 Subsequent to its foundation, during the closing days of the Unification Wars, the 17th Legion of Stardes deviated little from the standards of organization displayed by its fellow legions, undergoing little to no restructuring from when they as the Imperial heralds departed Terra to when they as the word-bearers took to the bloody sands of Istvan V. Squads of the Stardes formed companies, companies formed chapters, chapters formed the Legion. What they did differ was in the size of squad level formations. Whereas most legions would cleave to ten or so preferred as an acceptable amount of warriors per squad, the word-bearers habitually fielded tactical marines in units of twenty, a habit born of both the size of their legion, as well as the preferred tactical character of foot advances in high numbers. Companies usually consisted of five or more of these squads, operating together depending on their overall role. The 17th bore a tendency to group warriors with combat specialities into distinct companies within the chapter structure, to be designated line companies, assault companies, support reconnaissance, heavy weaponry, so on. These companies were then deployed en masse, as was a predilection of the Legion to use its warriors in sledgehammer type actions with as many Astardes as could possibly be fielded. By far the least marshal of all of his brothers, Lorgar Aurelion made no military reforms upon being presented with his Legion. As he was want to do, he applied spiritual ones instead. Chapters consisted of five hundred to three thousand Astardes in total, bearing names now redolent of Colchisian significances, fashioned as they were after the constellations charted by the ancients of that desert world the Primarch had fallen unto. Crescent moon, the Osseous Throne, the serrated sun, and the twisting rune were but a few that numbered amongst them. All word-bearer expeditionary fleets consisted of at least one full chapter, with the larger ones comprising several of such formations. Each had their own important iconography, symbology and traditions, according to their spiritual role in Lorgar's grand theological design. It should be additionally noted that the numbering of the companies that comprised each chapter was, likely due to the significance the Primarch placed on numerology, completely non-linear. The serrated sun chapter included, for example, the seventh, fifteenth, and thirty-seventh companies of the Legion. Similar to how the seventeenth structured its companies, certain chapters were known for their specialities. The chapter of the Broken Scythe, for instance, consisted of armoured artillery vehicles and siege tanks, supported by flamethrower-equipped Astardes in Rhino armoured carriers. The Broken Scythe were city levelers, to be used when nothing but the annihilation of a metropolis would do, all the way down to scorching the very rubble itself to clear away any trace of the civilisation that had once existed there. The chapter of the Osseous Throne was known for employing massive ground infantry assaults, whereas the chapter of the Trifold Crown favoured attritional warfare. Chapter of the Star of Judgment, finally, used as many rad chem and phosphax munitions and weaponry as could be placed at their disposal. This religious flair is perhaps understandably common throughout how the Legion operated. War for them was at no point in their history simply about the battle. Instead, it was about the purity of purpose the warrior brought to it, and the totality with which the enemy must be broken, not just physically, but culturally, ideologically. War for them was deeply important to the Legion from its inception, and became only more so when reunited with Lorgar. The 17th would often strike at religious buildings or sites of spiritual importance in their first attack waves, seeking to annihilate anything of potentially religious significance as quickly and thoroughly as possible. Aside from the inherent damage to morale this would hopefully have on a particularly pious foe, it was a statement that would come should surrender and prostration not be rendered swiftly, and indeed a source of pride for the Legion itself in fulfilling their own purpose. This continued from the iconoclastic imperial herald days to the more spiritually tampered word-bearer days, just for entirely different reasons. The Legion even possessed a specialized formation within itself for the destruction of librarians and archives. The Ashen Circle. Selected from the most elite troops of the Legion, the Ashen Circle were equipped with jump packs and wrist portable flamer units, intended to descend upon the enemy from above and burn all they believed in to cinders. The Circle belonged to no chapter, in effect being a brotherhood apart from the Legion. Many a word-bearer was elevated to their ranks before passing through them to become a fully fledged chaplain. Legion armoured forces were not numerous, and those that existed were intended to operate in close tactical coherence with infantry formations, where the word-bearers focused the vast majority of their strength. Most armoured vehicles within the Legion were additionally transports, such as land raider or Spartan heavy battle tanks, intended to serve in spearhead assaults to deliver massed infantry units, especially the word-bearer's numerous cataphractii terminator squads, into the heaviest of the fighting. Bulkier classes of armour, such as the Falchion or Glaive super-heavy tanks, were employed in barrage operations to soften an enemy position before the advance of a start is on foot, or in infrastructural reduction operations. The chapter of the Grieve and Star was one notable word-bearer formation to employ heavy armour in larger quantities, and did so with a marked aggressiveness and ruthless efficiency. The 17th made large use of unaugmented Imperial Auxilia units throughout their history, beginning the practice during the Unification Wars by selecting hand-picked regiments from conquered populations that displayed the most unshakable loyalty to the Imperial Truth. This curious practice of recruiting the zealots of the galaxy continued into future, let's say, ideological phases. The legions' conversion to the veneration of the Emperor Divine, and then to the worship of the Dark Powers of the Warp. Bonded militia regiments underwent similar changes alongside their Astartes masters. With the professional regiments of the legions' early years as the Imperial Heralds, replaced with auxiliaries that can best be described as little more than religious fanatics. In many cases, where their existence was even noted by other legions, their unruliness and ill discipline would draw snide or disgusted comment. As to own the truth, these formations were little better than mobs, herded into battle by the 17th Legion, as for what all the world appeared as cannon fodder. And later would explicitly be such. The wordbearers favored their employment in order to gain a simple numerical advantage and to apply overwhelming force where possible. Given the legions' skills with population conversion, their auxiliaries were in anything but short supply. Fresh waves of zealots could be crammed into the holds of starships before turning them upon the teeth of enemy guns quite readily. And structure within the Legion was similar to their overall structure, close to that of the Legion as Astartes' standard. Chapter masters commanded the chapter, companies had their captains. It was common, however, for a chapter master to designate a particularly competent or favored captain as a sub-commander to serve him as a lieutenant. Lorgar's institution of the Office of the Chaplains, however, created a second and separate hierarchy within the wordbearers. Though each was a fearsome warrior in his own right, none were to concern themselves with command, instead ministering to the spiritual needs of their brethren. On the battlefield there were often focal points of morale and fortitude, while off it they tended to the purity of ideology amongst both squads and individual Astartes. Of course theoretical separation from the Legion command structure was only ever theoretical. The political power they held within the Legion blurred the chain of command immensely. No line captain would ever contravene the instructions of a veteran chaplain, for instance, despite them being of nominally equal rank. Given that the Legion placed a primacy on clarity of purpose during war, chaplains would often steer the purpose of a campaign, and have their will enacted by the captains and chapter masters should they see fit to intervene. The chaplain could appeal to his essential superior in requesting, for example, a certain target city become the primary focus of an offensive, purely for the ideological and symbolic reasons it may possess rather than any actual tactical significance. This was reflected in those closest to Lorgar as well. Never the warrior, the Primarch did not surround himself with a specialized military formation akin to, for example, the Salamander's Pire Guard or the Death Guard's Death Shroud. Instead he kept a close and unstructured cadre of advisors formed from a mix of military commanders and chaplains, including most notably First Chaplain Erebus and his adopted Colchessian father Cor Phaeron, not a true astartis himself on account of his age, but a recipient of heavy biological and cybernetic augmentations. To further illustrate the duality of the Legion's hierarchy, it should be noted that, despite occupying no place in the chain of command, Erebus individually held more power than any other sole word-bearer in the 17th, save for First Captain Cor Phaeron. Erebus wielded this power heavily, often and frequently for personal gain. One unique formation within the Legion was not to make itself known until the dread events of the Dropside Massacre on Istvan V, the Blessed Sons, rendered in the tongue of Colchess as the Galvorback. Over time this name would extend to all word-bearers who came to bear their so-called blessing, but during the early days of the Horus Teresy the Galvorback were truly apart from the lesser breed of abomination that would laterally bear the title. These astartis were the true First Sons of the Primarch and Warp Creatures, the first space marines to become fused in body and soul with one of the never-born, the lesser emanations of the Dark Pantheon. They were the first demonically possessed astartis. Based on survivor testimony, submitted to 17th Legion record, these first were unwitting victims of bodily demonic incursions, survivors of a doomed word-bearer expedition into the Eye of Terror itself decades prior to the outbreak of the heresy. They who returned were twin-sold, bearing within them a lesser emanation, although outwardly capable of maintaining the visage of an uncorrupted astartis. In battle they shucked this veil, transforming bodily into the monsters that dwelt within. The power of the warp, suffusing their astartis' genhancements, melded with the armor and weapons that they pour, turning the Galvorback into hulking monstrosities of melded battle-plate bone and flesh. Powered by the eldritch abomination communing within them, the blessed sons were whirlwinds of demonic destruction when unleashed, sundering armor and bodies with pathetic ease. Curiously, it is noted that while later generations of demonically possessed astartis were to become far more common across not only the word-bearers, but other traitor-legions, none would ever come to rival the degree of lethality and raw power that the Galvorback possessed. Later generations could have enslaved lesser stock of never-born, or simply being regarded by their patrons, those unholy greater intelligences, as unworthy successors to the mantle the blessed sons bore. As the flames of the heresy broke out, the word-bearers were stated in official records to be 140,000 astartis strong. This is, in hideous retrospect, a complete fabrication. Always one of the largest legions, thanks to a stable and readily adaptable gene seed, the seventeenth had in the years building up to the heresy embarked on a clandestine recruitment drive to rapidly swell their numbers, unbeknownst to any, say, perhaps the warmaster and his most trusted advisers. This was achieved through rapid organ implantation and psychoconditioning techniques pioneered by the fourth legion iron warriors Primarch Pertorabo, in tandem with mass recruitment from their converted worlds. The rest was simply a numbers game, of how many recruits could accept astartis uplifting in how short a time. It is almost certain that their numbers broke the 200,000 mark, and likely even approached the 250,000 mark held by the 13th legion ultramarines before the catatlysmic events at Calth. Certainly, given their widespread presence in the opening years of the heresy, and the level of casualties sustained with seemingly no drop in operational effectiveness, the evidence suggests that few other legions could even have ever approached them in size. Additionally, the presence of the abyss-class battleships in crucial void engagements during this period indicates Lorgar took steps to expand his legion's fleet strength, likely to provide a traitorous answer to the ascendancy of the seventh legion imperial fists navy. It should similarly be noted that the wordbearers took great steps to convert a stunning amount of imperial auxilia regiments to their cause, as well as vastly swelling the amount of almost barbarian level warbands they had at their disposal. Many worlds the legion took during the shadow crusade were ravaged not by astartis, but by extraordinary numbers of howling fanatics herded forward by sadistic and sinister chanting. The true amount of these mortal auxiliaries can only be guessed at, but their number is doubtlessly in the tens, if not hundreds, of millions. What this later clandestine expansion illustrates, if such needs to even be done, is that Lorgar and the wordbearers had embarked upon the path of treachery, knowing full well the apocalyptic conflict they were about to bring upon the galaxy. All of their actions between the humbling of the legion at Nusiriya and the atrocity at Istvan V speak to a legion long in preparation for a sharp escalation in a conflict. The terrible fruits of this would become all too apparent in the Istvan system, and at Kalth, but the latter especially showing the full degree to which the legion had fallen into darkest damnation. Despite those actions, and the more hideous changes wrought upon the seventeenth legion however remain for a later record. My mind frays at the task of recording such inherently foul knowledge, and must rest awhile. 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