Blackshield



This article concerns the Blackshields of the Age of Darkness era; for Black Shields of the xenos-hunting Deathwatch, see Deathwatch Black Shield.

"I shall not be by him imprinted, nor by his sin disfigured."

- Inscription acid-etched into the armour of unnamed "Blackshield" Legionary

The term "Blackshield" came to be used during the period of the Horus Heresy known as the Age of Darkness in the early 31st Millennium to cover a wide range of Space Marine outcasts, marauders and those Legiones Astartes of uncertain allegiances or origin. Mystery and suspicion attached themselves to such warriors regardless of their true loyalties or intentions, and while some did deliberately scour their old heraldry from their armour or replace it with some false device or heraldry of their own, their name of Blackshield was often a literal description for armour over-masked or simply scorched black.

Though never existing in numbers so great as the Legions from which they had no doubt sprang -- far from it -- each faction and band, from the dozen survivors of a deadly betrayal by their own kind who cast aside the past, to the cohort of rapidly indoctrinated initiates thrust into battle for a cause they barely understood in Power Armour empty of livery, had their own place in the tapestry of galaxy-wide destruction that was the Horus Heresy.

The Sundered and the Black
"If they come, I shall stand. If they fight me I will not yield. Even should they slay me, I swear that even should ti contravene all that is worthy and all that is true, I shall return from whatever pit constrains me and I shall fight them anew, until every one of them I drag into that pit with me."

- Unidentified Blackshield Legionary, the Siege of Portresh

Almost from the outset, the war of the Horus Heresy was a vast cataclysm and one whose events moved with such quicksilver pace that mystery, supposition, lies and simple ignorance cloaked much of the bloodshed even as it occurred, casting a veil over much that would never be lifted. Though the roll call of Space Marine Legions, Titan Legio, Auxilia regiments and Mechanicum Taghmata that sided with the Arch-Traitor and those who remained loyal is largely known and accepted, the full truth is far more complex and far more mysterious than commonly believed. Of those who fell at Istvaan V during the Dropsite Massacre, there were survivors, remnants and fleeing fragments shorn of command and driven half mad by treachery; from that point onwards they were isolated, alone. These were the shattered Legions and, while some swiftly returned to the Imperial fold, some did not or would not. Some would go on to wage a bitter war of vengeance alone, some would simply disappear, their fates unknown, their stories untold. But there were others of a darker hue.

Despite the paucity of records, accounts of small war bands that were once part of the known Traitor Legions fighting independently persisted throughout the war. In some cases, outcasts forces proudly bore their original colours and may have regarded themselves as the true inheritors of their Legions. Thus can perhaps be explained, at least in part, persistent stories and evidence long since suppressed of midnight clad warriors in defaced Night Lords heraldry savagely attacking Traitor forces at the liberation of Estaban III, or of recurring reports of multiple Space Marine strike forces seemingly in the resurrected livery of the Dusk Raiders thwarting the Iron Warriors at Kibron and Malinche's Fall. Another examples would be the 34th Millennial of the Emperor's Children (the "Death Eagles") bore the purple and gold of their parent Legion with pride, refusing to abandon their heraldry. It is thought that the Death Eagles Millennial clashed with their Traitor kin at Lethe and at Revorthe Keep in the Coronid Deeps, but their ultimate fate, like that of so many others, remains unknown. Likewise also should be considered the long-denied evidence of a Great Company of the Space Wolves Legion bearing the symbol of the Serpent's Eye slaughtering millions at Neo Cadiz in 008.M31, or of a company of Legiones Astartes present at the Siege of Mezoa bearing the hybrid arms and panoply of the Iron Hands and Sons of Horus Legions both. These were merely a handful of still infamous cases, but here are many more unsubstantiated or simply now forgotten which paint a more complex and uncertain picture of this great civil war than is normally accounted.

Further to this, and perhaps an even more sinister enigma, are the persistent reports of Space Marine forces appearing bearing no sign or seal of heraldry or origin at all, or stranger yet, heraldry which bears no mark known during the Great Crusade. A handful of extant accounts, now sealed beyond all retrieval, make reference to a loosely-termed and non-formal class of warrior known as the "Blackshields". The majority of Blackshields appear to have been of the Legiones Astartes, though some may once have belonged to other factions. In some cases the term was a literal description, the warriors having obscured the livery of their parent Legion, painting some or all of their armour's panels black to hide all former associations. Although whether the "black" Legionaries were merely turncoats or, as some have whispered, perhaps raised by the Traitors from the chimeric gene-seed of the Istvaan dead for their own terrible purposes, none can now say for certain.

Ancient Traditions
"I should rather fall in honour and glory than live in dishonour and treachery, but in truth that decision is not mine to make. Rather, it has been made for me, by one I once held above all others and whose name shall never pass my lips again."

- Unidentified Blackshield, thought formerly of the Sons of Horus

The term "Blackshield" refers not to a single military body or even a class of warriors as such, but to a phenomenon that came into being in the early to middle years of the Age of Darkness and which very much had its roots in the most ancient of martial codes. According to those codes, a warrior might, for any one of a myriad reasons, chose or be forced to cast off or conceal his allegiance. In ancient times, when a warrior bore the icon of his house, master or nation upon his shield, he might have cause to cover it with cloth or to paint over it entirely. He might very literally paint his shield black, deliberately making it impossible for strangers to know where his true loyalties -- if any remained at all -- might lie.

While such practice might have obvious utility amongst the warring clans and states of Ancient Terra or on any number of worlds cast down to barbarism throughout the long Age of Strife, it had no lace at all in the Imperium of Mankind which through Unity and the Imperial Truth the Emperor had brought to the scattered and benighted worlds of humanity. The hosts of Mankind that swept out from Terra during the Great Crusade were bonded by seemingly unbreakable chains of fealty, blood and honour, and so to break oath with a line officer was in effect to break oath with the Emperor and those He had saved from Old Night. With the outbreak of the Horus Heresy however, it was proven beyond doubt that the chain was only as strong as its weakest link.

It cannot be known when the first Blackshields appeared upon the battlefields of the Age of Darkness, and in truth the definition is so broad that some may not have been noted as such at the time. Certainly, a small force of Legiones Astartes warriors clad in black and bearing the Terran Aquila in the stead of any Legion icon was sighted at the climax of the Liberation of Numinal during the war for the Coronid Deeps in 008.M31. As the veil of Dark Compliance fell across the northern Imperium and beleaguered Loyalist armies fell back en masse before the Traitors' inexorable advance towards distant Terra, Blackshields similarly clad were counted amongst the defenders who mustered upon the walls of Fort Stranivar, giving their lives for the Loyalist cause alongside the dutiful and stoic servants of the Emperor.

These incidents were but the first of many that would be reported across the entire Imperium as the Age of Darkness progressed, although in most instances such reports would only be collated into a meaningful whole much later on, long after the fate of most such warriors was either settled or irrelevant. Warbands of Blackshields appeared in war zones the length and breadth of the sundered Imperium, evidence not of one overarching will or cause, but of the resurrection of that ancient code that called for a warrior to obscure his colours upon the renunciation of his oaths of allegiance to his master.

While many groups of Blackshields were identified, no two were exactly the same in origin or constitution. While the term invariably describes a warrior of the Legiones Astartes, even this is not universal as the origins and nature of some Blackshields simply cannot be ascertained, while others were accompanied by mortal auxiliaries in a manner similar to the Legions' employment of bonded auxiliary units. Likewise, the true allegiance of many Blackshields bands was often far from clear. Even when their deeds spoke clearly of their cause, they rarely fought alongside the conventional forces of either side in Mankind's civil war or when they did, they refused to integrate themselves into established chains of command. Many Blackshield bands simply fought for their own cause -- often that of simple survival in a galaxy consumed by insanity and chaos. Some however had clearly abandoned themselves to the very madness that had birthed them. Gripped by an insanity that knew no distinction between Traitor or Loyalist, they ravaged across the stars throughout the Age of Darkness and in many cases well into the current age.

Some have compared the Blackshields to the Shattered Legions, thus putting truth to the observation that the two occupied different points in a spectrum of irregular or non-conventional Legiones Astartes forces. The disparate elements of the Shattered Legions, however, maintained a definite sense of Legion identity and inheritance, while the Blackshields invariably went to great lengths to reject, denounce or obscure their origins, or in some cases may even have been ignorant of them. Indeed, while the Shattered Legions were constituted of units from several different parent Legions, they ever sought to uphold and maintain their own traditions even as they acknowledged those of their compatriots. This was not the case in most Blackshield bands, and it is likely that even individual squads were made up of warriors born of different Legions, the identity of which might remain unknown even to his brothers.

While the term "Blackshield" is fitting, it was not always a literal description of the warriors in question. Some groups were observed clad in highly idiosyncratic, personalised heraldry, no two Legionaries bearing the same colours. Some applied camouflage patterns to their armour, a practice only rarely observed amongst the Legions. At least one group was observed to wear composite battle plate, each part scavenged from other Legions and mixed together with no rhyme or reason, a sea green vambrace taken from a slain Legionary of the Sons of Horus worn alongside a bone white gorget torn from the corpse of a defeated World Eater, for example.

The Steadfast, the Turncoat & The Renegade
The most difficult class of Blackshield to define or identify with any certainty were those who were constituted en masse from the ranks of a parent Legion having refused to align themselves with the declared allegiance of their Primarch. Though their true numbers remain unknown, they cannot have been great for most of the Traitor Primarchs proved horrifyingly willing and able to purge their Legions of those sons they suspected would not stand alongside them against the Emperor. It is well known to Imperial scholars now that the Sons of Horus, Death Guard, World Eaters and Emperor's Children were all purged by the hands of their own fathers at Istvaan III, while it appears that Lorgar rid his Legion of such elements at a much earlier point. Of the other Traitor Legions, it can only be assumed that similar fratricides were enacted, although none appear to have been carried out with complete effectiveness for there were ever detached units serving far afield or beyond communications range. What trauma such experienced upon learning of their master's treachery can only be imagined and the bloodshed that ensued between brother Legionaries must have been every bit as terrible as the slaughter at Istvaan III.

Many of those warriors who escaped the betrayal of their kin fled into the darkness and were never seen again, while others embarked upon short-lived campaigns of bloody vengeance, determining to sell their lives dearly and consumed by hatred for a galaxy which they no longer had a place.

The Disavowed
It is a truth that sits ill with many who are party such knowledge that not all Blackshields were the sons of Traitor Primarchs. The Warrior Lodges had spread their pernicious philosophies far and wide in the years prior to Istvaan, and few indeed were the Legions entirely unaffected by their hidden workings. Indeed, it is notable that in some bands of Blackshields, adherence to the tenets of the various warrior lodges remained strong and some were even accompanied by small covens of ite lodge priests. How many Blackshield bands were in fact renegade elements of otherwise loyal Legions, or how many individual Blackshield warriors in the ranks of a Marauder squad were secretly turncoat sons of Guilliman, Dorn or Russ or any other loyal son of the Emperor is a matter that even now has yet to be fully accounted.

The Damned
Despite their rejection of visible Legion heritage, most Blackshields remained nonetheless recognisable as Space Marines. A small number however stretched such a definition to a point where onlookers may not have taken them for the product of the Emperor's vision at all. Throughout the Age of Darkness and beyond, accounts of Legionaries fallen to physical mutation persisted, hinting at a creeping instability in gene-seed purity, corruption of the implantation process, exposure to certain influences or even deliberate tampering with the Legiones Astartes genetic template. At first sight these warriors might appear blessed of superior strength, speed or resilience, but invariably they proved unstable in other ways. Some were prone to physical or mental collapse in the heat of battle, while others experienced spontaneous and uncontrolled mutation under stress, their limbs distending into horrific forms as bones re-knit and muscles distorted, battle plate splitting apart in the process. Some were indistinguishable in appearance from any other Legionary, yet possessed of such an unnatural mien or aura that others could not stand their presence, and with prolonged exposure would be driven by an inexplicable urge to strike them down.

It has been suggested by some Imperial scholars that not every band of such genetic aberrations classified as Blackshields were truly outcasts from the other Legions. Some may actually have been deliberatley created in secret within one of the Legions and then released into the war-torn galaxy as living weapons of mass destruction. Created ignorant of their heritage, such forces would have reaved across the stars in pursuit of some implanted imperative, burning fiercely albeit briefly in the depths of the Age of Darkness.

Command Hierarchy
If the Shattered Legions were irregular in their command structure, they myriad bands of Blackshields were downright idiosyncratic. Many appear to have been ruled by sheer brute strength or force of will with no apparent reference to any formal rank their leaders may once have held. What qualified a leader to rule a Blackshield warband can only be guessed at, but it has been observed that the fate of many such bands were intrinsically linked to their master's own goals. Aside from the reaver lords, most Blackshield bands exhibited a comparatively flat organisational hierarchy. The reaver lords invariably led their warriors form the front and because overall strengths were rarely more than a single Legiones Astartes company equivalent, the line officers, specialised sub-ranks, command cadres and equerries utilised across the Legions were largely superfluous and therefore rarely seen among Blackshields.

Matériel Strength
Observed strengths among Blackshield warbands varied from as few as two dozen to as many as 2,000 with around 500 being the most commonly encountered level. No recognisable order of battle dominated and each force was constituted according to the demeanour of its lord, its warriors and the logistical limitations imposed upon them by fate. While recognisable Legiones Astartes squad types were encountered, it was common for the core squads of Blackshield groups to carry a wide range of equipment, often with no two warriors being armed in the same manner. This phenomenon set the warriors of the Blackshields far apart from their Legiones Astartes roots and such squads came to be known as "Marauders" as the Age of Darkness progressed.

The strength of most Blackshield warbands was very much concentrated in its core infantry elements, for, divorced form conventional Legion logistical chains, stocks of heavy equipment very quickly dwindled. It was rare indeed for such groups to utilise disposable equipment such as Drop Pods, for recovering such items for re-use generally called for support assets the Blackshields did not have ready access to. Instead of drop pods, most Blackshield warbands relied upon the lighter classes of gunships to transport forces to a planet's surface and to provide them with fire support, Storm Eagles and Fire Raptors being commonly encountered, and it is likely that many Blackshield bands prioritised their capture from enemy forces.

Given the circumstance of their creation and the manner in which they operated, it has proved impossible to assay the total number of Legiones Astartes warriors turned Blackshield who fought throughout the Age of Darkness. Given that some may have come into being as a result of accelerated implantation regimes or unsanctioned replication protocols and therefore never entered on the official roles of the later Great Crusade, the numbers may be far higher than any could imagine, albeit spread across the unimaginably vast reaches of the galaxy over which Mankind sought dominion.

Blackshield Specific Units

 * Blackshield Reaver Lord - Once an officer in one of the Emperor's Legions, treachery and fate have caused this warrior to obscure his erstwhile heraldry and to pursue another path entirely. It is around such men that bands of Blackshields invariably coalesced, for they were possessed of a fiery mien and fate visibly rested upon their shoulders. While many appeared to fight because they knew no other existence, a few were said to be following some far grander strategy that only they were able to perceive. There existed the standard type among Reaver Lords, for each was an individual uniquely shaped by the circumstance that caused him to renounce whichever of the Legions had sired him. They ruled their bands with the utmost authority, either through brute force or charisma. All were fearsome and accomplished warriors, peerless leaders and strategists, their skills they brought to bear in service to the Great Crusade were now turned towards serving their own fates in a galaxy awash in the blood of the innocent.
 * Blackshield Marauders - For most Blackshield warbands they are able to field a core of Legiones Astartes certain unit types, the squad configuration for which they were most well known was the iconic Marauder Squad. These units were equipped according to the proclivities of their leaders or the tastes and expertise of the individual Blackshields, and no two were likely to be identically constituted. While many Marauder squads carried similar Legiones Astartes weapons, others wielded an idiosyncratic array of fire arms and melee weapons comprised from the cold, dead hands of their foes, or plundered them from the holds of captured freighters. Many Blackhsields carried out field modifications to their arms, armour and equipment that would never be sanctioned within the parent Legions from which they were drawn, sometimes to improve performance and in other times simply to keep them in service for ease of battle use.
 * Dark Herald -

Blackshield Types

 * Death Seekers - These Blackshields are motivated by an all-consuming drive to offer up their own lives upon the altars of war. Psychologically unstable, either as a result of what they have witnessed or endured or through brutally enforced and accelerated psycho-indoctrination, death has become the centre of their being, either as a blessed release, sought-for atonement or programmed obsession, but they will not meet death vainly and without taking as many of the foe with them as they can. Through sheer force of will or other more malign influence, such as prohibited gene-seed experimentation, they are able to shrug off otherwise debilitating injury as they abandon themselves to the anarchy of battle.
 * Orphans of War - Having seen betrayal, atrocity and unthinkable carnage at the behest of distant and uncaring masters, these warriors are hardened veterans who have survived against all odds and now trust only in the man next to them in the line of battle. For brothers they will fight and die and strive to see another dawn, but for great cause or Primarch, and the lies and whispers of lords and potentates alike, they have nothing but scorn.
 * Outlanders - These Space Marines have seen the depths to which both side in Mankind's civil war will sink in order to destroy the other, and they have washed their hands of either side and are now pursuing their own goals, having turned towards the path of the marauder and void corsair to determine their fate. For some who have previously served in the nomad-predation fleets and the flotillas of Rogue Traders at the forefront of the Great Crusade's darkest frontiers, this may be merely a reversion to a path well-travelled in the past, although with themselves as master, while others will have been forced into exile by the wrath of enemy and one-time ally alike.
 * Chymeriae - As the Age of Darkness progressed so there came into being Legiones Astartes who simply should not have existed. Some were the by-blows of failed rapid implantation and psycho-indoctrination programs, others the product of prohibited experimentation on gene-seed stock or the influence of malign forces from beyond. Most often the cause for such "Chymeriae" creation was to create a breakthrough that would see their faction, Loyalist and Traitor, gain a decisive edge in the war, a goal which for some any taboo or stricture was worth breaking. All, be they Primarch or Master Apothecary, who accepted this soon learned the folly of their error. Such warriors were at best invariably unstable or unpredictable when compared to those Legiones Astartes brought into being by conventional means, while others succumbed to insane madness or cancerous mutation as terrifying to behold as it was ultimately fatal.

Notable Blackshields

 * Gerasene Host - A little-known Blackshield warband, the Gerasene Host appeared to be the result of rapid, unsanctioned gene-seed hybridisation processes first encountered in the middle period of the Heresy. The source of the Host's gene-seed is unknown and the warriors themselves appeared unaware of their true lineage. Some strategio-savants have posited that the Host were created as a living terror weapon, wrought by an unknown hand and released into the galaxy to sow death and destruction in the ultimate furtherance of the Traitors' cause. They are known to have taken part in the infamous Treab's World campaign, a conflict that burned for four long years and which ultimately drew in and defeated a large contingent of the Salamanders Legion. While the Host operated independently, its strategies were in retrospect clearly co-aligned with those of the Death Guard and Emperor's Children forces also deployed to Treab's World. Most of these warriors were Mark V pattern power armour, their source unknown. Their battle-plate had never borne heraldry of any Legion and beneath the accrued weathering of a long campaign displayed the bare metallic grey of unadorned ceramite. Each bearer applied markings that appeared to be arcane and idiosyncratic glyphs of unknown provenance. The "L" sigil on the right shoulder pauldron was worn by most warriors of the Host, its significance unclear to Imperial savants.
 * The Third Covenant - The Third Covenant was a Blackshield group that operated across several sectors to the galactic north of the Great Core, into which they ultimately vanished towards the end of the Horus Heresy. Several studies had been made of the Third Covenant in an effort to identify its members, but most had proven unsuccessful as each Blackshield went to great lengths to conceal their origins. They even renounced their own given names and used instead terms derived from other, more esoteric sources. The group is of particular interest to later generations of Imperial agents because, having rejected the teachings of their own gene-sires (Traitor and Loyalist alike), they turned to other, more shrouded doctrines. Ostensibly, the Third Covenant fought for the Warmaster's cause, but in truth it pursued its own goals often only tangentially co-aligned with those of Horus and his allies. Blackshields of this group wore a typically heterogeneous mix of elements taken from defeated foes. In places the ubiquitous black heraldry would be worn away to reveal the colours of the original owner. Of particular note was the mythological hippocampus worn upon the right shoulder as the icon of the Third Covenant. The many esoteric sigils betrayed the Covenant's true allegiances -- to powers other than Terra or even the Warmaster.

Blackshields Specific Wargear
The nature of the Blackshield forces and their often erratic and unorthodox lines of supply forced many into the adoption of ragged and modified equipment and weapons in order to maintain an effective fighting force:
 * "Pariah" Wargear - Various Blackshield groups were observed throughout the Age of Darkness to wield arms and armour obviously field modified in a variety of ways, sometimes simply to keep it functioning in the isolated conditions under which such forces operated, but often to improve its performance in some manner. Such modifications were not authorised by Legiones Astartes battle doctrine and often in flagrant contradiction of the laws of the Cult of the Machine. Such weaponry came to be known as "pariah" wargear, a term indicative of the outcast status of those who implemented such modifications.
 * Pariah Power Armour - Some Blackshield forces were observed to modify their power armour in a manner not proscribed by any doctrine of the Legiones Astrtes. By stripping back reactor casings, re-routing power couplings and foregoing components such as gauntlets, motive stabilisers, vambraces, pauldrons or helm, the wearer was afforded a combination of power and dexterity not provided by standard patterns, albeit at the expense of some protection against heavy weapons fire.
 * Pariah Bolter - Though it grieves those inducted into they mysteries of the machine, some Blackshields had learned to strip the iconic bolter of its casing and any extraneous fittings in order to make it easier to handle during the fury of a charge or the tumult of a Zone Mortalis engagement.
 * Pariah Flamer - These weapons, produced from battle-damaged and field-repaired units, had been modified by their bearers to remove safety cut-offs, allowing a greater volume of fuel to be fired, albeit at risk and with less regularity of pressure than standard issue Imperial Flamers. Such protocols were not approved by the battle doctrines of the Legiones Astartes and were in contravention of the laws of the Cult Mechanicus.
 * Xenos Deathlock - There existed many terrifyingly powerful xenos technology weapons encountered during the Great Crusade, which, through incredibly effective, had been declared prohibited by Mechanicum and Emperor alike for their detrimental effects on the body and mind of a human wielder. The desperation of certain Blackshield forces, however, had overcome such concerns. Those weapons sought out by certain groups of Blackshields were prized for the trauma they inflicted upon the foe -- enemies not torn apart by their horrifying effect were assailed by a storm of soul-wrenching alien horror. Such weapons had been encountered in a range of classes, such as the extinction carbines of the Khrave or the psycho-mobius claw-guns of the Kala Sistrum being the most commonly sought after amongst Blackshield forces.