Angels Sanguine

"Ours is the blood of Sanguinius and ours is the honour of the Angels."

- Brother-Captain Vitaro of the Angels Sanguine

The Angels Sanguine are a Loyalist Chapter of Space Marines and a Second Founding Successor Chapter of the Blood Angels. Theirs is a long and glorious history, having been pivotal in many victories against the Chaotic horrors that have emerged from the Eye of Terror. Yet the shadow of the Blood Angels' genetic Flaw lingers ever about the Angels Sanguine. With a history of heroism and valour as laudable as the Angels Sanguine, it is easy to see why they are heralded far and wide across the Imperium as exemplars of the Blood Angels stock. They have vanquished foes far and wide from Orks to Chaos Space Marines, and always upheld the honour of their Chapter, and founding Legion. Yet, in spite of these deeds, rumours and unease surround them. The Angels Sanguine possess several strange habits and traditions that unsettle those around them, foremost among which is the fact that they shield their faces from those they fight alongside. It is a strange thing that hiding one's face garners more attention than thwarting a traitor army led by Typhus of the Death Guard, but such is their lot. Speculation also continues about why they have so many Librarians within their ranks, why they shield their faces, and what exactly goes on in the mysterious catacombs beneath their fortress-monastery.

Chapter History
The Angels Sanguine are another Chapter formed when the Blood Angels Legion was divided during the Second Founding, and like many of their peers, the Chapter’s Battle-Brothers have served with honour and courage throughout the ten thousand years of the Age of the Imperium. The Chapter is especially honoured for its heroic actions defending the regions surrounding the Eye of Terror against the Black Crusades of the servants of Chaos, and held in high esteem by most other Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes. Despite this proud heritage, there lingers an air of mystery about the Angels Sanguine that can only be a result of the tragic Flaw of the Blood Angels.

The most outwardly distinctive feature of the Angels Sanguine is that none of the Chapter’s Battle-Brothers ever remove their helmets, nor reveal their faces in the presence of one not of their own Chapter. Even amongst their own kin, whether of their own Chapter or others of the line of Sanguinius, they obscure their features beneath monkish hoods. Exactly why this should be the case has never been determined by any outsiders, and as a result, the Chapter’s Battle-Brothers are regarded with a measure of dread by most they encounter. What might lie beneath the helmets and hoods none can say. Perhaps they are afflicted by some psychical mutation linked to the Flaw, or maybe they simply choose to obscure their faces as some form of penance. Furthermore, a number of dark tales have emerged regarding the Chapter’s fortress-monastery, most of which concern the dark catacombs said to lie far beneath it.

Their terrible secret, called the Red Thirst, is that Angels Sanguine Marines develop an overpowering physiological need to drink blood because of the mutation of their gene-seed, a not uncommon problem for the heirs of Sanguinius. This shameful truth is known only to a few souls outside of the Chapter. Despite this flaw, they have a long and glorious history of service to the Imperium of Man.

In the Jericho Reach
The Angels Sanguine have been active in the Jericho Reach since at least 791.M41, when a detachment from the Chapter’s 1st Company arrived unannounced through the Jericho-Maw Warp Gate and attached itself to a larger force of the Angels Vermillion, a fellow Blood Angels Successor Chapter. The Angels Vermillion were engaged upon a mission deep into the Chaos-held systems surrounding the Hadex Anomaly, a mission launched at the behest the Master of the Vigil, Watch Commander Mordigael of the Blood Angels. It appears that this combined force had as its target an individual Chaos warlord, and that the mission was a matter of Chapter business and nothing to do with the Deathwatch’s mission in the Jericho Reach. The mission was not debated in the Chamber of Vigilance of Watch Fortress Erioch, nor were any accounts of it shared with the Ordos of the Inquisition or with the high command of the Achilus Crusade.

Concerned by this turn of events, an ad hoc conclave of Inquisitors based in the Tower of Brass on Watch Fortress Erioch determined to discover something of what had occurred, in so doing setting themselves against the Master of the Vigil, one of the most powerful individuals in the entire Jericho Reach war zone. Though it cost them the lives of several of their most valued followers, the Inquisitors discovered one single, key piece of information regarding the mission. Its target was a warlord last seen three centuries before in the vicinity of the Screaming Vortex Warp Storm that lies between the Calixis Sector and the Koronus Expanse. The Renegade had not been seen since then, but his sudden reappearance in the Jericho Reach had clearly been of great import to the Watch Commander. The reason for this, and the involvement of the Angels Sanguine, was hinted at when the Inquisitors discovered the title the warlord was now operating under -- Lazoreth the Faceless.

The prying Inquisitors would never have the opportunity to disseminate their discovery, for over the course of the days and weeks following the Watch Commander’s return to Watch Station Erioch, each appears to have disappeared or met with some unfortunate end. Of those Inquisitors whose bodies were found, one was discovered frozen solid in the airless ice-chambers of the Hunting Grounds, a section of the Watch Station given over to training in arduous environments. Another was discovered floating in the void, a chilling expression of stark terror etched onto his face. The body of a third was found, exsanguinated, at the base of the Tower of Brass, sprawled in plain view as if in dire warning. Several of the Angels Sanguine took the Apocryphon Oath, and stand the Long Watch to this day.

Notable Campaigns

 * Task Force Iscon (721.M41) - Captain Iscon of the Angels Sanguine Chapter leads a mixed strike force drawn from his own and several other Chapters against Eldar Corsairs plaguing the Mining World of Volyn. At the height of the campaign, Iscon corners and slays the Corsair Prince Nhilus the Ardent in an epic duel that has since become a legend of the Chapter.
 * Scions of Sanguinius Conclave (999.M41) - Teetering on the brink of oblivion following the events on the Shrine World of Sabien, the fate of the Blood Angels Chapter now required the magnanimity of their Successor Chapters. Lord Commander Dante summoned all of the Blood Angels' Successor Chapters for a conclave on Baal following the near-disastrous Chapter civil war that nearly tore the Blood Angels apart. Dante called for the support of the Blood Angels Successors to help aid the Chapter in the protection of their common Primarch's homeworld and his remains from the attack of both the Tyranids and the Forces of Chaos. While Dante lead the discussion at the conclave, the Apothecaria was working on a radical new procedure to replenish the ranks of the Blood Angels in one swift stroke: the lost art of replicae. Caecus was the Chief Apothecary or Apothecae Majoris of the Blood Angels. Disturbed by the dwindling numbers of his Chapter, and dreading its extinction, he was involved in fruitless experiments, which Lord Commander Dante ordered stopped, to clone Space Marines, thus eliminating the need to go through the arduous process of the maturation and implantation of the gene-seed in an Aspirant. However, Caecus disobeyed the order and secretly continued the experiments, prodded by an agent of the vile Chaos Space Marine Apothecary Fabius Bile. He was tricked into bringing Bile, who was disguised as a well-known Adeptus Mechanicus Magos Biologis, to Baal, mistakenly thinking the false "Magos" would help in cloning Space Marines to increase the Blood Angels' numbers. Through Bile's manipulations, Caecus was duped, and only managed to create monstrous, mutant clone-Astartes known as "Bloodfiends" who were consumed by the Red Thirst. These creatures were a shattered mirror reformed in the image of a Blood Angel, but lacked any of the qualities that could be thought of as human. The mutations that cursed the gene-seed of the Blood Angels had been enhanced by the machinations and Chaotic tech-heresy of Fabius Bile, and with each drop of blood they consumed, the thirst that dominated the Bloodfiends grew stronger. The mutants broke free from the confines of Caecus' laboratorium and began to run rampant through the sacred halls of the fortress-monastery of the Blood Angels. The Angels Sanguine, along with the Blood Angels and their fellow Successors successfully defended their most sacred of sites on Baal—the Golden Sarcophagus of Primarch Sanguinius within the sacred sepulchre where the Great Angel lay for all time, sleeping in light, forever preserved. The Sons of Sanguinius destroyed the horde of mutants and erased the stain of Chaos from their midst. They had paid for the continued sanctity of the Great Angel with their blood, and in the aftermath of this misery, Lord Commander Dante took responsibility for what had happened and he accepted it without complaint. Dante believed that it was his hubris that had brought the Chapter to this dark place. The Successor Chapters took this into consideration as well as Lord Commander Dante's original request for the Successors to grant the Blood Angels a small tithe of their Chapter's Initiates in order to replenish the ranks of the Chapter. The Successor Chapters unanimously agreed to hand over to the Blood Angels some of their own Neophytes to help their ancestral Chapter rebuild its strength in the wake of the Chaos assault—and in preparation for the oncoming assault by the Tyranids and the Forces of Chaos.
 * 13th Black Crusade (999.M41) - The Angels Sanguine fielded 7 companies in support of the defense of the Cadian Gate from Abaddon the Despoiler and his Forces of Chaos during the 13th Black Crusade.

Chapter Organisation
The Angels Sanguine use the same organisation scheme as the Blood Angels as outlined in Codex Blood Angels. As such, they are considered a partially Codex Astartes-compliant Chapter.

Notable Angels Sanguine

 * Lord Sentikan - Sentikan is the current Chapter Master of the Angels Sanguine.
 * Librarian Ashok - Librarian Ashok is a member of the Angels Sanguine Chapter and is currently seconded to the Deathwatch. He wears the Shroud of Lemartes, to stave off the Red Thirst. He also is unique in that he is one of the few Space Marines to dislike wearing his armour, and senses that its Machine Spirit is not fond of him either.

Chapter Relics

 * The Mask of the Watcher - The Mask of the Watcher is an Artificer Helm forged in the shape of the golden death mask of the Angels Sanguine's beloved Primarch Sanguinius. Legends of their Primarch sometimes tell of his powers of prophecy and divination. This power is latent in all Blood Angels by virtue of the psychic imprint he left upon their gene-seed, usually manifesting as the visions that lead to the Black Rage. It can sometimes be harnessed for better ends, and the advanced psy-active circuitry embedded in the impassive golden face of the Watcher’s Mask allows the Sons of Sanguinius to draw on extraordinary insight.

Chapter Colours
The Angels Sanguine's Power Armour is halved red and black with a yellow Imperialis symbol on the chest plate.

Chapter Badge
The Chapter's badge is a large white skull centered on a pair of red-coloured wings on a field of black.

Gallery
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