 Ever a Legion to favour precision? The 10th Legion, Iron Hands, were a reflection of their Primarch Ferris Manus' exacting standards and calculating mind. Upon the surface, they appeared as a highly organised and stratified force, but it should be noted that they did not comport themselves with the dogmatic devotion to codified strictures that typified the 13th Legion Ultramarines, nor did they mirror the fine gradations in Manusia that were apparent in the hierarchy of their closest Astartes brothers, the 3rd Legion Emperor's Children. The best analogy that can be made is that the Gorgon built his Legion as a master clockmaker would construct a mechanical chronometer. Through organised compartmentalisation, the Iron Tenth were deliberately composed of highly specialised units, each with their own specific role and chain of command, serving as cogs in a wider machine that was the Legion. At a functional level, this meant that all line infantry elements, support weapon cadres, armour squadrons, and such, came together on a company level, and combined with the other companies under the umbrella formation of logistical support, munition and equipment supply, starship transport, and command staff, known as an order. Superficially equivalent to a battalion style formation, the orders of the 10th Legion were distinct in the sheer level of independence their structure allowed them, with each being able to supply and outfit itself and operate alone for extended periods of time. While orders of the 10th Legion could, and often did, operate independently throughout the Great Crusade, they themselves were often specialised in one aspect of Legion doctrine or other, and indeed were part of the larger organisational structure of the clan. Within the clan, orders were arrayed so that by their combination with their fellows, they produced tactical and strategic capabilities greater than the sum of their parts. In a battle or campaign, each would bear specific orders and tasks best suited to their temperament, and through the achievement of these objectives, victory would be advanced. A clan, through its orders, was in effect a whole Legion in miniature, as they were both patterned upon the tribal structure of Medusin society, and irrecoverably linked to their namesake tribe upon that icy world, from where they would draw their new recruits. Clans had highly distinct cultures and identities, and often vied with each other for glory or renown, especially when deployed alongside clans with whom they shared a distinct rivalry. In battle, the Legion fielded more armoured vehicles than any other, with only the 4th Legion iron warriors coming close to matching their armour pool. This ranged, from large numbers of Rhino armoured personnel carriers, enough that all clans could take to the field as a fully mechanised force if necessary, to Spartan and land raider heavy assault tanks, through fast-moving Sikaran support armour, all the way to the heaviest land vehicles the Legion as a startes could claim access to, glaives, fell blades, Cerberus destroyers, and mastodons. Squadrons of such vehicles were larger than many other legions could ever field, with units of predators and land raiders consisting of 40 vehicles, with only a few subdivisions of command. Superheavies were even operated in such a fashion, with the mighty fell blade grouped into units of five where other legions may only be able to field a single such tank. These formations were known to have been able to best any foe short of a warlord titan or similar engine class war machine. The 10th Legion maintained for every clan a large reserve of vehicles, not serving in direct combat, usually composed of armour commonly seen in the Imperial auxilia, like Malkador battle tanks, or those that had been rendered obsolete by advancements in technology or standard template construct data recovery. On several occasions, notably the Istvan atrocity, the possession of a significant armour reserve served to mitigate battlefield losses when the clan in question had dire need of more vehicles it could claim immediate access to. Thanks to long-standing ties with the Mechanicum of Mars and the stock the Legion placed on technological aptitude and knowledge, the Iron 10th fielded a much higher than average range of specialized, rare, and resource intensive weaponry and equipment, as evidenced in their heavy use of conversion beamer, grav, volkite, and laser destroyer support systems, all of which were widely known to be difficult to both maintain and produce. They were heavily involved with the development of the most advanced endometous pattern terminator armour and stormbreaker pattern thunder hammer, all of which were become widely disseminated throughout the other legions towards the end of the great crusade, but they were also jealous garters of other technological secrets, as evident in the vast array of cybernetic enhancements common amongst iron hand legionaries, but seen nowhere else outside of the closed ranks of the Mechanicum. One such example was apparent in the Legion's Gorgon terminator squads. Named for their Primark's unofficial cognomin, these were an attempt by the Iron Hands to better modify the endometous suits to fulfill battlefield roles the Legion demanded of them. Heavily modified with cybernetic enhancements, only elite veterans of the Legion were permitted to attempt the extraordinarily painful bonding procedure that the use of this armour required, although with the Iron Tenth such volunteers were in no short supply. The close friendship with the various tagmata of the machine god saw the Tenth regularly take to the field supported by elements from the legio cybernetica or the Ordo Reductor, putting value in the destructive capability of the latter and preferring the former's automata to the mortal soldiers of the Imperial Army, who the Tenth Legion increasingly viewed with more and more distaste as a crusade progressed, perceived as they were for weaknesses and lack of discipline. The level of integration the Iron Hands possessed at every level of their structure was extraordinary, but markedly inflexible. The Legion was a hammer, whether deployed as an order or as a dozen clans, simple, straightforward and brutally efficient, but when committed was single-minded in the pursuit of their objectives and slow to adapt to changing circumstances. This was, however, exactly how the Primark envisaged his Legion, seeing, for example, the tactical flexibility of the Thirteenth Legion Ultramarines as a condition that prevented them from excelling in any one aspect of war-making. In keeping with this, authority on the battlefield was invested to the few, not the many, and the individualist authorities was expected to follow any and all orders he received from those higher in the chain of command to him. While this was a hindrance to inspired adaptability, it also served as a means through which responsibility for failure could be rapidly identified and purged. No weaknesses could escape the gaze of the Gorgon, for any hint of it would raise his dreadful rage. This extended all the way down the ranks, with an Iron Hand granted the absolute power of life and death over all under their command, up to and including Summary Execution without hearing or recourse. So flowed responsibility from the metal hands of the Primark to his clan's chieftains, to their iron captains of the orders, or to the shield centurions of the individual companies. The Primark himself was often accompanied by an honor guard of Morlocks, elite astartes taken from the first order of the Avernii clan that served their lord as both battlefield retinue and close advisors, despite Ferris Manus rarely calling for the services of the latter. Both their battlefield temperate and essential feudal command structure created in the Tenth Legion an incredibly disciplined fighting force, motivated by a pathological hatred of failure and weakness. The nature of the Primark's beliefs engendered an environment where the best and most competent rose to the ranks by both merit and force of will incredibly quickly, as they had to contend with none of the politics that came with command in legions such as the Third Legion, Emperor's Children, or the Seventeenth Legion, Word-bearers. The latent fury inherent in those who bore the Gorgon's gene seed was channeled by the Legion's discipline to create soldiers who constantly strove to excel and better themselves. This, in combination with the tightly-knit bonds shared between warriors of a clan additionally created, an atmosphere of intense competition within the Legion itself, and with it, not inconsiderable friction. To the most successful clans would be given the better equipment, Word-bear, and logistical support, and not as a mark of the Gorgon's favoritism, but rather his arithmetic. Those best able to complete their duties would get the best equipment with which to do so. Ferris Manus' statement to his Legion was writ large upon this practice. The strong succeed, leaving the weak to wither and fail. It has been theorized by some, but never within the Legion's earshot, that the tense unshakable belief in this credo and its literal embodiment in Ferris Manus contributed to their incredible crisis of identity and horrific psychological trauma in the aftermath of the drop-site massacre on Istvan 5. At the time of that loathed event, the 10th Legion was estimated by records to have had a functioning numerical strength of 113,000 to start his placing them in the middle tier of legions in the strictest terms of war disposition. However, given their incredible operational reserve of armoured vehicles, support weaponry, dreadnoughts, and their void fleet of well over 100 capital ships, their actual strength as a military power was in practice far greater than their mere numbers suggested. Around two-thirds of this strength, including the majority of the Legion's most powerful and experienced clans, was gathered under Ferris Manus' direct command to form the 52nd Expeditionary Fleet when news came from Terra of the betrayal of Horus Lupercal. The Gorgon, whose closest brother Fulgrim stood side by side with the treacherous warmaster, flew into the greatest rage in if his astartes had ever seen him embody and made full speed to the Istvan system at the van of the gathered retribution fleet. Alas, what would transpire in that most hated of systems are events too great and terrible for this simple record and can be accessed upon completion of further studies. Know, though, that the tenth would forever be changed by what was to occur, and let their broken and scarred history hereafter stand as grim testament to the horrific power of unchecked hate. Until the access of the next record. Ave Imperator, Gloria in Excelsis Terra. Or check us out on Discord, a link will be in the description and on the channel page.