40k Lore The Death Company! Legacy Of Sanguinius

greetings and citations friends and welcome back to more what i'm a 40k lore where today we will be having a look at the death company quite possibly the coolest warriors in all of fiction and in the entirety of the 41st millennium there is no other unit that embodies the universe anywhere near as well as the lost brothers of the blood angels this story of the noblest of all the astartes chapters the progeny of the literal angel sank when he is hiding this dark and horrific truth it is everything that good 40k stories are made out of for the death company you see is no static military formation or any official part of the blood angels or their successor chapters organizational chartra they are not elites they are not assault specialists they are not a branch of the astartes military they are the dark fruits of a curse that have haunted the blood angels since the earliest days of their legion the precise nature of this floor is a hotly debated topic some speculate that it was sanguinius's death that saw it spread so rapidly and violently through the blood angels others claim that it might be due to a natural mutation in the blood angel's omniaphasia others yet suggest that it was the corrupting touch of the gods of chaos that did it the precise nature of the black rage and the red thirst however are a subject we will cover in another video soon tm i promise whilst today we are going to concern ourselves solely with the death company beginning naturally with how they are formed back in the good old days of tabletop when i first started collecting you never knew how large your death company was going to be as you needed to roll dice to determine the likelihood of each and every battle brother falling to the black rage which could be absolutely hilarious and absolutely devastating at the very self same time on the one hand getting a ginormous ridiculously massive blob of death company is it is a delicious thing indeed as you will declare a charge and you scoop up little handfuls upon handfuls of dice with which to throw attacks on the other hand if suddenly your anti-tanker devastators decide to get a bit crazy you might run into a lot of enemy armor problems awfully quickly this mechanic gave the blood angels a lovely sense of unpredictability a little touch of orcish randomness almost to highlight the fact that once the blood angels are amongst the finest of all the adeptus astartes chapters their savagery is not so easy to control and more often than not this is how it happens in the lore as well the signs of the black rage and the thirst are most apparent on the eve of battle whilst any chapters sanguinary priests and chaplains are constantly on the lookout for the smallest indication that a brother may be beginning to succumb to the curse it is most apparent right before action when all the brothers kneel to recite their prayers and their oaths the chaplains and the priests are extra vigilant as they march up and down the ranks of kneeling battle brothers looking out for any minor indication they might be beginning to lose themselves slurred speech uncontrollable muscle spasms rocking or tempers close to breaking point can all be pointers towards the black rage taking root now all brothers struggle against the curse every single day they all fight against it they all build up their mental barricades as tall as they can possibly make them and even those who seem close to succumbing may not necessarily fall right then and there there are those that have been pushed to the very brink and yet have hauled themselves back and have died honorable deaths without having been touched by the curse ever again others may never even have shown a single solitary sign of it until suddenly one day they crack under the weight of their internal pressure and are inducted into the death company immediately yet others fall over the course of years of the course of decades or centuries as was the case with the famous captain erasmus tycho of the blood angels he was one of the finest officers the chapter nay the legion had ever produced and upon taking his deserved position as a company captain of the chapter he was expected to be lord commander dante's successor higher praise could not possibly exist and yet after his gruesome wounding at the hands of a green-skinned weird boy psyche he slowly began losing his mind his beatific appearance was one that he took great pride in and yet after the attack half of his face was locked in a constant rectus grin along with hideous disfigurement he donned a golden half mask to disguise his brutalized features yet nevertheless the weight of it bore down on his mind slowly eroding it the rest of the chapter the priests the chaplains and even dante himself did everything in their power to stop or reverse his slide into darkness but inevitably dante ordered tycho to be assigned to permanent combat duty the last and final hope was that the brilliant commander might fall in battle before losing his mind entirely yet tragically during the third war for armageddon facing down the green-skinned hordes yet again captain erasmus tycho's mind finally broke under the pressure no chaplain dared induct him into the death company no sanctuary priest wanted to steal such a mind from the chapter and so he joined the ranks of the black clad on his own volition leading the charge upon the breach upon the oak hailed hive city of tempustora lord dante's prospective successor finally found the end he had been looking for and when his body was recovered and his mask removed the priests swore up and down that not a single hint of his disfigurement could be found the captain had been blessed in death sadly a rare occurrence as most battle brothers are lost without ever seeing such redemption but captain erasmus tycho was a very special case and for everyone else it is up to the sanguinary priests and the chaplains to determine which battle brothers will be allowed to continue to wrestle with their own inner demons and whom to take aside an arm in the pitch black armor of the death company and the moment that black helmet locks in place over the brother's head he is as good as dead for old intents and purposes he is considered as already fallen by the rest of the chapter now the black rage is not an absolute death sentence but it is as near as makes practically no difference only the most strong willed the brothers will have any hope at all of clawing their way out of the dark pit into which they have been cast and whilst there are some successor chapters that have more extensive treatment programs to deal with the black rage the most common cure is that of the emperor's mercy delivered via bolt pistol round to the back of the neck but before execution becomes an option the brothers of the death company will be awarded at the very least one last chance to die gloriously and nobly in battle now the ways in which the death company are employed can vary wildly from chapter to chapter depending upon their traditions their doctrines than the heritage bestowed upon the chapter on its creation often it was also very depending upon the chapter's current situation their chapter master and in certain cases upon the chapter's survival strategy all successor chapters of the blood angels will have to deal with a much greater rate of attrition than normal astartes chapters due to the curse some are trying to fight against the black rage others are embracing it some are even using it proactively so as to aid their own survival let us first touch upon the blood angels as they are of course the first and foremost amongst the chapters they view their lost brethren as the noble dead the honored fallen and will afford them every opportunity to make their deaths meaningful they will not simply hurl them pell mel at the enemy lines instead they will employ them as a tactical weapon guide them towards the enemy's weakest point and use their fury to tear a hole so wide in the enemy's battle lines that more level-headed brothers can follow up behind them widening the gap and securing victory this does also however mean the blood angels often take a far more strident approach to those who survive the battle most are executed in the case of the more extreme cases they will be killed by asteroth the grim the high chaplain of the blood angels if however there is still a glimmer of resistance left in their eyes then they will be taken back to baal and incarcerated within the tower of the lost where they will spend the rest of their days howling in eternal torment at least until the next battle can give them another shot at redemption other chapters may employ their death company far more haphazardly like for example the flesh terrors now under gabriel seth the old ways have waned somewhat but flash terrorist officers are still known to employ their death company battle brothers in a very crude fashion gathering them up in improvised squads and sending them hurling towards the enemy and near inevitable death as far as the flesh terrorists are concerned they are doing their brothers a favor they seek death now it is the only way to redeem themselves and the quicker that death is granted to them the better however the flesh tenders also refuse to execute or allow any other chapter to put down any of their lost brothers the chapter master gabriel seth even went so far as to confront astaroth the grim in person and engage him in a fist fight from which it was a miracle that either one emerged alive instead the flesh terrors will gather up their battle brothers on their ships binding them in heavy iron bandings and shipping them from conflict to conflict to conflict until finally they find somewhere where they will be able to die yet other chapters like the angels sanguine another space marine chapter we covered very recently take a completely different approach they are loathe to waste their death company battle brothers they will employ them in the battle in which they are lost to give them one chance to die while still relatively sane however those who can still be recovered and the casualty rate amongst death company brothers are high even in the smallest of engagements due to their complete and utter disregard for their own safety but those who can be safely recovered are brought back in great secrecy to their home world where they are strapped to a specialist device known as the tablet of lestralio this is primarily a restraint device invented by the angels sanguine chaplain lestralio after this they are tucked away deep beneath their fortress monastery where they will remain for however many decades and however many centuries it takes for them to regain their minds some battle brothers are lost forever or at the very least we have not spent enough time yet to see how long it might take some to recover but many others do in fact return to the angels sanguine when they do they are awarded the shroud of lamartus a symbol of their ability to conquer even the deepest darkness within their genetic heritage this embracing of their flaw has even led to some very interesting artifacts being created by the angel sanguine such as the mask of the watcher it is a golden helmet made in the image of sanguinius with several psychoactive receptors implanted on the inward facing side it is designed to utilize the black rage in a very different fashion since the black rage is a manifestation of the primark sanconius they theorize that it might be able to utilize technology to tap into other aspects of this manifestation of their beatific primark and indeed under the correct circumstances and used by a powerful enough wielder the mask can actually be used to foretell the future another ability that sanguinius was said to have and then of course there are those successor chapters on the absolute complete other end of the spectrum again those who view their death company brethren not as the tragic fallen not as lessons for everyone to take to heart or honored brothers to be sent off in the best way possible but instead as living breathing reminders of the curse of the floor of the dark stain on the golden angel these chapters such as the crimson legion will simply order their death company brethren forwards not even in a madden charge not even to break enemy lines they will simply have them attack unsupported they will throw them at the enemy and they will wait until they are all dead before making any further moves and even then there are occasions on which the death company alone can carry the day for the death company are an incredible fighting force no matter how they are employed some of the more reverential chapters will let them keep whatever arms and armaments they kept in life and will simply employ them in much the same way as other assault specialists although often with a rather ragtag sort of equipment they will keep bolt guns they will use chain swords relic weaponries if they were officers thunder hammers power sword power fists chain fists melters plasma weapons whatever they had in life they will now keep as they are on the doorstep of death and do not let their berserk fury fool you they are still space marines that are going to be just as lethal with a bolter as a chainsaw though the truth still holds the reason why there is close quarters combat in 40k is a topic i've discussed long long ago but it has of course to do with relative advantage a space marine in melee combat with a guardsman is going to have an even bigger advantage than at range the bolter is a better weapon than the last gun to be sure but a space marine is an astonishingly superior weapon to a imperial guardsman and the same hold true for the death company who will seek to close with the enemy as rapidly as possible and those who simply wish to throw their lives away often make sure that they have the best opportunity to do so by either mounting them in specially constructed rhinos or simply giving them jump packs potentially even dropping them in the middle of enemy hordes via thunder hawks and once deployed in amongst the foe the reason why the death company is able to defy the odds again and again becomes immediately apparent they are not merely seeing the last few hours of sanguinius's life they are actively living those last few bloody days of the horus heresy in their mind's eye they are fighting against the arch traitors and horus lupercal whilst inhabiting the golden body of their primark their skill at arms their strength their speed their every aspect is multiplied many fold in addition they feel no pain even far beyond the point of a regular astartes warrior wounds that would lay allow any space marine will be ignored and shrugged off by the death company after a battle when the field is clear of enemies it is not uncommon to find the last few survivors of the death company standing in the middle of the carnage missing entire limbs or with chunks torn away from their bodies yet still struggling still fighting and still hacking apart at the bodies of their slain foes mortarion once described the entrance of the emperor into combat as if a frag grenade detonated within a clenched fist and the death company is the closest thing you are going to see to that effect in the modern day imperium as they absolutely obliterate the enemy from within tearing them apart ripping them open and scattering blown off limbs out in a welter of blood and gore their passage can be seen even while surrounded and buried in enemies by the slashes and welters of blood by the flung away enemy and the destruction they carve no enemy no matter how tough no matter how heavily armored no matter how monstrous is safe from the death companies wrath and sometimes not even their friends and allies are safe this is why most chapters take a great deal of caution in employing the death company to keep it separate from their own ranks and at a very safe distance from observing imperial civilians or allied imperial guard regiment the various successor chapters of the blood angels already have a somewhat fraying reputation and seeing the death company in action might see it deteriorate yet further there is also the problem occasionally of retrieving the brothers of the death company in most cases they are going to be so horrifically wounded that retrieving them is a relatively simple matter in other cases the lost brothers will retain just enough control to submit themselves into the care of the sanctuary priests or chaplains in other cases they will have to be actively hunted down and restrained or executed this is one of the duties of asteroth the grim who goes after those who could not be retrieved and have gone essentially feral those who might attack civilian populations or become murder monsters roaming the wastes of imperial worlds worse yet is when on occasion a dreadnought succumbs to the black rage but those will have to get their own video at some point as well since a two-legged blood-maddened murder machine does deserve its own chapter does it not and indeed there are many associated with the death company or even part of it that deserve their own takes as well we've already talked about astaroth the grim on multiple occasions or what about chaplain lamartus another famous figure of the blood angels these characters will get their time eventually perhaps even captain erasmus tycho will deserve a video as well but for now i will bid you a dew with hopefully a little better of an understanding of what the death company is until next time ibn arch thank you all very much watching and i hope to see you all again soon till then have a good day [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Arch

Views: 88,398

Keywords: arch, 40k, blood angels, Sanguinius, primarchs, primarch, warhammer 40k lore, lore, warhammer 40k, warhammer, the imperium of man, 40k lore, gaming, future, history, space marines, lore video, imperium of mankind, astartes, warhammer lore, angels encarmine, imperial armor, miniwargaming, blood angels tactics, index astartes, fantasy, explained, space marine, blood of baal

Id: HaACCG5ezhM

Length: 25min 25sec (1525 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 22 2021