused the Council’s commands, however, Hemri and Nyxos had a trump card to play. They took their brother to see Mohktal, now a mindless, nearly comatose form kept in isolation wards, and played upon Marvus’ intense personal loyalty to the Primarch of the Illuminators to implore him to intervene in the civil war.  Further, Hemri suggested that the current rebellion was a betrayal reminiscent of the events in Marvus’ own distant, carefully hidden past, inflaming the Eighteenth Primarch’s passions to set him upon the rebels as an avenging angel.

Though Marvus had his reservations and did not fully trust his brothers, he led his men towards the galactic core, where the Eighteenth Legion engaged in a deadly protracted campaign against the Imperial Redeemers and the Iron Locusts. Bolstered with the multitude of Lion Guard companies and given theoretical seniority over volatile Ashur and Midnight Riders, Marvus hoped that he would be able to deal Iskanderos a decisive defeat while the other rebel forces were occupied by Kthuln and Corwin.

Unfortunately, the campaign was fraught with difficulty from the start. Ashur has always been difficult to control, and only the Emperor himself, Rogr Hemri, and Iskanderos managed to make him respect their authority during the Great Crusade. Marvus, already somewhat of a pariah amongst his brothers and used to strict obedience from his underlings, never stood a chance. After an improvised Midnight Riders action forced the Doom Reavers to abandon a carefully planned battle one time too many, Marvus and Ashur had a heated confrontation which nearly resulted in violence. From there on, Marvus released Ashur from his command, believing that the Midnight Riders were troublesome allies at best, and that he could prosecute the war considerably better without Ashur’s interference.

With Midnight Riders engaging in their own independent campaigns, Marvus was free to pursue his grand strategy against Iskanderos. The very presence of the Fifth Legion forced the traitors to dispatch considerable forces to intercept them, or to limit the damage to their own holdings – however, this suited Marvus’ goals perfectly. From star system to star system, from sector to sector, the Doom Reavers chased the Imperial Redeemers, leaving a trail of devastated enemy bases and depopulated traitor strongholds in their wake. Even Iskanderos’ brilliant military mind struggled to account for the complete destruction of his supply lines, extermination of mustering places and recruitment worlds, and strikes against the industrial might of the worlds that swore allegiance to him.

Marvus hoped that these actions would force Iskanderos into a decisive battle on the ground of Marvus’ choosing. While the two Legions maintained rough numerical parity over the campaign, Marvus continued to receive reinforcements, machinery, and numerous attrition-level units provided by Rogr Hemri, while Iskanderos was growing more dependent on his fragile supply lines by the week. Any such engagement would favor the better supplied, unscrupulous, and cynical Doom Reavers over their teetering opponents.

Unfortunately, despite the continued attacks on his allies, Iskanderos refused to meet Marvus in battle. Though both sides committed numerous atrocities against the sparcely populated worlds and outposts suspected to favor the enemy, a decisive battle continued to elude them. As the Eighteenth Legion’s morale began to suffer, the trauma of relentless warfare began to take toll on the Doom Reaver personnel. Even the campaign itself took on a name first spoken in the Eighteenth Legion’s ranks – the Death March, where the Doom Reavers’ endurance was pitted against the Imperial Redeemers’ elusiveness. Desperate, Marvus sought out a chance to deal his enemy a crucial blow, and found a golden opportunity.

The world of Agrippa VI was a civilized planet absorbed into the Imperium relatively early in the Great Crusade by the forces of the Imperial Redeemers. Though the world gave few outright suggestions of disloyalty, Marvus’ spies obtained undeniable evidence that the rulers of Agrippa VI had deep connections to Iskanderos, and were allowing their world to be used as a crucial resupply station for the rebels. Sensing an opportunity to force Iskanderos to battle, Marvus ordered his Legion to seize Agrippa VI, forcing Iskanderos to fight for this strategically valuable system.

If the Eighteenth Primarch expected ordinary occupation, he found none of a kind. Agrippa VI’s ties to Iskanderos ran considerably deeper than he had suspected, as the planet’s citizenry was already thoroughly corrupted by the insidious powers of Chaos. Though looking like an advanced, civilized world on the surface, Agrippa VI was fully in thrall to the cultist activity, which permeated every level of its society. The campaign to take over the planet was swift and precise, encountering only minimal resistance and, curiously, producing only few casualties. Marvus hoped that Iskanderos could be lured into open confrontation here, where the winner would get the prize of a fully functioning, developed system rather than ruins and rubble.

As the Doom Reavers took charge of the crucial installations, leaving most of the garrison duties to the highly regarded Imperial Army regiments of the 76^th Expedition Fleet, they began to encounter strange phenomena. Unnatural creatures attacked the Astartes patrols, disappearing before the Legionaries could verify what they were threatened by. Delirious suicide bombers attacked the Doom Reaver installations, some clearly wearing the fatigues of the 76^th Expedition Fleet. Mutant rabble came out in unexpected numbers despite Agrippa VI showing little evidence of gene-stock impurities before Death March. Though none of these events had seriously threatened the military occupation, they contributed to the atmosphere of unease that permeated the Legion’s activities on the planet.

With every passing day, the tensions continued to grow. Even when there were no incidents, the Legionaries grew to believe that the planet’s population was spying on them, or was clearly resenting the occupation. To them, every civilian, no matter how innocuous, became a potential combatant, or at the very least a pair of unfriendly eyes and ears relaying information to the enemy. With time, this mindset expanded to the Legion’s own agents infiltrated amongst the Agrippans, and, eventually, even to the Imperial Army forces used to garrison the planet.

By the time the Imperial Redeemer vanguards were spotted in the nearby systems, Marvus became fully convinced that Agrippa VI was a trap for him and his Legion, and that both civilian and Imperial Army forces were gearing up to betray him. Marvus was forced to choose between trusting the loyalty of the 76^th Expedition Fleet’s regiments, and resorting to the solitary and characteristically destructive strategies.

As the first Imperial Redeemers entered the Agrippa system, they found bunkers split open and gutted by fire, wrecked or extensively sabotaged spaceports, strategic locations and fortifications bombed from orbit, and broken and scattered Army remnants fighting hopeless battles to survive. The Doom Reavers’ indiscriminate attacks destroyed any form of organization the local rebel and cultist forces might have had, ensuring that there were few useful allies for the Sixth Legion. While the invading rebel forces attempted to assess the situation and form a beachhead, the Doom Reavers struck in full force.

It was a testament to the famed tenacity of the Sixth Legion that it was able to land considerable forces at Agrippa VI, the system’s capital world and the most populous planet (though it could be argued that the Doom Reavers let their enemies land in order to prevent the Imperial Redeemers from easily retreating). As an ocean world with minimal landmass almost entirely covered by sprawling cities and arcologies, Agrippa VI presented a number of natural bottlenecks and choke points, used to their greatest advantage by both the Imperial Redeemers and the Doom Reavers. What followed was the battle of unprecedented brutality, even by the standards of the Legiones Astartes.

While the Doom Reavers generally had an upper hand, the Imperial Redeemers were known as one of the finest Astartes forces for a reason. The Sixth Legion’s expeditionary force was able to link up with many disparate militia, cultist, and traitorous Imperial Army units, establishing persistent presence on the planet’s surface and stymieing the Doom Reaver attempts to completely eradicate them. With the bulk of the Imperial Redeemers still en route, Marvus became acutely aware that time was not on his side, and that his chance at total victory (or, failing that, at dealing Iskanderos a crucial blow) was slipping away.

The true tragedy of Agrippa VI, however, was the fate of the Imperial Army units that stayed loyal. Though these brave men and women did their duty in resisting the traitorous forces of Iskanderos, the Doom Reavers did not bother coordinating with their commanders, considering all mortals unreliable at best and traitorous at worst. As a result, the loyalist Army units continuously found themselves in the crossfire of brutal Astartes warfare, their prayers and protestations going unheeded.

With larger numbers of Imperial Redeemers on the planetary surface, the Sixth Legion’s captains began to make overt use of sorcery and daemonology to sway the battle to their side. Soon, the earlier reports of taint present on Agrippa VI became too persistent to be refuted outright, and once Marvus observed the Warp-spawned abominations in action, it became clear to him that his position was considerably more precarious than he previously believed. With every new traitor detachment arriving in system, the Doom Reavers’ numerical advantage continued to slip, while the tainted creations used by the Imperial Redeemers began to threaten the carefully planned and executed strategies of the Eighteenth Legion which did not account for Warp-spawned capabilities.

Faced with the very real possibility of defeat if the full Imperial Redeemers force arrived in system, Marvus elected to go for an extreme solution. Ordering the Legion to withdraw, Marvus commanded his men to bombard the planet with Life Eater virus, ensuring that Agrippa VI remained completely useless to Iskanderos in the coming conflict, and hoping that he would manage to inflict considerable casualties on the traitors.

In a matter of hours, Agrippa VI was a dead world covered by rubble and viscous piles of decomposing organic matter. When the Imperial Redeemers arrived in force, the Doom Reavers were long gone; while a fraction of the traitor Legionaries succumbed to the biological attack, the heavy environment-sealed armor of the Legiones Astartes allowed a considerable proportion of the Imperial Redeemers to survive. Their mortal cohorts, however, were not so lucky, suffering nearly total casualties.

The repercussions of the battle at Agrippa VI were felt across the galaxy. On Terra, furious Gideon called for Marvus’ head as the perpetuator of barbaric genocide, not accepting the Eighteenth Primarch’s claims of unnatural taint and daemonic involvement. In this, Gideon was backed by similarly progressive-minded Echelon, and even the normally stoic Dyal Rulf expressed his displeasure with Marvus’ activities.

In the expanding rebel dominion, the battle was seen as the proof of the Council’s duplicity and tyranny. Iskanderos, never shy from using the events to his advantage, ordered his propagandists to spread the word of the atrocity, undermining the Council authority at the time when the Council could ill afford it. While the destruction of Agrippa VI was a tactical victory for the Doom Reavers, its outcome served the narrative ends of the rebels, who, it must be noted, suffered considerable casualties and lost a crucial supply line, but maintained their capacity to make war.

Uncharacteristically, Rogr Hemri decided that his personal intervention was necessary. While he understood the implications of Agrippa VI, he had far fewer humanitarian scruples than his carefully cultivated public persona suggested. Further, the Consul understood that while distasteful, Marvus’ methods were effective in keeping Iskanderos occupied, allowing the Council to strengthen its rule of Segmentum Solar and to maintain the loyalty of the major power brokers within striking distance of Terra. Moreover, while Marvus’ tactics might have devastated many potentially valuable worlds, they were not nearly as indiscriminate as the Doom Reavers’ detractors claimed; far more useful planets and sectors were kept intact due to Marvus than the humanitarians on the Council believed. Hemri reasoned that when the time came, and Marvus had served his role, the events of the Death March might merit reexamination, but at this time, the Doom Reavers represented the most effective force wearing Iskanderos down before the more prestigious and numerous Council Legions were ready to deal the death blow. As such, Hemri declared to the rest of the Council that he would deal with Marvus personally, and departed to meet his brother, supported only by a relatively small contingent of elite Lion Guard warriors ostensibly brought as reinforcements for the Doom Reavers.

Hemri reasoned that the Council could not afford to censure Marvus, and that perhaps, his brother’s efforts could be recognized, at least for a time. As a result, he ordered a celebration on the peaceful world of Vindictus, where the planet’s citizenry would honor Marvus for his victories, and hopefully strengthen his allegiance to both the Council of Terra and the people it governed. In order to allow his brother to take the place of honor, Hemri uncharacteristically elected to remain in orbit, continuing to observe the events on the planet’s surface through holographic transmissions but otherwise attempting to stay out of the way of the celebrations.

Unfortunately, the celebrations had unintended effects. While some of the Primarchs might have surmised that Marvus had a dark past, none were fully cognizant of the events which traumatized the Eighteenth Primarch, and which set him on his eventual path. Already paranoid after the chaotic battle of Agrippa VI, Marvus was instantly suspicious of the Council’s suggested affection or appreciation. He remembered the many times when his brothers would take credit for his victories while leaving him with blame for the violence of the methods which achieved those victories; he recalled the poorly hidden distaste on the faces of the men who would rule the galaxy when they sought his help. The aftereffects of Chaotic taint from the last system where the Doom Reavers fought refused to let go of his increasingly fragile psyche, making Marvus suspect plots and ulterior motives even from the previously trusted lieutenants and companions. And, though deeply repressed and unspoken, the painful memories of what happened before his discovery by the Imperium began to surface.

These intense feelings of suspicion and distrust reached fever pitch on the surface of Vindictus. As the planet’s mortal citizens attempted to honor Marvus in the best way they could, the Eighteenth Primarch refused their supplications. Perhaps, some diplomacy or foresight could have saved the day, however, Rogr Hemri was incensed. Not only did his brother refuse the honors bestowed upon him, but he did so in a manner that suggested extreme lack of gratitude, and perhaps even an outright insult to the Council. In a rare moment of losing control of his emotions, the lord of the Lion Guard opened a vox link to the surface, berating Marvus and ordering him to come back to the celebrations.

Though not entirely unjustified, Hemri’s words had the exact opposite effect. Marvus rose to his full height, cold fury in his eyes, as he stared with undisguised hatred at the civilian masses surrounding him. Something about it reminded him of another life, another place, another event…

With a curt command, the Eighteenth Primarch ordered rapid extraction of all Doom Reaver forces from the surface of Vindictus, ordering his men to treat it as a withdrawal from an ambush with no regard for civilian casualties or collateral damage. Once in orbit, Marvus declared Vindictus to be mundus perdita, and ordered complete extermination of the planet by the means of massed orbital assault.

Doom Reaver squads harried through the streets of Vindictus’ cities, sparing neither man, woman, nor child in their mad genocide. Orbital strikes hit the supply depots and the power reactors, sending whirlwinds of nuclear fire across the planet’s continents and blanketing the ground with radioactive dust. As soon as he could don his armor, Marvus joined the fray in person, leading his men on missions of callous extermination against the civilian population and the few, hastily assembled units of Planetary Defense Forces that were not destroyed with orbital lance strikes and kinetic weapon fire. The Lion Guard units attached to the Doom Reavers met a similarly grisly end, often before they even realized that they were under attack.

In orbit, Rogr Hemri fumed. He worked hard to make this celebration an event to further cement Marvus’ loyalty; for once, he genuinely tried to give his brother the honors he was not allowed during the Great Crusade. If this was his reward, then perhaps the other Council Primarchs were right, and Marvus was a monster to be put down? Gathering whatever Lion Guard forces he could to his banner, Hemri fled Vindictus, vowing to have revenge on his brother.

After Rogr Hemri departed, and after the smoke of Vindictus cleared, Marvus and his men looked at the dead world and saw what they had done. Though the Eighteenth Legion had destroyed numerous planets and civilizations with extreme prejudice, there was always a military objective behind it. This, here, was needless slaughter, and it left them with no place in the galaxy at war with itself. As Marvus, shocked at what he had done, withdrew to his flagship to brood, the scouts began to issue urgent reports of Imperial Redeemer forces entering the system in numbers not seen since Agrippa VI.

While Vindictus was an otherwise unremarkable planet, it hid a dark secret from the Age of Technology. Buried deep within its crust in the subterranean city of Nirvana was an ancient device created with technologies both impossible to replicate and unnatural in design – the Dream Conclave. It was this that drew Iskanderos here, and while he previously expected the battle to be too costly to attempt without wearing the Doom Reavers down, the lack of supplies caused by the destruction of Agrippa VI forced the traitor Primarch to gamble all his forces on the success of the mission with hereto unexpected urgency.

As Marvus continued his contemplations despite the nearing enemy, the senior officers of the Doom Reavers assembled in secrecy on the lower decks of the Sunderer. The brutality of the Death March took a toll on them all, and while most Doom Reavers were inured to the kinds of psychological trauma suffered by mortal soldiers, the protracted nature of the campaign made even these hardened, cynical killers lose their composure. With Marvus becoming increasingly erratic even before the devastation of Vindictus, they spoke of their concerns that the Primarch’s leadership may yet doom them all. Even now, they reasoned, Marvus remained secluded despite the imminence of contact with the enemy. Clearly, something had to be done, but what?

Desperation brought action. The officers decided that their Primarch could no longer be trusted to lead the Legion – not after what he had done on Vindictus, not after he burned the bridge with the Council of Terra. At the same time, enmity between Marvus and Iskanderos was well known.

Gathering their supporters, the Doom Reavers entered Marvus’ chambers to find their Primarch listless and apathetic, clearly not bothering to formulate defensive strategies or to decide on the Legion’s fate. The Legionaries attempted to arrest Marvus until they could decide on his fate, however, the Primarch would not cooperate. Though many of the Legion’s finest warriors were slain in the resulting confrontation, Marvus fell to the blades of his sons, his fears of betrayal finally realized.

In mere minutes, Iskanderos hailed the Doom Reavers from the safety of the Hegemon in the outer Vindictus system. Sardonically, he thanked the Legion for doing his work for him. The Dream Conclave of Nirvana was a psychic conduit of unfathomable artifice; the extermination of all sentient life on the planet charged it, allowing the traitor Primarch to use it for its intended purpose. Unwittingly, the Doom Reavers had delivered the greatest prize of the war so far into their enemy’s hands.

Had the Eighteenth Legion believed in honor and duty, had they been more selfless, perhaps they would have attempted to launch an all-out assault on the Imperial Redeemers, who finally appeared to give them the decisive battle they had sought.  Without Marvus and his desire to destroy Iskanderos as revenge for Mohktal, the officers of the Doom Reavers had nothing left to fight for. They had no desire to fight another battle on the scale of Agrippa VI against the enemy that they, personally, had little quarrel with. They would not die for distant Terra, and, freed from Marvus’ intense disciplinarian approach, they would not surrender the freedom they just began to taste. Hurriedly, the surviving Doom Reaver officers opened a vox-channel to the Hegemon, offering the terms of their surrender.

While Iskanderos was not inclined to trust the Doom Reavers due to their reputation for underhanded tactics, he was convinced by the display of Marvus’ dead body surrendered to him as proof of the Eighteenth Legion’s intentions. Therefore, he offered the Doom Reavers a place amongst the rebel forces, where they would be treated as honored parts of the rebel armada. In light of the massacre at Vindictus, Iskanderos could quickly surmise what had happened, knowing that the Doom Reavers were clearly not welcome back on Terra; should they decide to depart, he declared, they would be allowed to leave as long as they would swear off their allegiance to the Council of Terra.

In the wake of the recent events, the Doom Reavers had splintered. Some companies accepted Iskanderos’ offer, joining his forces and continuing to serve him all the way until the Fall of Terra. Others, realizing that the galaxy was in a state of turmoil and offered easy pickings, departed for their own objectives elsewhere. In a matter of days, just as Iskanderos finally claimed the Dream Conclave for his own, the Doom Reavers Legion was no more, though a collection of warbands wearing its colors remained.

Post-Heresy

The sons of Marvus are a relatively common sight in the fractured galaxy after the Fall of Terra. With the death of Iskanderos, the last authority recognized by any appreciable fraction of the Legion had disappeared, leaving commanders and champions to forge their own future amongst the stars.

The Legion’s particular skills in multi-purposed warfare, combined with the deterioration of the Legion’s non-Astartes assets and its lack of concern for honorable war, lent themselves well to mercenary operations. While some of the more ambitious Doom Reavers may rule small kingdoms as overlords, the majority of the Legion’s warbands remain on the move, often going from one conflict to the next and from one employer to the next with little thought. In some circles, this gave the Doom Reavers the reputation of being somewhat unreliable, however, their combat prowess ensures that they remain in demand.

The moral flexibility ingrained in the Eighteenth Legion’s psyche also manifests itself in the kinds of missions the Doom Reavers undertake. While only few sons of Marvus display any real devotion to the Ruinous Powers, they are not above using daemonology, sorcery, or other Warp-spawned means if it allows them to claim victory. Moreover, the warbands tend to be highly unscrupulous, and would just as easily work for aspiring Chaos lords as they would for any of the post-Imperial successor states, or even for certain xenos breeds if the pay is right.

In the present day, the Doom Reavers no longer aspire to any kind of an ideal, or have any sort of the unified plan. The disciplinarian legacy of Marvus is a distant memory, and the Legionaries are known to be distrustful of any commanders who would attempt to reforge the Legion under themselves – in fact, more than a few of such aspiring warlords met their end at the hands of their fellow Doom Reavers who would not accept the relatively anarchic allures of mercenary life.

Curiously, this lack of central control ensured that the many warbands continue to swell the ranks of the Eighteenth Legion. Even without one authority, the acid-bleached yellow armor of the Doom Reavers became synonymous with mercenary Astartes, and it is therefore donned by many warriors of other lineages. As a result, it is often difficult to tell if the warriors bearing the colors of the Eighteenth Legion are, in fact, the gene-progeny of Marvus, or other mercenaries trying to make a name for themselves.