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Legio Pallidus Mor

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Colour Scheme Legion Info
Pallidus Mor Warlord.jpg
Name: Legio Pallidus Mor
Alternative name: Pale Riders[1]
Affiliation: Imperium[1]
Founded: Pre-Horus Heresy
Forge World: Tolkhan[1]
Colours: Bone-ivory and night-black[2]
Strength: Unknown
Battle Cry: We are the Pride of Death!

The Legio Pallidus Mor (also known as the Pale Riders) is a loyalist Titan Legion from the forgeworld Tolkhan.[1]


Overview

The Pallidus Mor is an ancient Legio, dating back from at least the time of the Horus Heresy. They are known for being grim and solemn, knowing that sacrifice and loss is inevitable in war, and also that victory is not a glory, but a duty. Even victories are not to be celebrated, but studied and learned from in preparation for the next battle. They also keep themselves as physically fit as can be, in the event (however unlikely) that they are forced to fight an enemy outside of their Titans. They are known to choose personnel based on ability, as opposed to birthright, readily taking officers even from lower-born classes.[2][3]

History

The Horus Heresy

During the Horus Heresy, in the Battle of Cruciatus Primus, the Pallidus Mor faced off against traitorous members of the Iron Skulls. The Iron Skulls believed the fatalistic demenour of the Pallidus Mor made them susceptible to corruption. The Pallidus Mor did not fall to the corrupting influence, however, and repelled the Iron Skulls. While all records of the traitorous members of the Iron Skulls were officially striken from Imperial Archives, the Pallidus Mor never forgot the event, nor the insult that they were even considered corruptible.[3]

Campaign on Thoryvos

The Pallidus Mor fought on Thoryvos alongside the Imperial Guard of the 66th Kataran Spears regiment. This resulted in a strong bond being created between them.[2]

Defense of Hive Gelon

The Pallidus Mor, alongside the Imperial Hunters Titan Legion, fought on the Hive World of Khania against an invading Tyranid force. The Pallidus Mor sent a demi-Legio consisting of four maniples containing a total of twenty operational engines. The combined demi-Legios managed to reach the planet's capital city, Hive Gelon, reinforce the 66th Kataran Spears (who had been deployed upon the planet as well) and repel the xenos forces, but soon a second and far larger wave of Tyranids arrived.[2]

During the fight against this second wave, the Pallidus Mor was tasked with defending Gelon, while the Imperial Hunters left to hunt down enemy bio-titans. This left them vulnerable as the Imperial Hunters made up over half their battlegroup. They were ambushed when the Tyranids emerged from the ground, having made use of an extensive subterranean network of tunnels to approach the city unnoticed. The Pallidus Mor suffered a few losses during the battle, including their commanding officer, Marshal Eras Balzhan. While Balzhan was killed, his Titan, the venerable Warlord Ferrum Salvator, survived relatively intact. Fortunately, the Imperial Hunters managed to return in time to provide combat assistance, and the Tyranids were again repelled. This, along with the destruction of the Tyranid's orbital fleet by the Imperial Navy, secured victory on the planet. By the end of the battle, the Pallidus Mor had lost 8 of its Titans (including the salvaged Ferrum Salvator) to the Tyranids' assault.[3]

The Doom of Katara

After a Khornite Chaos Cultist uprising in the hive city Creontiades of the forgeworld Katara, the Pallidus Mor was again deployed along with the Imperial Hunters and Kataran 66th to provide defense, due to reports of Traitor Titans being sent to the planet. Remaining under the command of Marshal Adrel Syagrius, the Pallidus Mor was deployed to the Hive City of Deicoon, the city nearest Creontiades. Their mission was to defend the bridge over the Kazani Strait that connected Creontiades to the mainland. With fire support of the Kataran 66th, the Pallidus Mor engaged the traitor Titans, which they identified as the Iron Skulls. The Iron Skulls outnumbered and outgunned the Pallidus Mor, forcing them to retreat back across the bridge. As a last resort, the Pallidus Mor opened fire on the bridge's supports, destroying the bridge and plunging it (and several traitor Titans) into the sea below. The Legio then returned to Deicoon for rearmament and repairs.[3]

Unfortunately, this was not the end of the conflict. In Creontiades, the cultists performed a ritual which summoned a large brass bridge to span the Strait, allowing them to cross. Meanwhile, in Deicoon, another group of cultists had lied in wait in the underhives. When the princeps of the Pallidus Mor were away from the Titans' repair yards (visiting with the city's governor), the cultists ambushed the city. The Princeps, Moderati, and Secutarii of the Pallidus Mor were overpowered and captured. The cultists took them to a defiled chapel on the city, with the intent to corrupt them and their Titans. Soon afterwards a civilian militia, called the "Company of the Bridge" lead by Ecclesiarchy Confessor Lehrn Ornastas, assaulted the chapel and freed the members of the Pallidus Mor. Upon being freed, the Pallidus Mor armed themselves and fought their way back to their Titans. The battlegroup ambushed the heretical Titans, even with the enemy having taken control of Deicoon's massive Thunderstrike-pattern macrocannons. The Chaos Forces, expecting to have corrupted the Pallidus Mor, were caught off-guard by the Legio's counterattack, as the majority of the Iron Skull's Titans had moved onto Therimachus to attack the Imperial Hunters.[3]

After defeating the traitor Titans at Deicoon, the Pallidus Mor received requests for assistance by the Imperial Hunters. Their brother legio was being overwhelmed by the Chaos forces. Deciding to take the fastest route, the legio moved through the Klivanos Plain. The Plain was a volatile region, with large and unstable Promethium reserves beneath its surface. Despite losing a Warhound, the Legio successfully traversed the region. They were too late to rescue the surviving members of the Imperial Hunters. The Pallidus Mor readied to engage the enemy forces, noticing that they were forming a defensive line to stall for time as another Chaotic ritual was being prepared. Realizing they could not retake the city before the completion of the ritual, the Pallidus Mor, remnants of the Imperial Hunters assigned to their manible, and the Kataran 66th, fired into the city. Firing salvo after salvo, the Legios leveled the Hive, turning the very ground below it into a sea of magma and rubble.[3]

Knowing that they may need more firepower, Princeps Captain Krezoc contacted the Nuntius Mortis and ordered the redeployment of Ferrum Salvator, despite its repairs (needed after the damage it sustained from the battles on Khania) being incomplete. She then ordered the Pallidus Mor to retreat from the sea of magma that once was Therimachus. During the retreat the Pallidus Mor suffered more losses as Crudelis Mortem was destroyed, causing a large wave of magma which in return destroyed an enemy Banelord. In its death throes, the corrupted Titan fired at Gloria Vastator, critically damaging its reactor. Most of the Titan's primary crew members assembled in the command chambers and launched to escape the blast of the war machine's reactor. The crew managed to reach and activate Ferrum Salvator just in time to engage and destroy the final enemy Titan by firing Ferrum Salvator's Mori Quake Cannon into it at point-blank range.[3]

The victory was a pyrrhic one. The vast majority of the Titans sent to the system by the Pallidus Mor (as well as the Imperial Hunters) were destroyed, two of the planet's three Hive cities were destroyed (Creontiades was leveled to the ground upon the arrival of Imperial Guard reinforcements), the forgeworld was reclassified as a Penal World (on the verge of being chosen for Exterminatus), and the planet's surviving loyalist population was interred and formed into a Penal Legion. The surviving members of the Pallidus Mor and the Titans they could salvage prepared to return to the Nuntius Mortis, formally ending the combined battlegroup with the Imperial Hunters.[3]

Known Assets

Titans

Void Ships

Personnel

Princeps

  • Marshal Eras Balzhan — Commanding Officer of the Pallidus Mor during the Defense of Hive Gelon, Princeps of Ferrum Salvator.[2]
  • Princeps Captain/Senoris (formerly Moderati Majoris) Ferantha Krezoc — Commanding Officer of the Pallidus Mor during the Doom of Katara, Moderati Majoris of Ferrum Salvator; Princeps of Gloria Vastator; Princeps of Ferrum Salvator[2]
  • Princeps Merys Drahn — Princeps of Fatum Messor[3]
  • Princeps Toven Rehliax — Princeps of Crudelis Mortem[3]
  • Princeps Makthal — Princeps of Tempestas Deorem[3]
  • Princeps Gregor Narvathis — Princeps of Fidelis Venator[3]

Moderati

  • Moderati Majoris Brennon Grevereign — Moderati of Gloria Vastator's Volcano Cannon; Moderati of Ferrum Salvator's Volcano Cannon[3]
  • Moderati Majoris Agara Vansaak — Moderati of Gloria Vastator's Quake Cannon; Moderati of Ferrum Salvator's Mori Quake Cannon[3]
  • Moderati Minoris Doran Konterus — Moderati of Gloria Vastator's Apocalypse Missile Launcher[3]
  • Moderati Minoris Ferrek Haziad — Moderati of Gloria Vastator's Vulcan Mega-bolter[3]
  • Moderati Sen Narsek[3]

Other Personnel


See also

Sources