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*'''~999.[[M41]]''' - The [[Terran Crusade]]. Raven Guard elements answer the call of the reborn [[Roboute Guilliman]].
 
*'''~999.[[M41]]''' - The [[Terran Crusade]]. Raven Guard elements answer the call of the reborn [[Roboute Guilliman]].
 
*'''???,[[M41]]/[[M42]] - The [[Reclamation of Safiniyus]]
 
*'''???,[[M41]]/[[M42]] - The [[Reclamation of Safiniyus]]
 +
*'''???.[[M42]]''' - The War for [[Tarrovar]]
  
 
==Homeworld==
 
==Homeworld==

Revision as of 20:21, 19 September 2018


The Raven Guard were the XIX Legion of the original Space Marine Legions. Their Primarch is Corvus Corax . Their homeworld is Deliverance (originally named Lycaeus), a moon which orbits the Hive World Kiavahr.[2b] The Legion was devastated at the outbreak of the Horus Heresy and survived only by the most desperate of measures.

The Raven Guard specialise in guerrilla warfare, moving behind enemy lines with unrivalled stealth, and striking with precise application of force.[2a]

Simple Badge Space Marines.png
Space Marines Portal
Raven Guard
Ravguardlogo.png
Legion Number XIX
Primarch Corvus Corax
Homeworld Deliverance
Fortress-Monastery Ravenspire
Chapter Master Kayvaan Shrike
Colours Black, White[33]
Specialty Infiltration, Guerrilla Warfare, Fast Attack
Strength ~1000 Marines
Battle Cry Victorus Aut Mortis (Victory or Death)


History

The Great Crusade

Founding

Pre-Heresy Raven Guard Sergeant

Originally founded as the XIXth Legion, the Legion was used by the Emperor as his hidden hand in its early years during the Unification Wars on Terra. The original recruits of the Legion were firstborn sons drawn from tribes of savage yet technologically adept Xeric warriors of the Asiatic Dustfields, which regularly battled with the much larger Yndonesic Bloc.

In its earliest days, the XIXth Legion was used for infiltration, reconnaissance, and target identification operations. The Legion was covertly used to quickly annihilate any faction which refused to submit to the new Imperium, striking from the shadows without warning. One of the earliest known campaigns by the Legion was the conquest of the central Asiatic region, which was ruled by a tyrant known as Kalagann of Ursh. They won many battle honors on Terra, and later took part in the expansion of the Imperium into the rest of the Sol System, liberating Jupiter's moon of Lysithea from xenos. The battle on Lysithea proved costly for the Legion however, and for many years after veterans of the battle wore Jovian runes in its commemoration.[30]

In the early days of the Great Crusade, the Legion found itself in the shadow of Horus and his Luna Wolves. While Horus valued the XIXth greatly, the Legions forces were largely serving as support troops for the Wolves.[30]

The Legion's Primarch Corax was not reunited with the Legion for nearly two decades. When the Emperor discovered Corax on Deliverance, he had just liberated the moon from Kiavahr Forge-Guilds by using nuclear weapons.[30] The first meeting between Corax and the Emperor is shrouded in mystery, as the two spent a day and a night in private discussion, with no records kept about the conversation's contents.[2a] At dawn the next day though, Corax agreed to take command of the Legion, on the condition that Kiavahr be conquered and brought into the Imperial fold.[2a]

The Great Crusade was already a century old by the time Corax took command of his Legion, but quickly imposed his style of war he had learned on Deliverance on his new troops. Stealth, swiftness, and guile were impressed on a Legion already renowned for its reconnaissance and rapid-strike capability. In particular, the old ways of the Xeric tribes were purged. Corax also was disheartened by the way his Legion had been used as a repression, counter-insurgency, and occupation force; not unlike what he had fought against himself. He purged the Legion of its old commanders, such as Lord Arkhas Fal. Corax also used factories on Kiavahr to commission several vehicles unique to his forces, most notably the Shadowhawk, a stealth variant of the Thunderhawk as well as the Whispercutter.[30]

Doctrine and Record

During the Great Crusade the Raven Guard, based upon the training Corax had learned on Deliverance, became masters of sabotage, assassination and other covert operations. Planets that were thought impossible to take fell quickly as the Raven Guard applied precise military pressure to its vulnerable sectors.[2a] Such was the Legion's reputation that Warmaster Horus frequently requested their assistance to assure victory, though there was little admiration between the two; unconfirmed reports include the two sides nearly coming to blows on one occasion.[2a] In addition, Corax displayed a consistent ill-favor and mistrust towards veteran warriors of his Legion born of Terra as opposed to Deliverance.[38]

Tensions between the two boiled after during the Battle of Gate Forty-Two, where Horus had the Raven Guard launch a bloody frontal assault on enemy defenses that decimated the Legion's numbers despite Corax's warnings that the plan was reckless beforehand. After the battle the Raven Guard was reduced to 80,000 Astartes. Corax removed his forces from Horus' command, bitterly swearing to never serve alongside the Warmaster again.[30] He also began to send his Terran-born forces into forgotten Crusades on the galactic fringes, ensuring in his eyes that the Raven Guard who remain "pure".[38]

Notable Operations

The Horus Heresy

Corax leads the Raven Guard against the Dark Mechanicus during the Horus Heresy

The Raven Guard legion was one of the smallest legions during the Great Crusade, numbering 80,000 Astartes as well as an Imperial Army Regiment known as the Therion Cohort attached to the legion's expeditionary force.[12] As a legion they were a fierce enemy for anyone who opposed the Imperium of Man, using time honoured tactics of guerrilla warfare which Corax himself had learnt during the Revolution he himself had commanded to free his people from the merciless slavery forced upon them by the Tech Guilds of Kiavahr.[12] Extremely efficient and trained, the Raven Guard would engage in acts of mass sabotage along with infiltration, blink-of-an-eye Strikes, and expert covert operations, all of which they had perfected into what would look like ease to any other warrior.[12]

The Raven Guard were one of seven legions to be sent to the Istvaan system (Others present were the Iron Hands, Salamanders, Alpha Legion, Iron Warriors, Night Lords and Word Bearers) to quell a rebellion lead by the former Warmaster, Horus - Primarch of the Sons of Horus Legion (Formerly the Luna Wolves).[12] Horus and his other three traitor primarchs (Fulgrim, Angron and Mortarion) had entrenched themselves on the planet of Istvaan V, and lay in wait for the Loyalist forces to land and engage.[12] The fighting once joined was fierce and hot-blooded, brother versus brother, and no quarter was given on either side.[12] Mid way into the fighting, Horus and his allies retreated back into their fortifications for no reason that could be grasped by the loyalist factions.[12] The Raven Guard were in the thick of the fighting from the start, though out of their element due to the lack of tactical planning and the close-up-and-personal combat spreading like wildfire across the plains of Istvaan V. They fought both with as much honour and as much skill as any other legion would in the circumstances.[12] When the traitors made a surprise withdrawal back to their fortifications, the Raven Guard used this cease in the fighting to regroup and re-arm.[12] However, when they neared the "loyalist" defences (which were tenfold reinforced by the expert siege engineers of the Iron Warriors legion under their Primarch Perturabo's direction, they were fired upon by the very guns meant to protect them. Hundreds were gunned down in the first few minutes of the betrayal, before they even realised that there were traitors in there midst.[12]

Four of the seven loyalist legions sent to Istvaan V had thrown off the colours and pretenses of the Imperium, and set about playing out a totally new performance (hatched from long before Istvaan).[12] The Iron Warriors, Night Lords, Alpha Legion, and Word Bearers turned on their brethren in a bloody thunderstorm of bolters and blades, decimating their numbers in a multitude of seemingly never ending skirmishes and drudging battles for ground that cost lives for every metre gained or lost.[12] Corax and his legion were reduced from their mighty 80,000 warriors to a meager 3,000 battle hardened veterans.[12] Himself by now a brooding vengeful demigod, wielding a whip[12] in place of his normal customary left set of talons which were lost in a rage fueled duel with the traitorous primarch Lorgar, which would have ended in Lorgar's death had Konrad Curze, Primarch of the Night Lords (also known as the Night Haunter) not intervened and shattered it with a swipe of his own claws.[12] Respite came in the form of a single battle barge The "Avenger"[12], captained by Commander Branne Nev, a captain originally stationed on Deliverance as a garrison commander, with him came the battered remains of the Therion Cohort normally serving with the legion under Praefactor Marcus Valerius who ironically brought Isstvan V into compliance with Corax the first time. Unbeknownst to both sides, Corax only narrowly escaped death at the hands of Angron and his World Eaters thanks to the machinations of the Alpha Legion, whose own Primarch Alpharius had greater plans regarding the Raven Guard.[12]

Upon escaping the tailing forces of World Eater's picket ships, "Avenger"[12] broke real-space into the warp, and headed for Terra.[12] Upon arriving Corax headed for the Imperial Palace, which was being fortified by Rogal Dorn and his Imperial Fists in preparation for the coming Siege (Siege of Terra), upon which after much argument with Dorn and Malcador the Imperial Regent, The Emperor himself boomed in a psychic voice for the arguing to cease and pulled Corax into a vision of extreme light, and showed him the secrets he had been asking for - The gene forging tech used to create the Primarch's by the Emperor himself.[12] After navigating the treacherous and dangerous contraption which was the ever shape-shifting maze on Luna, by using his advanced logic, and the skill of his sons to out-think its logic engine and freeze it in place, he retrieved the gene tech and returned to Deliverance under the watchful eye of the Adeptus Custodes (who were charged by Malcador to keep an eye on its safety).[12]

At first the Astartes created by the gene tech were a marvel, a splice of primarch and Astartes, but not in an imbalanced degree so as to cause malfunction, a perfect meld.[12] These new warriors were faster, stronger, and more intelligent than any of the older warriors of the Legion, and within a few weeks more aspirants had been successfully implanted with stable gene-seed than ever before (the new gene seed also meant that warriors matured into their new forms rapidly compared to standard Astartes).[12] The new warriors would be placed under the command of Captain Branne Nev under the moniker "Raptors", and would be used against a Word Bearer fortress as their first deployment, which would see them successfully slaughter veteran Word Bearers with the ease of much older warriors. Raptors would take injuries that would have killed even an Astartes, and still remain fighting due to their enhanced bodies.[12] Word of this reached the ears of Omegon, twin primarch of the Alpha Legion, whom had been laying dormant on Kiavahr below stirring up a rebellion amongst the tech guilds, and he sprung into action.[12]

The rebellion and even the Alpha Legionnaires supporting it were a distraction, while the Raven Guard were caught off guard, Omegon and several Alpha Legion operatives managed to covertly spike the gene tech with a daemon blood poison (while managing to keep the pure technology for themselves) using the Raven Guard gene-seed to produce deformed monsters.[12] The battle finally began as the first Raven Guard recruits to receive the secretly spiked gene seed were implanted, and by the time it raged into the gene labs of Ravendelve, only to be met by deformed warriors created by the spiked gene seed's effects.[12] While deformed, these astartes still fought with otherworldly strength, overpowering even the Alpha Legion Astartes.[12] By the time the battle was over, Agents had been found amidst the legion, explaining how news reached the traitors about the gene tech, and thus the loss of such a boon to the crippled legion, gene screening was to be implemented to find and destroy the agents with the stolen faces of Raven Guard Legionnaires.[12] Corax nevertheless led the Raven Guard in full strength (~4000 Astartes) and his allies (over 500,000 Therion Cohort, 100-150 Imperial Fists, ~20 Custodes against The Perfect Fortress, an Emperors Children stronghold[12e]. Planned to be conducted with his legion rebuild to be at least 10.000 Astartes strong, the Fortress was taken by luring the Traitor forces out with an failed assault by the Therion Cohort[12e]. While Raven Guard losses were small, the Traitor force was totally destroyed[12e]. The Perfect Fortress was on a important strategic planet for the whole sector, but Corax withdrew his legion to strike the next Traitor force, leaving the garrison to the Therion Cohort, and the expected Imperial Army and Titan Legion Reinforcements[12e]. Corax again led the Raven Guard in full strength against traitor forces in the Battle of Yarant, rescuing the Space Wolves. After the battle, Corax expressed his intent to continue to resist Horus from the shadows.[39]

Without the gene tech the Raven Guard Legion remained a small legion, though their continued work with small cells of warriors allowed them to remain no less of a fighting force, though fewer in number then before[12]. Tales of the Space Wolves report the use of Astartes more beasts than man[2]. The Space Wolves never reported this to any imperial authorities, most likely because they shared a sympathy with the Raven Guard because of their own similar flaw[2].

Meanwhile, scattered Raven Guard survivors of Isstvan V managed to join with fellow Salamanders and Iron Hands aboard the Sisypheum, beginning a campaign of vengeance against those who had betrayed them.[28]

When Roboute Guilliman announced his "Codex Astartes" which would split the legions into organised chapters, Corax was circumstantially forced to adapt to the new rules, Albeit still retaining his legions overall structure, but in smaller chapters of 1,000 Astartes, As is how the Raven Guard chapter is to this day.[12]

Notable Operations

Horus Heresy Aftermath

The Raven Guard chapter birthed in the Second Founding from the Raven Guard legion remained a successful fighting force, even with diminished numbers (1,000 Astartes from the 3,000 survivors of the Drop Site Massacre).[4a] The hunt for Kernax Voldorius alongside the White Scars[11b], 4th Company's deployment of several Raven Guard warriors to aid the Ultramarines in their capture of Adaric Vaanes, and the defence of Ultramar[9], and many other campaigns have been successfully won by these masters of shadow.

Recent Events

Timeline

Raven Guard Space Marine

Homeworld

The Raven Guard homeworld is Deliverance, a moon which their Fortress Monastery "Raven Spire" is built on.[12] Deliverance was once known as Lycaeus, where 10,000 years previous to current events, Corvus Corax (soon to be Primarch of the Raven Guard Legion) lead a revolution to free his fellow slaves, and eventually the whole moon from the Slavery enforced on them by the Tech Guilds of the planet below, Kiavahr.[12] Kiavahr was converted into a forge world by the Adeptus Mechanicus upon the Emperor's arrival, due to Corax's wishes that the Tech Guilds no longer held sway, this meant that the Legion also recieved a vital supply line for materials.[12]

Gene-seed

The degeneration of the Raven Guard gene-seed means several of the unique organs of the Space Marines no longer work properly or no longer grow. Raven Guard do not have the Mucranoid or Betcher's Gland. The Melanchromic Organ has a unique mutation that causes the skin of the Space Marine to grow paler.[3] Eventually each Marine's skin becomes pure white while their hair and eyes darken, becoming black as coal. The main issues could have come from Corax's experimentation with the Raven Guard Gene-Seed to try and create stronger and faster-maturing astartes (although the Alpha Legion is primarily to blame for causing his project's failure), it is never fully stated what is the actual cause.[12]

In M32, a sudden degeneration afflicted the Raven Guard's Gene-seed, causing organs to fail and implants to be rejected. From this time onward, the Chapter is forced to rely on Gene-seed stocks from Terra, a factor that slows the Chapter’s recruitment rates significantly but does not curtail their willingness for battle.[36]

Culture and combat doctrine

Raven Guard
The Raven Guard are known for hitting weak points in enemy defences hard and they perform lightning strikes upon locations of tactical importance to cripple their enemy. The Raven Guard disdain the notion of recklessly charging into enemy ranks. This differentiates their tactics from those of the Blood Angels. The Raven Guard rely heavily on their Scouts for pinpointing enemy positions and to scout for good drop sites. Because of their hit and run tactics they also make extensive use of Assault Squads. The Tactical Squads of the Raven Guard are often deployed via Thunderhawks or Drop Pods. The favorite weapons of the Raven Guard Commanders are the Lightning Claws and it is a common sight that their command squads also come equipped with these weapons in addition to their Jump Packs.[Needs Citation]

Raven Guard Captains are fiercely independent, and it's incredibly rare for the chapter to fight as a whole. Individual companies are completely autonomous and are quick to lend their aid to Imperial commanders across the galaxy, with or without the sanction of their Chapter Master. Such behaviour has led to some to question the Raven Guard's soundness, but most recognise that such fluidity of command proves the presence of formidable discipline, not its absence.[4a]

Due to their specialised combat style, the Raven Guard makes less use of heavier vehicles and tanks (such as the Land Raider and Predator) than most chapters.[3]

The right shoulder guard trim denotes the type of Space Marine. Green is for tactical squads, red is for assault squads and yellow is for devastators. The left kneepad displays the company number[5]


Shadowmasters

Raven Guard battle the Tau

The Shadowmasters or Mor Deythan were a unit of Raven Guard during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy. They were ordinary battle-brothers who had their primarch's ability to Shadow-walk. It was a quirk of the gene-seed in a few Deliverancian born Raven Guard that had more than just the standard gene code. One unique trait about the Shadowmasters is that they were completely unknown to their own legion. The marines were selected for testing "Thermal Technology" which was considered "highly temperamental. Corax and select apothecaries are the only marines in the legion that knew of the group at the time of the Horus Heresy. The Mor Deythan acted as an elite stealth team and saboteurs and communicated through Stalk-Argot while working in concert with the rest of the legion. The Shadowmasters performed flanking maneuvers and sabotaged columns of rogue Skitarii on Constinax. [20]

Traditions

Corvia

All Raven Guard during their initiation or as a form of meditation or spirit quest hunt the tiny ravens native to the forests of Kiavahr. It takes months of training and practice for recruits to sneak up on the small and alert birds, grab them in their bare hands and snap their necks. The skulls of these birds are worn as small totems hanging from a marine's belt on small chains. These totems are known as Corvia and represent a warrior's honor. If a battle-brother falls, one of his surviving comrades will recover his Corvia and carry it, and thus the fallen warrior's honor, into battle until he can return to Kiavahr and bury the small skulls in the soil of the Chapter's homeworld. [27]

Treatment of the Dead

Upon death, where practical, the body of the Raven Guard will be stripped of it's equipment and trappings (including the Corvia), harvested of it's gene-seed and left for the local carrion birds to feed upon [21b]

"Wraith-Slipping"

Described as being a combination of mental discipline and martial art, the process of "wraith-slipping" is to take advantage of one's surroundings to conceal one's presence. This is not a psychic power but rather a collection of disciplines and techniques that the Raven Guard use to conceal their visual and aural presence despite their use of power armour. It is a technique that is described both prior to the outbreak of civil war in the Horus Heresy[28] and up to the 41st Millennium[24a].


Organisation

During the Great Crusade the Raven Guard Legion followed the basic organizational doctrine. The Legion was divided into chapters, chapters were divided into battalions, battalions into companies, and companies into squads. However companies were preferred for most independent operations. Legion officers devolved command responsibility to sub-commanders, allowing them to make tactical decisions and to seek the initiative without interfering with the command chain. The influence of Terran recruits from the Xeric tribes was the cause of this.[30]

After the Dropsite Massacre Corax was left with a tattered Legion and had to reorganize them. They were combined into divisions based on combat specializations. The tactical companies became the Talons, the assault companies became the Falcons, and light vehicle squadrons and air support were renamed the Hawks. Another unit of genetically enhanced Astartes dubbed the Raptors was later added as well.[30]

The Raven Guard are a Codex Chapter who generally adhere to the Codex Astartes in their Organisation.[7]

Headquarters

The current headquarters staff as of 999.M41 are as follows:

Headquarters
Chapter Master Reclusium Librarius
Ravguardlogo.png


Armoury Apothecarion Fleet Command Support Personel
  • Chapter Serfs
  • Administrative Personel

Company Disposition

[37] Like all Codex chapters, the Raven Guard are divided into ten Companies. Each Company is led by a hero of the Raven Guard who bears the title Shadow Captain[6] and who - in addition to his Company command - is in charge of a particular aspect of the Chapter's logistics. The current Company commanders are as follows:

Veteran Company Battle Companies
1st Company 2nd Company 3rd Company 4th Company 5th Company

'"The Black Wings"'

RG1.jpg


Lord of Deliverance

'"The Shadowborne"'

RG2.jpg


Master of Secrets

'"The Ghoststalkers"'

RG3.jpg


  • Shadow Captain,

Master of Secrets

'"The Silent"'

RG4.jpg


Master of the Fleet

  • 6 Tactical Squads
  • 2 Assault Squads
  • 2 Devastator Squads
  • Dreadnoughts

'"The Black Wings"'

RG5.jpg


Master of the Marches

  • 6 Tactical Squads
  • 2 Assault Squads
  • 2 Devastator Squads
  • Dreadnoughts
Reserve Companies Scout Company
6th Company 7th Company 8th Company 9th Company 10th Company

'"The Darkened Blades"'

RG6.jpg


Master of the Rites

  • 10 Tactical Squads
  • Dreadnoughts

'"The Whipserclaws"'

RG7.jpg


Master of Lies

  • 10 Tactical Squads
  • Dreadnoughts

'"The Unseen"'

RG8.jpg


Lord Executioner

  • 10 Assault Squads
  • Dreadnoughts

'"The Dirgesingers"'

RG9.jpg


Master of Relics

  • 10 Devastator Squads
  • Dreadnoughts

'"The Subtle"'

RG10.jpg


Master of the Recruits

Recruitment

File:Assalt.jpg
Raven Guard Veteran assault marine

Owing to the instability of the Raven Guard gene-seed and the experiments of Corax, much of the chapter's genetic stock has been irreparably damaged. Now, much of their genetic material comes from supplies held on Terra. This means the cycle of recruitment for the Raven Guard is much slower than other Chapters and fewer Raven Guard candidates for the Chapter prove able to survive their training and genetic modification. This means the chapter is constantly short-handed.

The Raven Guard's chapter planet Deliverance is said to lack the population resources available on other chapter's homeworlds. By the time of the Horus Heresy only a few thousand marines in the Raven Guard's number were recruited from Deliverance, the rest made up of the original Terran forces inducted before the Great Crusade.[1]


Equipment


Armour

The Chapter makes wide use of the "beaked" and older marks of Power Armour (Mk. IV-VI). After their near-destruction at Isstvan V, the Raven Guard techmarines created ad hoc suits using salvaged parts and components from other suits or vehicles.[12g] When battle barge Avenger returned to Deliverance, Raven Guard received shipment of 2 000 suits of Mk. VI Power Armour. [12h] At that time, the Mark VI, designed as Corvus suit, was the newest and most advanced version. Because this mark of Power Armour carries name of primarch Corax it is natural that the Raven Guard feel bond to this mark of armour. The Raven Guard's chapter planet and base of operations has the production capacity of a small forge world, ensuring that the Raven Guard rarely lacks for the material to prosecute its campaigns.[4b] Raven Guard's Power Armour utilises enhanced cooling systems that which helps to blend in better with the background. By this means Raven Guard's warriors are hard to be detected by thermal or infrared devices.[11a]

Vehicles

The Raven Guard makes use of an array of unique vehicles tailored to the Chapter's specialization in stealth assault. These include the Whispercutter.

Fleet

During the Horus Heresy, the Raven Guard's fleet was equipped with special stealth technology: a ship's void shields could be modified so that they provided only minimal protection, but at the benefit of making the vessel nearly undetectable either visually or by sensors. It took only a few minutes for this adjustment to be made.[12a] The Raven Guard also operates a stealthy variant of the Thunderhawk, the Shadowhawk

Noted Elements of the Raven Guard

Relics and Artefacts

Main article: Raven Guard Armoury

Chapter Fleet

Notable Members

Heresy Era

Post-Heresy

Unique Troops & Vehicles

Known Named Vehicles

Related Articles

Trivia

While stated in the background that all Raven Guard have black hair, there is at least one instance where Games Workshop showed a miniature with a different hair colour (accessed 2011/09/08). If this is a mistake or deliberate is unknown.

See Also

Sources