The SONS OF HORUS Legion in the HORUS HERESY | Legion XVI: Origins | Warhammer Lore

the sons of horus uniquely amongst the nine traitor legions don't exist in warhammer 40k purged and transformed after the great rebellion that their primark horus lupercal led against the emperor but this wasn't their first rebranding for they started out as the lunar wolves first amongst their brother legions and unlikely heroes of the great crusade [Music] hiya welcome to heritage 101 in this little series i'm going to go through all the law for each of warhammer space marine legions particularly their origin in the grim days of the horus heresy i'll take a look at where they are at the start of the heresy and how they got there and what happens to them during the heresy so it's worth saying that this is a lore video and therefore contains spoilers for many of the background books and the black library novel series the 16th legion's history is intrinsically tied up in the story of the horus heresy itself it was their primark that instigated it and their legionnaires that led it and enforced their dark compliance on what was left of the imperium but this position of authority amongst the traitors was always a strange one for the legion given their particular character and origins the story of the 16th legion like all the legions starts during the unification wars on terror as the emperor slowly conquered old earth with his newest armies the first space marines of the legiones astartes the 16th legion had been raised from some of the most weathered survivors of old night taken from the nomad gun clans that peppered the surface of terror and they quickly acquired a reputation as brutally effective line troops preferring overwhelming shock assaults to rip the throat out of the enemy army early a ruthless force of hunters dispatched by the emperor to quickly end potential threats and it was this skill at arms that saw them assigned to their first famous battle the pacification of luna at this point the emperor had created and then raised many of the 20 legions to combat strength using his own gene laboratories hidden across the planet but production of new warriors was slow and many of the nascent legions were little more than a few hundred amongst thousands upon thousands of mortal troops but luna earth's moon had long been host to an ancient order of gene scientists called the selenar and with the forges and laboratories of the selenar gene cults at his disposal the emperor could step up manufacturer to the levels needed for the great crusade the 16th legion aided by elements of the 7th and the 13th were tasked with its compliance and as the ships departed terror and the smaller forces from the 7th and the 13th began to engage the moon's void defenses the 16th cut all power to their assault ships and floated silently through the void the astartes within sealed within their armor and undetected until they were almost at the surface the strike when it came was devastating and the selenar surrendered within six hours transmitting to the emperor to call off his wolves it was this operation central to the future of the imperium as well as their already existing reputation as a potent threat loosed by the emperor against his foes that led to them becoming known soon after this as the lunar wolves the 16th would not be the only legion to bear such a title and embrace that imagery as their own but they were the first but the pacification of luna wasn't the only thing that a growing legion required it needed recruits too and the 16th legion's numbers would soon be swelled as their primark and his adopted homeworld of catholia were rediscovered by the imperium during the latter years of the unification wars as the emperor put his astartes project into motion and started to produce the first space marines a great calamity befell it the 20 primarks superhuman generals and the genetic templates for the legions were stolen away as infants and scattered through the warp coming to rest on various worlds for many they'd spend their formative years growing up in far-flung and varied societies often coming to rule the worlds they'd landed on until they were found by the expanding great crusade but the story of the 16th primark horus lupercal was different cothonia was extremely close to terror reachable even by sublight spacecraft in the early days of space exploration and so it had been one of the first worlds settled by mankind but millennia of mining and the stripping of every form of available resource had left it a poor and starving world and during the long darkness of the age of strife its original masters had abandoned it to its fate a culture of brutal and unrelenting gang warfare arose in the hollowed-out caverns and underground cities of the planet gangs claiming tunnels and territory and leading raids into rivals tunnels to steal resources or just to cement their power base and this constant shift of territory and the reeving of the hunter gangs had continued for thousands of years and when the imperium arrived in the first few years of the crusade they didn't stop it either the harsh environment had bred a strain of humanity considered particularly suitable for induction into the legiones astartes and cothonia quickly became a recruitment world whole gangs marched off by the thousand to the imperial gene vaults and many of these recruits would be destined directly for the lunar wolves as cothonia was also the homeworld of the 16th primark or at least we think it was the early life of horus lupercal is barely documented and what does exist contains drastically different reports so it's unclear exactly how much time horus spent on the world of catholia it was certainly long enough for him to consider himself pathonian at least openly and to learn the language and the accent and while some stories tell the traditional tale of a pod descending from the sky and the infant primark growing up as a ganger and then a gang leader before his discovery by the emperor other accounts suggest that he might have been found on a different maybe nearby planet or even on terror itself and then sent to live amongst the cothonians during his childhood or just not have spent any time amongst them at all what is certain is that horus was reunited with his father much sooner than any of his brothers and grew to adulthood at the emperor's side learning closely from him eventually he was placed in command of his legion and soon the luna wolves were bolstered by the first of the cothonian recruits who certainly considered their primark to be one of them whatever the truth might have actually been for decades horus was the only primark the right hand of the emperor and second in command of the imperium's armies and the lunar wolves by virtue of that one of the most prominent legions over time the merging of the terran and cothonian elements of the lunar wolves proved to be a good match the luna wolves predisposition towards fast spear-tipped strikes was complemented by the swift brutality and close quarters prowess of the cothonian gang fighters and planet after planets swiftly fell to their fleets many capitulating after the first sometimes preemptive strike the culture of the legion became quite distinct too as the influence of catholia became stronger with the traditional top-notch spikes and clan markings of the gangs being incorporated into the legion's heraldry the luna wolves approach to the crusade was direct and brutal and their results were often inelegant if unmistakably effective they would think nothing of unleashing the full power of an orbiting fleet on a fortress city while deploying thousands of lunar wolves to the surface with orders to kill every living thing within the city walls but while the legionaries themselves might have developed a reputation for being rough and uncivilized this was tempered by horus the primark was a consummate general and peerless warrior but also a charismatic diplomat known and loved by many at the top of the imperial power structure and many worlds were brought into the fold through his patience and diplomacy as the crusade pushed on and more and more of the primarks were discovered and reunited with their legions they were often mentored by horus himself horus's charisma and unequal record lent him a measure of respect unrivaled amongst his brother primarks while horus himself demonstrated an almost preternatural talent for wielding the relative strengths of the other legions to their best advantage on a strategic level others commanded larger legions saw more deeply excelled beyond horus in certain crafts of warfare or law or perhaps drew greater fraternal affection but only horus could hold every view and ideal in his mind even the most difficult of primarks were known to have deferred to him in many matters and so it was that the luna wolves in their primark pushed onwards an army of direct and brutal killers led by a peerless and charismatic commander for almost the full 200 years of the great crusade until finally with the breaking of the orc empire of urlak erg alinor one of the bloodiest campaigns the imperium ever fought the emperor did horus what was intended as the highest honor as the emperor retired to his laboratory to begin the next stage of his plan in secret he formalized horus status as first amongst his brothers by naming him warmaster and handing him full control of the imperial armed forces there was the occasional protest from the odd primark who maybe thought themselves contenders too but horus was loved by all and most congratulated him or urged him to agree to the emperor's second honor the renaming of his legion from the lunar wolves to the sons of horus but only a few scant years after the legion renamed themselves and repainted their armor the sea green and black of the new legion the imperium would come to regret ever elevating the 16th to such a position as horus fell to the powers of chaos and civil war consumed the galaxy at the end of the great crusade the sons of horus numbered around 160 000 legionnaires supported by a powerful fleet these were split into a number of companies led by captains and while some other legions use chapters battalions or other formations above the company level the sons of horus preferred to avoid this layer of organization assigning a number of companies to each strike mission or campaign companies varied massively in size and strength and also in specialization but almost all of them relied heavily on the tactical and despoiler squads the legion was famed for experts in close quarters infantry fighting the legion made use of every unit and weapon in the arsenal of the astartes but specialized squads like pathfinders or breaches were always less common than the simple tactical squad they also maintained a considerable strength of armoured vehicles and drop assault elements supplied by the many industrial worlds they'd liberated over the course of the crusade these orbital assault elements were particularly useful for the legion's signature tactic the spear tip strike where individual companies would be assigned as the leading rapid assault element in a mission a position that was considered a great honour across the legion elements of cothonian culture had led to some specialized units like the discipline officers known as overseers or the closest all veteran riva squads but over time another tradition had crept into the legion that of warrior lodges initially introduced after the compliance of davin the lodges were fraternal orders intended to provide a structure to the legion that existed outside of rank and formal title their members hooded in meetings and bound by oaths of secrecy among some legions this sort of practice was frowned on but they thrived within the 16th tacitly condoned by the war master as a way of building bonds of brotherhood across the legion but the 16th weren't the first to utilize this sort of structure it was introduced to them by the word bearers legion close allies of the sons of horus and as the events of the heresy unfolded it became clear that the secret orders and their secretive and ritualized trappings were all part of a greater plan the horus heresy is well named despite how it started it was horus consciously stepping down the path of betrayal and leading half the armies of the imperium against the emperor but the betrayal didn't start with him lugar primark of the word bearers searching for a focus for his religious belief had found chaos he was really the first to fall and as he did he hatched a plan to bring horus to his side he stole a powerful chaos weapon and placed it within the hands of an imperial commander eugene timber of davin and as it corrupted timber lorga reported that davin had turned renegade when horus arrived to reimpose compliance as a matter of honor timber had become a formidable foe swelled by the power of the warp and while horus defeated him he was wounded by the weapon and fell into a coma desperate and at the insistence of the word bearers the sons of horus turned to the lodges of davin secretly chaos cults who performed the rituals necessary for the war master to commune with the powers of chaos themselves in his dreams horus was shown visions of a dark future where humanity was oppressed and fearful the emperor a corpse worshipped as a god and some but not all of his brothers regarded as saints this was the emperor's plan said the chaos powers and they stoked the sense of betrayal and abandonment horus lupercal have felt since the emperor retired from the crusade this was the emperor's secret project they said to remove the astartes when they were no longer necessary and to make himself a god magnus the red the great primark of the thousand sons cast himself into horus's dreams to try and stop this but it was clear even to him that the war master had already fallen we should be clear that while horus was in part tricked and corrupted by his exposure to chaos he was also aware of the choice he made the resentment felt amongst many of his brothers towards the emperor was very real and as the crusade neared its end more than a few astartes have wondered if there was any place for them once the war was over but whatever the mix of reasons was horus had turned from the emperor and put his plan swiftly in motion as warmaster he worked to bring others to his cause some were easily turned others like the blood angels the dark angels and the ultramarines all powerful legions he dispatched to the fringes of the galaxy on various wars the space wolves were sent to prospero under orders to destroy the errant thousand suns knocking hopefully both out of the fray and the white scars kept isolated on campaign and with communications blocked finally the plans in motion he and his allies acted the sons of horus death guard world eaters and empress children legions used a rebellion on islam 3 as an excuse to purge the legions of their loyalist elements when the imperium found out about the betrayal seven more legions were dispatched to stop them but horus had already convinced four of those to his cause and they slaughtered the loyalists during the drop site massacre on islam five the word bearers betrayed the ultramarines at calth and used this as a sacrifice to raise a great warp storm cutting off loyalist reinforcements and with his opening gambits complete the war master started his long march towards terror for the next seven years the sons of horus alongside their allies fought a campaign of dark compliance through the imperium 16th legion heralds and overseers forced human worlds to declare either for horus or for the emperor and the full force of the legion was delivered upon planets who picked the wrong side war broke out on a thousand fronts they were harried all the way by loyalist guerrillas and armies making their last stand but with some of the strongest loyalist forces trapped on the other side of the ruinstorm their advance was unstoppable and they slowly forced their way first to molech where horus treated with the powers of chaos as the emperor had once done gaining lifetimes of experience and warped touched power and then through the great titan battles of beta garman where he was temporarily wounded by liman russ of the sixth legion and then onwards to terror itself throughout all this he wielded the other traitor legions like weapons commanding through a mixture of fear and respect and well aware of the power of the enemy he faced but the rebellion had made the legions more fractious than ever before though the siege was all but won by the traitors and the walls of the palace torn down one by one infighting saw the iron warriors and the emperor's children quit the battle and others like the night lords or word bearers to barely turn up in support as it became clear that the loyalist reinforcements were inbound horus took a gamble and lowered the shields of his flagship the vengeful spirit challenging the emperor to board and fight him while he killed his brother sanguinius primark of the blood angels he was in turn defeated by the emperor as the emperor's broken body was taken to the life support machine known as the golden throne the sons of horus fled with their primark's body to the eye of terror where they became a pariah legion hunted by their fellow traitors and blamed for the whole affair it wasn't until much much later when any trace of horus was finally gone that they'd rise again under another new name and that's the 16th legion a band of charismatic but brutal killers who were unlikely stars of the great crusade led by a primark who was once the first among brothers and the favored son of the emperor but then turned to the powers of chaos and tricked into bringing forth the nightmare future he was shown all those years ago in the serpent lodges of davin thanks for watching [Music] and if you'd like to see more of these videos well there's only a few left there's another 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Channel: Arbitor Ian

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Length: 17min 54sec (1074 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 21 2022