Legio Mortis

The Legio Mortis (Deaths Heads) are a Traitor Titan Legion of the Dark Mechanicus that repudiated their oaths to the Emperor of Mankind and followed the Warmaster Horus in service to the Ruinous Powers during the Horus Heresy. There is very little information in Imperial records about this obscure Titan Legion, though they are suspected to have been founded before the Age of the Imperium, during the Age of Strife.

Legion History
The very name of the Legio Mortis has long since become a foul taint to the defenders of humanity, uttered only with fear and loathing. Their infamy stretches back ten millennia to the beginning of the [Horus Heresy when the daemon-possessed Warmaster Horus sent the new-born Imperium into bloody civil war.

The Legio Mortis had fought in the 63rd Expeditionary Fleet under the command of the Warmaster in a hundred campaigns during the Great Crusade – their loyalty had long since been pledged to him rather than the distant Emperor. Ironically, the Deaths Heads would become corrupted by the Chaos Lord of Decay, Nurgle – a deity they had fought against in the form of hundreds of deceased-ridden Plague Bearers (which had thoroughly disgusted the Titan crews) on the feral moon of Davin, where Horus was mortally wounded. When the Warmaster ‘miraculously’ recovered from his wounds and began his campaign against the Emperor by virus-bombing the defenceless world of Istvaan III, the Deaths Heads made the landings to scour the corpse-packed hives for the pitifully few survivors. Some say that mutated strains of the life-eater virus brought about their final corruption, while others say the madness inspired by the billions of putrefying corpses turned their faces to Chaos.

When the Horus Heresy became a full-blown insurrection, the traitorous Fabricator General Kelbor-Hal threw in his lot with the Warmaster. The Legio Mortis supported the Fabricator General, being one of the first Titan Legions to fight in support of Horus. Open civil war erupted all over the red planet as the Schism of Mars began. Both Imperial and Dark Mechanicus forces brought forth forbidden technologies to bear against one another. The Dark Mechanicus-aligned Legio Mortis eventually fought the Legio Tempestus in open warfare near Magma City, but these contingents of Deaths Heads Titans were wiped out by the Loyalist Titan Legion.

By the time the Legio Mortis landed on Terra to take part in the siege of the Emperor’s palace, they had been warped and mutated beyond all recognition - their adamantium hulls pocked-marked and bubbling with fetid vapors. The twisted flesh and metal of great tentacles lashed to and fro, spiked tails whipping about. The once-noble skull-faced heads had now been transformed by the eldritch powers of Chaos into rancorous visages of drooling daemons filled with malice. Their engines roared like angry beasts.

The Warmaster granted the Legio Mortis the singular honour of breaching the outer walls of the Imperial Palace. Using wreckers, power rams, warp missiles and their own fiendish bravery they managed to accomplish this near-suicidal task despite suffering the loss of over thirty Titans in one evening of intense fighting. The walls of the Emperor's Palace finally broke under the onslaught by the Deaths Heads Titan Legion - the huge Warlord Titans of the Legion smashed their way through the last few metres of the bastion and unleashed a flood of traitors into the inner courtyard of the Palace. But despite their efforts, ultimately the Siege of Terra failed and Horus was laid low by the Emperor himself. The remnants of the Legio Mortis fled from Terra and were hunted and pursued, system by system, to the Eye of Terror. There, where the war and real space overlap, time has flowed strangely for the Deaths Heads. They remain trapped in servitude to the Ruinous Powers, fighting the Long War that began ten millennia before, building their strength and testing the Imperium’s defences for the time when they shall return and wreak terrible vengeance on all living things for the defeat of their beloved Warmaster.

Horus Heresy

 * Schism of Mars (007.M31) -
 * Battle of Terra (014.M31) - The Legio Mortis took part in numerous engagements during the dark days of the Horus Heresy, but their most notable action occurred when they took part in the Battle of Terra and the Siege of the Imperial Palace.

Legion Colours
The colours of this Titan Legion are black, red, silver & gold.

Legion Badge
The Legio Morits' badge is a horned death's head in front of a red-outlined-blue delta (triangle) on a field of black.