# The Merciless, World Eaters 16th Company. A Pre-Heresy Log



## Khorne's_Chosen (Mar 29, 2009)

/ACCESSING ARCHIVES/
/SEARCH CATEGORIES: XII LEGION/XVI GREAT COMPANY /
/ALL RECORDS SEALED/EXCOMMUNICATE TRAITORIS/INSERT IDENTIFICATION CODE/
/PROCESSING/
/IDENTIFICATION CODE ACCEPTED/LORD INQUISITOR VAN HEKT/
/ACCESS GRANTED/
/SEARCH CATEGORIES: XVI GREAT COMPANY/NOTABLE BATTLES/
/PROCESSING/
/SEARCH RESULTS/
++ERROR: RECORD EXPUNGED++
++BAEBLONIAN INCIDENT [RECORD AVAILABLE]++
++SIEGE OF HIEROTZELEM [RECORD AVAILABLE]++
++ERROR: RECORD EXPUNGED++
++GOLGOTHAN SLAUGHTER
--- ERROR: RECORD EXPUNGED
---SIEGE OF SARUM [RECORD AVAILABLE]++
++CLEANSING OF ARRIGATA [RECORD AVAILABLE]++
++GHENNA SCOURING [RECORD UNAVAILABLE]++
++NIGHT OF THE WOLF [RECORD AVAILABLE]++
++ERROR: RECORD EXPUNGED++
++ISSTVAN III ATROCITY [RECORD AVAILABLE]++
++ISSTVAN V DROPSITE MASSACRE [RECORD AVAILABLE]++
++ERROR: RECORD EXPUNGED++
++SHADOW CRUSADE
---ASSAULT ON MARDRION [RECORD AVAILABLE]++
++ERROR: RECORD EXPUNGED++
++ERROR: RECORD EXPUNGED++
++ERROR: RECORD EXPUNGED++
++BATTLE OF TERRA [RECORD TEMPORARILY UNAVAILABLE]++
++ERROR: RECORD EXPUNGED++

Numeration: Legio XII, Company XVI
Primogenitor: Angron the Conqueror
Battlebarge: The Merciless
Tactical specialization: Boarding assaults, Exterminatus and Zone Mortalis operations, Line-breaker attacks
Allegiance: Traitoris Perdita










DRAMATIS PERSONAE
[Updated to: Isstvan V Dropsite Massacre]

Tiberius Thanatos, Centurion and ship captain
Irex Nornas, Legate Commander [KIA: Isstvan III]
Ancient Daegron, Contemptor Dreadnought
Balon , Contemptor Dreadnought
Borg “Redhands”, Champion of the pits
Skath, Chaplain
Garalth, Master of Signal [KIA: Isstvan III]
Verjell, High Codicer [Killed in the pits by Thanatos]
Regran, Primus medicae [KIA: Cleansing of Arrigata]
Kallax “Night Lord”, Primus medicae 
Arkadios, Apothecary
Drapaes, Apothecary
Abyron, Apothecary
Solomon Drakon, Vexillarius
Rhaskos, Sergeant – II Tactical squad
Lennar, Sergeant – IV Tactical squad
“Bad Luck” Kull, Sergeant – XII Tactical squad
Urron, Sergeant – I Outrider Squad [MIA: Isstvan V]
Gerakh, Acting Sergeant – I Outrider Squad​

*Hounds of war*
The first known references to the 16th company of the 12th Legion come from the fragmented accounts of the 32nd Fleet, where it is reported as one of the three War Hounds companies assigned to the Expedition.
By that time, the Legion had already cemented his savage reputation by repressing the Cerberus Insurrection [OPEN EXTERNAL DATA], and the Merciless -as the 16th was named by their horrified comrades of the Imperial Army- lived up to that fame, acting as brutal shock troops for the Expeditionary Fleet.

[OPEN DATA: BAEBLONIAN INCIDENT]

In 817.M30 the 32nd came across the world of Baeblonia, a non-compliant human planet which developed nevertheless a high level of tecnology. After a few weeks of tractatives, nine out of ten Imperial ambassadors on the planet were beheaded and sent back to the fleet, the last one spared just to show the horrible avatars of refusal.
One hour later, the War Hounds slipped the leash and assaulted the capital city, turning blood red the white marble in which it was built. Three hours later, the planet declared unconditionate surrender, but the Expedition's command had no success in calling back the Astartes, who slaughtered the whole population of Baeblonia and displayed their severed heads on every building of their cities.
This "incident" resulted in a fraction between the Imperial officers and the 12th legion commanders, and the War Hounds were mostly held in reserve in latter compliances, only to be unleashed when extermination or at least crippling submission remained the only viable options.
Their new fame alone, though, proved to be more than enough to cast a great number of worlds into compliance without shedding a single drop of blood.


[OPEN DATA: SIEGE OF HIEROTZELEM]

In 841.M30 the 32nd Expedition found itself on a dead point, as the Imperial Militia proved unable to break the siege of Hierotzelem, a fortress-world ruled by a caste of fanatic warrior priests devoted to a degenerated variant of the old Catheric religion. The Fleet's officers had to choose between a shameful withdrawal or sending the 12th: the capital was swiftly taken, but an auto-destruction device activated by Hierotzelem's mad priests to prevent their precious relics to fall in "unworthy" hands provoked the death of more than a hundred Astartes and thousands of humans from the Imperial Army and the planet's populace aswell.
Logan Dethorf and Fjell Brockhurt, Centurions of the War Hounds Legion, were counted among the dead.
Tiberius Thanatos, a terran-born Astartes who had recently gained the title of Centurion of the 16th company, was the only senior officer left: he proceeded to reorganize the legionary force by annecting the survivors of the other two companies to his own, slaying their potential leaders one by one in the pits of the Battlebarge Merciless, evidently so named after the legionnaires it hosted.
So two Warhounds companies were cast in the oblivion of history, and the 16th Great Company was born.



*Sons of a broken God*
As the Legions grew in size and many came to be reunited with their Primarchs the task of reinforcement became less important, and the 12th Legion was brought back together under the banner of the “Bloody 13th”, the Expeditionary Fleet with the largest number of War Hounds along with dedicated assault and fleet support elements.
The 16th mustered on the planet Bodt along with the rest of the Legion, and saw its ranks refilled with new stocks of wargear and fresh recruits to be trained on volcanic sands.
Available informations about the finding of the Primarch Angron can be found here [OPEN EXTERNAL DATA].
In this account, it will be enough to say that in a Legion already based on honor and fighting prowess the martial ideal represented by Angron found a vast number of devoted followers, not least among them Centurion Thanatos of the 16th.
Having been told of the latter's escalade to command the Primarch laughed his approvation, thus “officially” confirming his position as captain of the Battlebarge Merciless and commander of three hundred Astartes.
After reshaping the War Hounds and making them his World Eaters, Angron departed Bodt with his men and launched himself in a bloody rampage across the galaxy, where his Legion gave a total new meaning to its fame for brutality and bloodshed.
A report of the late Heresy era states that “The planets upon which the World Eaters fell were not merely crushed – they were destroyed utterly.
Where once resistance had been found, now were left only grave worlds in their stead – planets not merely burned or blasted from on high but slaughtered in their streets and palaces, factories and fortresses […] the World Eaters Legion became a byword for unbridled violence and slaughter on a gran scale, shunned by many of their fellow Legions for their excesses and whispered of in fear by those who in theory they had been created to protect”.
The first known target to have suffered their wrath was the Golgothan Sector [OPEN EXTERNAL DATA].
The campaign that ensued lasted eleven terran years and entered in the annals of the Imperium as the “Golgothan Slaughter”, and saw “no less than forty-eight worlds and outposts ravaged […] and seven separate dangerous xeno species rendered extinct”, though only minor documental evidence of these conflicts survived to these days.
Most of the informations we currently have focus on what is spoken of as the first and most important battle of the whole campaign: the Siege of Sarum.
Non-16th company specific informations about the siege can be found here [OPEN EXTERNAL DATA]

[OPEN DATA: SIEGE OF SARUM]

Thanatos was as keen as any other legionnaire -and perhaps even more so- to impress his new-found father in battle, and the Merciless was selected as one of the two hundred Battleships to be part of the initial spearhead.
It is said that it was him to propose the idea of hammering the smaller enemy ships in close formation, once the strike force found itself outgunned and outnumbered inside the Brotherhood's fleet, and this proved to be a vital part of the plan deviced to rescue Sarum.
After breaking the line of the enemy fleet the World Eaters were able to enter the planet's orbit and release a great number of gunships and drop pods on its surface, but the 16th was not among them: the Merciless remained in orbit, where their good fame for void warfare would be put to better use.
Some retrieved files from the archives of the 12th Legion state that the 16th Company successfully boarded and captured four smaller ships and a Battlebarge, while destroying an indefinite number of ork Terror ships.
As the battle in space had been won and the Primarch led the final assault on Sarum, the battered Astartes of the Merciless made planetfall and joined the slaughter.


Its wargear repaired and restocked by the Red Priests of Sarum, the 16th Great Company is also reported to have partecipated in Spake Hulk cleansing operations during the extermination of the Ork empires of Blitzklaw and Neverlight and in line-breaker assaults against the xeno Khrave of Serreak-17 and the Craftworld Tuonoetar.
The same report previously quoted in this account states that “nor were human and abhuman worlds spared the Legion's wrath: Susa, Gwydion, Jubal, Badlanding and a dozen more all fell before those Angels of Death[...]” and altough no documental evidence survived of the 16th's involvement in such massacres, it's not hard at all to hypotize it, as there is no other document stating XII Legion activity anywhere else in the galaxy at that time.
The first documental evidence we have about the 16th Great Company after its involvement against the Craftworld Tuonoetar comes in the form of a sworn testimony made by Praetor Tullius Maemnionem of the Ultramarines Legion during Lord Guilliman's denounce of his brother's methods that ensued their collaboration on the rebel planet Arrigata.
General informations about the conflict can be found here [OPEN EXTERNAL DATA].

[OPEN DATA: CLEANSING OF ARRIGATA] 

Towards the end of the Great Crusade, Warmaster Horus Lupercal led a combined force comprising of his own Sons of Horus, the Ultramarines and the World Eaters Legions to take back the technologically advanced planet Arrigata from the separatists who controlled it.
At the start of the conflict the 16th was tasked with conquering an hive city close to the fortified capital, as many other companies were, in order to cut it off from receiving any reinforcement or even basic resources.
The hive city was taken after three days of wholesale slaughter and its population completely exterminated by the uncontrollable Astartes of the 12th Legion, much to the horror of their Ultramarines allies.
This was but an omen of what was going to pass in Arrigata's capital, for the sons of Guilliman yet had to discover that the World Eaters used their dead brothers' corpses as a ramp to breach the city's walls and butchered all of its inhabitants and their political leaders, contrarily to the Warmaster's own orders.
The Merciless, still wet with the blood of a whole hive city, were redeployed and are reported to be present in this final assault. 


The World Eaters' spiral of violence had its apex in the most dreaded Scouring of Ghenna [RECORDS UNAVAILABLE], when the planet was deprived of its whole population in the course of a single night.
As the massacre's bloody legend began to circulate, so did the rumors about widespread use of psycho-surgery within the Legion.
The confession of Hjell Serask, berserker of the warband “Angron's Chosen” that is suspected to originate from the 16th company, should be certainly taken as that of a snake-tongued heretic, but also represents the only direct sources we have about the company's involvement in such practices.
The studies conducted on Serask's body about the cortical implants called “Butcher's nails” can be found here [OPEN EXTERNAL DATA].
The berserker revealed that the Primarch Angron himself had been implanted such devices on [REDACTED], and wanted to pass them on to his sons to boost their battle prowess and ferocity to yet higher levels.
Most of the Legion accepted it: some enthusiastically, others reluctantly, but all willing to be closer to their genetic father.
The Merciless were among the first kind: the Nails quickly saw widespread use within the Company and Centurion Thanatos greatly encouraged their use, being one of the first in the whole Legion to willingly submit himself as a tester for the implancts reproduced by the Apothecarion of the Conqueror.
As soon as the wispers about this practice became openly voiced demands for censure from Imperial authorities -Roboute Guilliman first among them, after witnessing the Legion at work on Arrigata- the Emperor sent Primarch Leman Russ to meet Angron on the very field of Ghenna and make him stop with such a prohibited and foul surgery.
This resulted in the incident known as “The night of the Wolf”.

[OPEN DATA: NIGHT OF THE WOLF]

A rare cronique made by Eyrasemus Reyedhaam in 239.M31 states that “The two Legions met at Malkoya, on the fields beyond the dead Ghennan city of that same name.”, and Primarch Leman Russ informed Angron of the Emperor's decree: the implantation surgeries had to stop as well as the massacres of newly discovered non-compliant human worlds, and the 12th Legion was to be escorted by the Space Wolves on Terra where the Butcher's Nails would be forever removed from the legionnaires' brains.
Angron “refused to recognise his brother's authority, and warned the Wolf King to depart before the situation would become something he would regret […] No one ever saw who fired the first shot”.
The two legions came to battle, yet the clash proved to be both bloody and inconclusive, as “both sides claimed victory […] But Angron did not return to Terra, nor did he stop the implantation of his Astartes”.
I decided to report this event for the sake of completion, but there are no other sources to confirm its existence, except for the claims of some World Eaters themselves.
It should be therefore taken as an inconsistent rumor, or as a legend from the days of old.
Quite interesting, tough, a pic capture taken by a Benheventan rememberancer during the Shadow Crusade [GO TO DATA FOR MORE INFORMATION] clearly shows Sergeant Kull of the Merciless 12th Tactical squad shooting a bolt pistol with Space Wolves iconography on it. 


After that, the Emperor directly called Angron before him for reprimand, forbidding once more the use of the Butcher's Nails and exiling the World Eaters in the northern fringes of the galaxy, where they could slaughter a great number of xeno races aways from the Imperium's core worlds.
Unfortunately, there is no surviving source regarding this period of the Company's history.


*The blood of my brother*
The name of the World Eaters returns in the annals of the Imperium in occasion of the mustering called by Warmaster Horus Lupercal in order to suppress the Isstvan III uprising.
General informations about the rebellion and the infamous Atrocity that followed can be found here [OPEN EXTERNAL DATA]

[OPEN DATA: ISSTVAN III ATROCITY]

Given the enthusiasm shown by the Merciless in receiving their cortical implants, it comes to no surprise that they sided with their Primarch -and therefore Horus- in the events to come.
There is little evidence regarding how those to be sent in the first wave of the Isstvan assault were chosen.
It's accepted as a fact that the warrior lodges tak took hold in other Legions didn't work for the World Eaters, because the 12th's bonds of brotherhood were forged in its Gladiatorial Pits.
It's safe to hypotize, though, that accepting the Nails or not could be a discriminating criteria.
Lacking the words of loyalist survivors or material evidence due to the planet's destruction, I am forced to heavily base this account upon the words of the previously named heretic Hjell Serask.
He says that the Merciless returned from the northern fringes two hundred and fifty men strong and left Isstvan V with less than a hundred Astartes.
How many among those dead were chosen for the first wave on Isstvan III, how many died at their hands or how many were killed on Isstvan V is extremely hard to tell, though Serask insists that at least seventy legionnaires were sent to their death under command of Irex Nornas, one of the company's most appreciated officers.
The Battlebarge Merciless remained in orbit, launching its sons to their death sentence.
As the fighting turned in the Space Marine's favour, the ship cut off every vox-link and retired to allow the bombardment of the planet by the gathered Gloriana battleships of the Legions: exterminatus-class weapons were wasted on the surface of Isstvan III in order to wipe it off of every living form and complete the inter-legionary purge, killing those who had survived the hard assault to the planet.
Six billion souls died in less than a minute, as organic matter collapsed and the air became fire.
As Horus' treachery finally unfolded, some within the fleet tried to run away and bring notice to the unknowing Imperium: a precious few -like Captain Saul Tarvitz or Garro of the Eisenstein- managed to escape, but many others were put down by a sea of daggers waiting at their back.
The Merciless was one of those daggers, boarding ships and destroying thunderhawks with his weapon arrays after repressing a minor internal rebellion led by the Master of Signal Garalth.
Thanks to the messages received by those comrades in orbit, a great number of loyalist Astartes found shelter in sealed bunkers and bastions, surviving the bombardment and forcing their traitor brothers to make planetfall.
Following the first wave of World Eaters from the Conqueror that defied the Warmaster's command and assaulted Isstvan III, the Merciless withdrew from the void combat and swarmed its warriors on the planet's surface where they joined the mayhem in the Choral City plazas.
At this point the remaining members of the Merciless were already battered and bloodied, the Nails singing hard in their heads: they killed with no remorse, once and for all giving up to their berserker madness and bathing in the blood of their brothers of the 12th Legion.
The bulk of the company went on assaulting a network of Death Guard defended bunkers in the attrition war that followed, while many among them became little more than rabid beasts hungry for slaughter and dispersed in the chaos of the northern city.
Only later could the company's officers reunite those mindless killers, with the worst among them reorganised in the brutal units called “Red Butchers” that were soon to be unleashed upon their foes on Isstvan V.



*Void hunter*
It would later be clear that many of the experimental implancts received by the Merciless were particularly strong, and degenerated faster than those of their brothers.
After the Betrayal many of them had already reached the point of no return, though a pirric majority still retained some kind of control over the Nails.
Those members who returned from the ruined surface of Isstvan III were quickly reorganised and resupplied on board of the Merciless as the Warmaster prepared the next stage of his plan, which would come to be known as the Isstvan V Dropsite Massacre.
General informations regarding the battle can be found here [OPEN EXTERNAL DATA].

[OPEN DATA: ISSTVAN V DROPSITE MASSACRE]

The Merciless was part of the fleet that ambushed the Imperial vessels after the loyalist force was deployed on Isstvan V.
Retrieved registrations from the wrecks of two different Raven Guard cruisers that crushed on the planet's surface show Thanatos single-handedly killing the opposing Astartes Commander, leaving the ship's defenders in chaos and methodically slaughtering every living-being on board.
Capturing the enemy ship does not even seem to be considered as an option, though video trasmissions from a failed boarding attempt on the Merciless in M37 showed a pair of ragged Raven Guard vexillas exposed in the ship's command bridge.
There is no sign of involvement on the surface's events until the end of the infamous battle that was taking place while they fought in the void.
When the 16th company landed on Isstvan V, they found their brothers and allies massing around the great iron tower built for Horus in the Urgall Depression.
They rejoined the survivors of their Legion as the Warmaster celebrated his unholy triumph and promised them a swift victory over the Emperor, a goal that would proved far harder to obtain than Horus had figured.
After that night the bulk of the traitor force left the Isstvan system, heading for new destinations such as Paramar, Phall and Thramas, but the 12th Legion indulged his bloodlust and remained on the surface for ninety-eight days more, stalking the black desert as feral predators needing to feed on loyalist survivors.
The Merciless particularly focused on the hunt for a well organized group of Raven Guard legionnaires led by a terran born Praetor named Huginn.
Those desperate Astartes exacted an heavy toll on their pursuers and survived for more than two weeks, but were ultimately tracked down while retiring from a supply raid and crushed under the 16th's overwhelming force of blood thirsty berserkers, their skulls taken as trophies or used to create an enormous cairn in the place of their final stand. 


*The Five Hundred Worlds Burn*
After the ninety eight days of Isstvan V, the World Eaters were sent in the Segmentum Ultima along with the Word Bearers to begin the bloody campaign which would come to be known as The Shadow Crusade [OPEN EXTERNAL DATA], meant to shed enough blood and despair to tear the veils of reality and unleash a violent warpstorm capable of isolating the realm of Ultramar from the rest of the Imperium. In the opening stages of the conflict the Merciless were sent right outside the borders of the Five Hundred Worlds, in the Australis Ultima Sector, and tasked to unleash as much devastation as possible to cause a minor storm which would cut off that border of the Ultramarine Empire from every possible link with Australis. It is safe to assume that the ranks of the Merciless had been refilled before the beginning of the attack, as their numbers after the Isstvan Campaign would have never been enough to sustain the amount of losses required in the invasion of a System.

[OPEN DATA: ASSAULT ON MARDRION]

The first prey of the World Eaters was Mardrion, an Imperial Hive World and the outest planet of the Prosperine System. The Merciless started with the bombardment of Alpha-51, the PDF's main complex, believing to directly destroy most the planet's military defences and be therefore able to swiftly slaughter the remaining population. When they made planetfall, though, they discovered that a Raven Guard company survived from Isstvan V and preceeded their arrival on Madrion, willing to bring word of Horus' betrayal, receive fresh supplies and now protect the Emperor's domains. Despite this, their resistence proved enough to bleed the World Eaters, but not to stop them. The Merciless quickly overrun Mardrion's capital and Alpha-51, and Centurion Thanatos proved once again his combat prowess by single handedly slaying Praetor Rahalderic Vosan and his Honor Guard in the ruins of the military complex. The Raven Guards were left no other choice than to withdraw from the planet with those few Imperial citiziens they could evacuate, while the World Eaters turned the roads of the hive cities into rivers of blood.


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## Khorne's_Chosen (Mar 29, 2009)

*Centurion Tiberius Thanatos, Commander of the Merciless*









First born son of a Terran tech-barbarian warlord, Tiberius Thanatos was taken as a tribute and recruited in the Emperor's 12th Legion after his father was cast into submission at the end of the Unification Wars.
He swiftfully emerged from the ranks, being the exact kind of officer the twelfth needed at the time: a brutal, cunning but noble leader driven by his own pragmatic honor code, as he had been raised up to be when he was meant to inherit the mantle of command in his tribe.
When the 16th Company's Centurion died in the Siege of Hierotzelem, Tiberius won command over the Merciless by defeating every other pretendant in the ritual fights that followed: not yet satisfied, he also challenged those of the other two companies attached to the 32nd expedition along with the 16th, who had also lost their respective Centurions during the Siege.
Bending or killing every opponent, he found himself alone to command a battleship and -at full strenght- three hundred Astartes, a position that would later be confirmed with a laughter of approval by the Primarch Angron.
In the following years he proved himself a skilled void commander and a warm brother for all of the 12th Legion, respected for his insight and martial sense of humor as well as for his physical resilience and hand-to hand skills, but he was never animated by the same fervour some of his brothers had towards the Emperor of Mankind.
To Tiberius he was a distant, brutal tyrant who destroyed the life he was meant to live and whom he was forced to serve by lack of choices.
This is why when Angron came to the Legion with his tragic story and his bloody warrior code he was seen by Thanatos as a similar soul to him, and easily won his loyalty over that for the Emperor. In Angron, Thanatos found a true leader to follow, someone he would gladly fight for, and who would also later give him the opportunity to stand against the Emperor he so clearly hated.
Such was Tiberius' devotion to his genesire that he was among the first to volunteer as a test for the cortical implants soon to become widespread within the Legion, and it comes to no surprise that he followed him in the events of the Horus Heresy.
Unfortunately his Nails were a particularly strong device and degenerated sooner than expected: after the battle for Isstvan V they had already eroded much of the man he was, allowing him only glimpses of the leader his men were used to and turning him into a colder, killing addicted monster who gladly broke his former self on the same anvil that twisted his father, and would do so again even knowingly.


*Contemptor Dreadnought Ancient Daegron*









An original Warhound from Terra who fought since the foundation of the Legion, he reported critical wounds after Hierotzelem's self destruction and was interred in one of the recently issued Contemptor Pattern Dreadnoughts.
At first he was a well esteemed veteran among the 16th, and even Thanatos often sought his wisdom, but when Angron's hand reshaped the Legion, not being able to receive the Nails isolated him from the once respectful Merciless.
He was left alone, with High Codicer Verjell and the other outcasts from the Librarium, to remember the times of the Old Legion and see the new one fall into corruption before his eyes.
By the time of Isstvan III the Contemptor's machine spirit had put its capricious roots deep into the warrior's consciousness, who was now awaken by his forgetful brothers only when war called as a weapon to be used and then restrained without remorse.


*Primus Medicae Kallax “Night Lord”*









Recruited from a death world during the Golgothan Slaughter, Kallax had pale skin and ice-blue eyes that made him stand out from the rest of his Legion.
Proving himself a quick learner, he was chosen to be part of the Conqueror's Apothecarion and suitably trained by the masters of the 12th.
The match between his world's man-hunting culture and anathomical studies soon gave birth to a cynical and sadist individual with a passion for psycological tortures and those mouse-and-cat situations which he would come to live quite often given the 16th company's -where he was detached at the end of his training- specialization for Zone Mortalis and Boarding actions, and this would prove to him a Nails-feeding method far more satisfying than crude slaughter.
Kallax became Primus Medicae of the Merciless when his predecessor Regran was slain during the Cleansing of Arrigata, being by far the strongest member of the Apothecarion left alive.
He started getting called “Night Lord” after the ninety-eight days of Isstvan V, where after the chase for any loyalist survivor a VIII Legion Praetor had his suit improved with fearful embellishments and silenced serfs for stalking operations in memory of the “great time they had together”.
Kallax is nevertheless a trusted lieutenant to Thanatos, who greatly esteems his feral cunning and discipline-enforcing methods.


*Sergeant “Bad Luck” Kull *









A Bodt born Astartes who entered service during the Ghenna Scouring, Kull is a cynical officer who has since earned many honours. 
He is famous in the company for wielding a bolt pistol with Space Wolves iconography earned in the Night of the Wolf, despite the Legion's belief of inherited weapons bringing bad luck. 
“Only the weak needs luck” he always says, and has so earned the nickname “Bad Luck” Kull. 
During the assault on Mardrion, a Raven Guard terminator punched his head with a powerfist: an ironic fate wanted Kull lucky enough to survive by some dark miracle, though half of his skull and even part of his brain needed mechanical replacement.


*Sergeant Lennar *









Lennar is a Terran Veteran of renown among the ranks of the Merciless who led the the 4th Tactical Squad through most of the Great Crusade. 
Some reports state that he lost his mind on Isstvan III and started drinking his loyalist brothers' blood. 
He led a task force in the vaults of the Alpha-51 training complex on Mardrion, retrieving a relic phase-walker device that was stored as a trophy in the armory of the Merciless.


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## CLT40k (Jun 18, 2010)

it might just be the lighting, but I think you need to dull down some of the bright colors and maybe a wash to bring out more contrast... so that the last two pics are match the first one better.


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## Iraqiel (May 21, 2008)

Mate that fluff is awesome, you've really put a lot in and the style is top notch. Picture wise, it will be great to see more, but I think you either need to concentrate your photo taking during the day (I'm bad at this), get a photo box and/or change the lighting arrangement.

The first model, Tiberius Thanatos, looks great. The white looks grubby and weathered, the blue matches and the metal looks dinted and battered to fit the part. Also I like the mixing of a Latin name meaning 'born by the Tiber' and greek 'death', it's a pretty evocative character name for a Terran pre-heresy marine doomed to turn traitor (world eater no less).


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## Mossy Toes (Jun 8, 2009)

I genuinely admire the degree to which you have committed to creating your own fluff for this warband--not only tying in primary heresy events, but also lesser-known fluff occurrences and also events of your own invention to the degree that I (who pride myself on a fairly comprehensive knowledge of the background of various Heresy events named in the past decade and a half) really am at a loss as for what is GW-created and what is you-created--and I recognize the relative lack of importance of such a distinction.

Which is to say, simply: well done. I will do my best to watch what you post further: you have certainly captured my interest...


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## Matcap (Aug 23, 2012)

Nice and brutal marines! You have also inspired me to put some more effort into my models. I spend weeks on models but then they have no identity after that.. This stuff is awesome and will help tie games and army together.


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## Khorne's_Chosen (Mar 29, 2009)

@CLT40k: I often mess things up when I take pictures. It's more of a light thing than painting, as the style is always the same... the thing is, I'm the worst photographer ever. And I can't give coherency to any picture series I take. But I'll try my better next time, I promie 
@Iraqiel: Thank you for the pic-taking advice. I'll try to put it to use!
Also, I'm deeply glad you like Thanatos! I put a lot of effort on him, both fluff wise and painting wise.
@Mossy Toes: I think I'll print your comment and stick it on the army's display. I feel honored to see my fluff regarded this way, good sir!
@Matcap: Thank you! And also glad to be of help. Will look forward for your work!


I updated the first post with an additional bit of fluff about what the Merciless are doing during the Shadow Crusade and added pictures and biography for sergeants Kull and Lennar in the second post. 

Also, here are my recently finished Red Butchers:





































Hope you like them!


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## Iraqiel (May 21, 2008)

Looking gore covered and mid-murder.

Perfect!


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## Roganzar (Feb 16, 2014)

All the blood!!!!!
Normally I'd say that is too much, but these are World Eaters and I'd be completely wrong then.
Keep up the good work.


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## Khorne's_Chosen (Mar 29, 2009)

/ACCESSING ARCHIVES/
/SEARCH CATEGORIES: XII LEGION/XVI GREAT COMPANY /
/ALL RECORDS SEALED/EXCOMMUNICATE TRAITORIS/INSERT IDENTIFICATION CODE/
/PROCESSING/
/IDENTIFICATION CODE ACCEPTED/LORD INQUISITOR VAN HEKT/
/ACCESS GRANTED/
/SEARCH CATEGORIES: XVI GREAT COMPANY/PIC-CAPTURES/ANTROTH_CAMPAIGN/
/PROCESSING/
/SEARCH RESULTS/

*Arkadios, Apothecary*









*Abyron, Apothecary*









*Tactical Squad Kull - Unidentified Legionnaires*









*Sergeant Rhaskos "Heabutter"*









* Tactical Squad Rhaskos - Unidentified Veteran Legionnaire*









*World Eaters Legion Storm Eagle - Pic Capture taken during the fall of Virtus Prime*


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## Khorne's_Chosen (Mar 29, 2009)

/SEARCH CATEGORIES: XVI GREAT COMPANY/REMEMBRANCER_RENDITION/
/PROCESSING/
/SEARCH RESULTS/

*Captain Tiberius Thanatos by Dorhen Guri - Late Great Crusade*










*Val Kheren, Senechal of the the World Eaters 16th Company by Bartholemew Ish - Late Great Crusade*











Thank you all for the replies: I'm really happy when I read that someone likes my World Eaters.
This time, I am particularly proud of these drawings made by my girlfriend.
They could even turn into a medium-lenght comic involving my dudes!
What do you think? 
(I also added a lot of new painted models pictures in the previous page!)


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## neferhet (Oct 24, 2012)

Nice army! great splatter effect!
Also very deep fluff, i love this kind of stuff...


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## Iraqiel (May 21, 2008)

Looking great so far mate... the Storm Eagle photo is excellent and the flyer looks very nice indeed. 

Good work getting your girlfriend involved too, awesome to see!


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