Consul

"Superiority of force is key and the key to superiority is above all, structure. With structure comes order, with order the ability to carry out purpose, and only through clear purpose can victory be perceived."

— The Principia Bellicosa, Ch. XXXIV, Vs. I-IV

Consul, formally known as a Legiones Consularis in High Gothic, is a defunct, generalised specialty officer rank of the ancient Legiones Astartes bestowed upon Space Marine Centurions during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy. Among the Space Marine Legions, the humble Legion Centurions served as both officers of the line and specialists in every conceivable doctrine of war.

Those Centurions that specialised in the many esoteric arts of combat and war were known as Consuls, and the masters of the Legion called upon them when the Legions needed their specialised skills to overcome the numberless enemies of Mankind. With the outbreak of the Horus Heresy, these artisans of the craft of death would face their grandest trial, turning their hard-won skills against their own brothers.

History[]

"In the midst of battle, the accuracy of strategic information can prove as deadly a weapon as the fury of cannon or the uncompromising brutality of blades."

—Centurion Verdael Haar, Legiones Astartes Iron Warriors

IW2 warlord Traitor Champion Consul — Traitor Champion Consul Dornax of the Iron Warriors Legion

The ranks of each Space Marine Legion were tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands strong and as such required a substantial core of battle commanders and officers to control and coordinate, as well as more specialised ranks and roles which helped give a Legion its operational depth and strategic flexibility.

The Astartes with the rank of Centurion represented such leaders, champions and line officers, and whether they were a company captain in command of a thousand or more Legionaries on campaign, or a Shield-Lieutenant given charge of a boarding party in a savage space battle, to have risen in the ranks of their Legion to the middle tiers of its hierarchy meant they had already demonstrated their worth in the bloody fires of conflict.

Among the many officers of the Legiones Astartes, there are those with unique talents and hard-won tactical skills that were honoured with the title and rank of consul, although this covers many different ranks and purviews such as the Chaplains, fleet captain, blood chieftains, Vigilators, Legates and even the psykers of the Librarius. These warriors led the Legion into battle and conducted the most arduous of missions, called upon by their lords when the specialised tactical knowledge they had mastered was required in the struggle for victory and the demise of the foe.

Consul Types[]

"Martial vigour and ferocity are virtues, to be sure. But do not throw your force blindly into battle and say that this is vigour. It is not. Before committing your forces, examine the situation. Review your own strength, and that of your enemy. Remember your own objectives, and try to anticipate those of your opponent. He who fights without understanding the battle places himself at the disadvantage."

— The Principia Belicosa, Ch. CXIV, Vs. IX-XII

The following are some of the more common examples of Consuls found in the Space Marine Legion forces of the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy, although many others existed in particular Legions:

Armistos - Few individuals were capable of the unending operation of maintaining, categorising, requisitioning and dispensing the vast arsenals of an entire Space Marine Legion. Beyond this, many such officers of the Legions worked to improve the weaponry at their disposal, running simulations and field tests of augmented weaponry. The logistical skills of a quartermaster required of an Armistos were much sought after by the Legion's Master of Arsenal, particularly in those Legionaries with a level temperament who were not apt to charge into the fray but were capable of supporting and supplying their battle-brothers without desire for aggrandisement.

Champion Consul - A Legion Champion's sworn task was to hunt down and slay the commanders and heroes of an enemy force in single combat. Armed with the finest weapons available, these deadly warriors embodied the honour of their Legion.
- Loyalist Champion Consul - Chosen from the best blades of the Legion, a Champion bore the honour of their chapter or company in battle, and was armed and armoured in the finest panoply of war. Their sworn task was to seek out the foe's mightiest warriors, and slay them in glorious single combat. Such victories were a crushing blow to enemy morale, and an object lesson in their Legion's superiority. A Loyalist Champion Consul was a skilled duelist -- armed with a massive two-handed Paragon Blade, with a Combi-melta at their side. Their finely-wrought Artificer Armour often featured a flowing tabard, as well as a knightly gorget to guard against return blows. Medallions and decorative chains proclaimed the Champion's many victories, marking him as a foe worthy of any challenger.
- Traitor Champion Consul - Those Champion Consuls pledged to the Traitor Legions were largely identical in fucntion to their Loyalist brethren save that they took great pleasure in cutting down any Loyalist lapdogs foolish enough to stand in their way. A Traitor Champion Consul was a paragon of martial expertise and an expert in the art of dealing death to the followers of the False Emperor. They were armed with a deadly Paragon Blade for parrying blows and lopping off Loyalist heads while wielding a Volkite Serpenta to melt through enemy armour at range. The bulky and tough Artificer Armour worn by a Traitor Champion was multi-layered, given even more protection, and was often adorned with the icon of the Eye of Horus, so there was no mistaking as to whose cause they fought for.

Chaplain - The Chaplain Order, established towards the end of the Great Crusade on the advice of the Word Bearers, was intended to create a cadre of fearsome veteran Astartes warriors who would enforce a cohesion of doctrine and belief in the scattered and increasingly idiosyncratic Legions, far from Terra. Theirs was a mortuary symbol of sacrifice graven in the form of an ornate staff, mace or axe: the Crozius Arcanum, which served as both a badge of office and a deadly weapon.

Legion Delegatus - A Legion Delegatus was a mid-ranking Legion officer, such as a Centurion, tasked with a specific mission by their Legion high command and formally deputised to act in all matters with the full weight of their commander's authority. As such, they could mobilise the Legion's resources to the full, deploy its assets and, if performing a mission of vital strategic worth, assemble a strike force of chosen warriors.

Legion Esoterist - The Legion Esoterists were a late creation among many of the armies embroiled in the Horus Heresy, as members of the Librarius returned to their studies in violation of the Decrees of Nikaea with or without the blessing of their primarchs, and delved into the forbidden lore that saw common use on the battlefields of that dark age. Some Esoterists studied the Warp with the sole intent of discovering the weakness of those entities that dwelled within. They were dedicated wholly to the study of the Warp and its denizens, seeing them as tools for the prosecution of war, unburdened by loyalty or purpose. If they could chain them to the cause of their master, then they would gladly sacrifice their sanity in pursuit of victory. Esoterists mastered the sealing of ætheric energy and investigated any method of repelling the foul entities that spilt from that realm, no matter how strange or ritualistic such arcane tricks might be. Though those battle-psykers who had received real training might scoff at their dubious rites, few could deny their effectiveness in battle against the forces of Chaos.

Legion Forge Lord - Masters of the machine and foundry, Forge Lords were the most experienced and skillful of the Legion's Techmarines. These warrior-smiths were skilled battle-leaders as much as they were artisans of war, and were often appointed to the command of Legion detachments comprised largely of tanks and armoured vehicles or Battle-Automata, as well as serving as stewards to a Legion's Dreadnoughts.

Herald - A Herald was an officer of consul rank who carried the standards and other sacred totems of their Legions, chapters, companies and other organisations. As the wars of the Horus Heresy spread to consume the galaxy, billions fought and died under the banners of warlords they had never seen or heard firsthand, and even among those such as the Legiones Astartes, near-religious fervour became common for those artefacts touched by primarch, Warmaster or Imperial Regent, and given to a chosen emissary as a sign of authority and favour. The Blackshields, having obscured their heraldry or cast aside former masters, were no different, their strange sigils or blackened flags becoming totems of destruction and the foresworn.

Librarian Consul - For many years the Legions maintained cadres of Astartes battle-psykers in their ranks, warriors who fused these esoteric powers with a Space Marine's transhuman physical power. But many within the Imperium's hierarchy were troubled by such dangerous and unstable potential, and after dark events in the Great Crusade's later period, such adepts were forbidden from the use of their arts and arcane lore by the Emperor Himself at the Council of Nikaea.

Master of Signal - A vital link between those desperately fighting and support elements of the Legion in battle, the Master of Signal was a strategic and communications specialist capable of interpreting and directing the flow of battle around them and calling in support strikes from distant batteries and orbiting vessels. A Master of Signal was commonly attached to the forward elements of a Space Marine assault, providing vox and cogitator communications support across the wider warzone, and was capable of calling down a pinpoint bombardment from either orbiting fleet assets or static artillery positions nearby, engulfing the foes of Mankind in flaming destruction.

Moritat - Said by some to be no less than death incarnate, and by others to be dishonourable murderers with no place in the Imperium's order of battle, Moritats were lone killers operating outside their Legion's usual command structures at the behest, or at least sufferance, of its high commanders. Regarded usually as dangerously unstable outcasts -- perhaps created by some seldom-exposed flaw of gene-seed or indoctrination -- they were also savage and proficient warriors, however, having become one with the act of killing, honing their transhuman reflexes to gun down the foe at close quarters to a preternatural degree.

Legion Mortifactor - A specialised subset of Techmarines, Mortificators were ultimately responsible for the Legion's honoured dead known as Dreadnoughts, the furious Ancients entombed within cybernetic sarcophagi that slumbered in the Legions' sepulchres, and showed a near-fanatical devotion to their charges, in some cases going so far as to contravene the tenets of the Mechanicum adopted by the Legions' Forge Lords. A Mortificator's primary duties included the protection during slumber and rousing during war of their Legion's complement of Dreadnoughts, and when necessary, extended to the controlling of those Dreadnoughts too long asleep or too choleric to be considered wholly sane.

Consul Opsequiari - The Consul Obsequiari was a battlefield overseer, granted the power of life and death over his brothers. During the Terran Wars of Unification and the early years of the Great Crusade when the Legionaries of the newly formed Space Marine Legions were introduced to the Imperium's fighting forces, certain less-disciplined and more violent Space Marine Legions such as the VI^th, XII^th and XIV^th Legions experienced issues with Legionaries who were bellicose, hot-tempered or often proved fractious. To help curb their worst excesses and to ensure discipline was maintained on the field of battle, a new class of disciplinary officers was created -- the Consul Obsequiari. These Disciplinary Corps served to maintain order in the ranks of the Space Marines, both during and away from battle, as well as curb any attempts to disregard or circumvent orders. The Consul Opsequiari were selected from among the most stable of the veterans of their Legion and granted the power of life and death over their brothers. Clad in utilitarian storm cloud grey power armour bare of any ornamentation, save a squad symbol on their breast and a Terran Raptor Imperialis ornament, these officers carried out their solemn duty within the ranks of the Legion. To single them out on the field of battle these individuals were also marked by the distinctive emblem of that oft-maligned order, stencilled upon their right pauldron and the abdominal buckle of their armour. Reorganisations and the changes in Legion culture made upon the reunification of these Legions with their respective primarchs ultimately made this position obsolete before the onset of the Horus Heresy.

Legion Overseer - Once a Space Marine of the Legiones Astartes reached the rank of centurion, they were given specialist responsibilities and perhaps a fancy new title. Overseers were placed in charge of the Legion's unaugmented Human allies of the Imperial Army and later their allied Chaos Cults if they were Traitor Legions, and their ability to factor Solar Auxilia, Imperialis Auxilia and eventually Chaos Cultists into Space Marine battle plans became increasingly vital as casualties mounted during the Horus Heresy. Loyalist and Traitor armies both employed Overseers, but their methods of motivation sometimes...differed. Particularly brutal Overseers saw no issue with lashing their subordinates, wielding wicked power whips to instill discipline in rowdy cohorts of mortal Traitor soldiers. The element of fear is a powerful tool in any Overseer's arsenal, and Traitor Overseers were sometimes decked out with a terrifying (borderline Daemonic) mask to put the fear of Horus himself into any mortals with funny ideas. Their power armour was less ornamented than that of their Loyalist counterparts, but the message delivered by their excess of skulls and chains was no less clear to the mortals under their command -- obey.

Legion Pathfinder - Within the ranks of the Legions at the time of the outbreak of the Horus Heresy there were few remaining Scout Marine cohorts, with most companies equipped with the Scout Armour long since reassigned to Recon detachments. Those few that remained were often veterans of over a standard century of war in the most hostile terrain known to Humanity, and the last Pathfinders were the unchallenged experts on combat within such dangerous ground.

Legion Consul Praevian - A Legion Consul Praevian was the keeper of the Legion's bound Battle-Automata, those soulless machines sworn to the Legion's service and inducted into their ranks as honourary Legionaries after solar decades of service, a practice that increased as the Horus Heresy inflicted an ever-greater death toll on many Legions' ranks. Initiated into the rites of the Mechanicum to a lesser degree, these officers oversaw the maintenance and programming of their charges and ensured that loyalty to the Legion and its traditions were enshrined in their core logic. On the field of battle, they marched at the forefront of the inducted maniples, guiding them in the correct prosecution of war and acting as examples of true sons of the Legion. Often chosen from amongst the ranks of those veterans whose injuries had required extensive augmetic rebuild and left them ill-suited for other, more specialised roles, these warriors were often solitary individuals, given to brooding and keeping to the company of their iron brothers. It was rare in most Legions for these warriors to advance higher up the chain of command, and some Legions used the rank as a dumping ground for those deemed unfit for other duties, while others, most notably the Iron Hands and Salamanders, considered it an honour to serve with such unique avatars of the Machine Cult's craft.

Primus Medicae - High officers of the Legion Apothecarion, the primus medicae of a Legion held the onerous duties of both ensuring the battle-readiness and physical wellbeing of their battle-brothers. This was an authority which none but a primarch or his chosen deputy could overrule, and such warriors were dedicated to preserving the gene-seed of the Legion from loss or contamination at any cost, even that of their lives. The primus medicae were skilled in all the fields of medicae relevant to the biomedical care of Astartes on and off the battlefield and the creation of new Space Marines for the Legion using the accelerated maturation techniques in use at the time of the Great Crusade.

Primus Nullificator - With the increase of uncontrollable occurrences of Daemonic incursion across the galaxy, many officers within the Legiones Astartes on both sides of the conflict resorted to arcane and superstitious means to counter the little-understood threat of the Empyrean. These pioneers sanctioned research into esoteric artefacts and weapons and openly sought prohibited lore in the hope that it would provide wisdom capable of combatting the galaxy's intangible horrors. These officers, who were first among the Nullificators, forged an example and encouraged those serving under them to also seek out by any means necessary the answers to defeat the arcane threat.

Siege Breaker - The wreckers of cities, the bringers-down of fortress walls and the shatterers of strongholds, Siege Breakers were officers of the Legion whose tactical speciality was precisely applied destruction against strategic targets. Placed often in command of armoured spearhead assaults and frontline artillery units, they preferred to closely observe their work, rather than sit back behind the lines, and so were deadly efficient in adapting their force's attack patterns from moment to moment.

Vigilator - Highly skilled as watchers and hunters among their brethren, Vigilators were the eyes of their Legion on the ground, their wisdom paramount in scouting out the foe's disposition and strength, and determining the best place to strike. Theirs also were the arts of sabotage and assassination, and while some Legions were more inclined to such subtleties than others, all saw their military value.

Warmonger - In seemingly every Legion, there was a cadre of Centurions who competed for the honour to make first contact with any enemy force or lead the spear-tip of any assault. These hardened line commanders were much respected for their willingness to heroically throw themselves and their soldiers into the toughest resistance and were entrusted to prosecute shock assaults which crushed a foe in a single action, breaking its lines of supply and leaving its defences in disarray. To these warriors, the informal honorific "Warmonger" was attributed, and any who were marked as such were destined for greatness in their Legion, rapidly rising in stature and rank, should they survive.

Legion Specific Consuls[]

Dark Angels[]

Paladin of the Hekatonystika - Veiled in allegory and obscure symbolism, the orders of the Hekatonystika bore the heavy burden of keeping the most secret and dangerous knowledge acquired on the battlefield. Many of the I^st Legion's most veteran warriors were initiates of the Orders and wore their colours with pride on the field of battle.

Interrogator Consul - A specialist rank utilised specifically by the Hosts of the I^st Legion's Host of Fire, among the most secretive of the early hosts. The ranks of this hidden order were filled with spies, assassins and all the subtle tools of war. In war, the Host of Fire was the eyes and bloody left hand of the Legion, the first to take to the field and the last to draw blood. Its Interrogator Consuls were widely feared for their talent for extracting information from their captives.

White Scars[]

"Daemons and mortals alike may have dignity. Only the vacillator, the equivocator, the cautious – only he has no place in the heavens."

— Reflections, Targutai Yesugei, Zadyin Arga (Translation: V^th Legion "Stormseer")

Stormseer - While every Legion had a number of Librarian Consuls in their ranks -- warrior-scholars with the ability to bend the Warp to their will -- the psykers of the White Scars Legion incorporated the long-standing superstitions of their homeworld of Chogoris into their training schema. These Stormseer Consuls were weather-witches who acted as advisors and mystics to their khans, offering wise counsel and unleashing the wrath of the storm on those in their way. With their horizons broadened by the shamanistic customs of Chogoris, Stormseers tapped into wisdom beyond the ken of their brothers. This invited much scepticism from the more stringent members of the Legiones Astartes, and many viewed their esoteric methods as deviations from the Imperial Truth. More fool them, as this ignorance blinded the narrow-minded to the meteorological mastery of the Stormseers. In battle, their subtle applications altered the climate for tactical advantage, calling on the heavens themselves to aid them. By tapping into the Empyrean they could obscure their allies' approach with mist and fog, place a favourable wind behind flanking Golden Keshig, and impede enemy forces with foul tempests and withering hail. When a more direct approach was required, Stormseers would not hesitate to call down bolts of pure white lightning from the skies.

Space Wolves[]

Pack Thegn - A Pack Thegn or lesser Claw Leader was a proven Space Wolf warrior of a score of campaigns or more, who is deeply experienced in the making of murder. Long of fang and beard, often a Pack Thegn was a commander who had survived the loss of his company or lost esteem in the eyes of his betters and was side-lined from any hope of becoming a jarl. These warriors bound their fortunes to that of their favoured jarl (or indeed whichever jarl is willing to take them on if disgraced), sharing their cunning and expertise in war with his new recruits and teaching patience to his more savage pack members. A Pack Thegn would stay at the heel of that jarl, hunting at the head of his packs until death.

Priest of Fenris - The Priests of Fenris existed as a series of interconnected orders which provided for the physical, spiritual and technological needs of the VI Legion. Occluded to outsiders beneath webs of what outwardly seemed superstition and barbarism, they were more than technicians and specialists, but instead the repositories of the Legion's true history, the keepers of its secrets and the masters of its lore.
- Speaker of the Dead - These were the predecessors of the 41st Millennium's Wolf Priests, but more akin to an Apothecary. They were chosen from the most strong-willed and coldly self-controlled of the VI Legion's brethren, to serve as its masters of discipline, instillers of its culture, wardens both of the gene-seed and the memory of the Legion. A Speaker of the Dead was charged with overseeing the implantation of the Legion's gene-seed into potential aspirants as well as monitoring the physical and mental well-being of their fellow warriors. The Speakers of the Dead were also entrusted with the vital task of training new waves of the Legion's warriors and the watching over of its ranks for dangerous incidences of instability, either mental or physiological. In battle, they carried a variety of sophisticated biogenic and alchemical tinctures whose use was masked in primitive ritual in order to temporarily abjure hideous injuries incurred on the battlefield. These priests walked the path that threaded between both life and death, memory and oblivion, and while their healing balms might bring a warrior back from the brink of death, their garm-blood vials symbolised the other side of that coin; in it was a bitter poison that brought on a terrible death. It was they who encoded the VI Legion's history within memetically-patterned "sagas," and who recorded and judged the deeds both of the living and the dead so that the honoured might be remembered and the dishonoured despised.
- Caster of Runes - These were the predecessors of the present Space Wolf Rune Priests. They were undeniably an order of psykers who considered themselves a breed apart from the Librarians of the other Legions. Those chosen as the Casters of Runes had the psyker's gifts, but treated them warily as a potential curse as well as a blessing, reaching for their power only through a deliberate skein of cognitive shielding within their own minds, and aided by a unique lattice of psycho-memetic pattern field technology incorporated into their armour as a safeguard both against hostile outside forces and drawing down too much power themselves. They manipulated their powers through these little-understood runic matrices and adapted Fenrisian rituals, and provided the VI Legion with prognostication and shielded it from Empyreal threats.
- Priest of Iron - The Priests of Iron were the predecessors of the present Space Wolf Iron Priests. They were the masters of the Legion's armouries, its war machines and the technological arcana of the Space Wolves Legion. They masked their technological lore behind an outwardly barbaric show of tech-mysticism whose temper -- if not form -- would do justice to the most obtusely arcane Tech-adept of Mars. Their role was not simply to supply their Legion with arms and maintain their wargear, but ensure it was as self-sufficient as possible. They also stood guard over certain troves of weaponry and schematic patterns gifted by Terra and uniquely developed by the Iron Priests themselves.

Imperial Fists[]

"Each deed we perform is the setting of one stone upon another towards the raising of this great edifice that is the Imperium. The Traitors would tear down all our work, and bury us in the rubble of our own destruction."

— Castellan Felkon, Legiones Astartes Imperial Fists

Castellan - Upon the broad shoulders of the Lords Castellan were the foundations of the Imperium built. They were the unbending spine of the VII^th Legion, those chosen few lords of siege warfare who commanded armies in the name of their primarch, Rogal Dorn, conquering world after world. In their wake, the Castellans left only loyal, Compliant civilisations; erecting upon those worlds which they conquered mighty Imperial redoubts from which the defence of entire sub-sectors could be coordinated.

Sons of Horus[]

"Glory and the Warmaster’s favour are reserved only for those warriors who are willing to pay any price in the pursuit for victory. For the rest, only death and oblivion is befitting."

— Darthar Nerva, Sons of Horus Dark Emissary attached to the 89^th Iron Warriors Grand Battalion before the razing of Ulixia III

Dark Emissary - Commanding a galaxy-wide insurrection was no small feat, even for the extremely talented Horus Lupercal. Fortunately, the Warmaster's unparalleled record, abundance of charisma, and otherworldly patronage saw him win the support of half the Legiones Astartes -- and even more allies besides. To ensure that his allies and servants remained unquestioningly loyal during the Heresy, Horus instated the Dark Emissaries, specialised Legion Consuls who acted as his watchful eyes and ambassadors across the galaxy. These experienced Sons of Horus warriors ensured unflinching obedience in all who had pledged service to the Warmaster, from Traitor Auxilia and Fallen Nobles to his own Sons of Horus, and guided them with their strategic experience. Each Dark Emissary was a paragon of skill and martial prowess, an example that Horus expected every member of his Legion to strive towards. Should anyone fail to live up to the Warmaster's expectations -- or worse, display seditious intentions -- then a Dark Emissary could also act as an executioner for their exacting patriarch.

Word Bearers[]

Diabolist - A unique specialist of the Word Bearers Legion that were able to direct the corporeal manifestations of the Warp, manifesting what some observers referred to as Warp "magic." These mysterious esoteric specialists were first encountered by the Ultramarines during the Calth Atrocity, with the few survivors of the 22^nd Chapter of the Ultramarines referred to such officers as "Diabolists," a designation later adopted en masse by their brethren to identify those Word Bearers officers whose training appeared to somehow harness the ætheric medium as a weapon of war. Carefully hidden from Ultramarines observers, other officers of similar specialisation to those observed at Thrascia appear to have been present in most of the Word Bearers units mustered on Calth. Indeed, ritual use of psychic powers by these individuals appears to have been the source of some of the bizarre transformations and illogical tactical choices made by certain Word Bearers formations. One of many dictates issued by Roboute Guilliman in the campaigns following Calth was the priority targeting of enemy officers classified as Diabolists.

Alpha Legion[]

"Put your trust only in the weapons you bear; for even those you consider closest to you might harbour thoughts of malice and treason under the familiar visage of a trusted brother."

— Attr. to unknown Legionary impersonating Veteran Sergeant Titus Leito of the Imperial Fists, moments before the assassination of Castellan Glaukon

Saboteur - The Saboteur specialised in covert infiltration, assassination and sabotage, arts usually considered beneath the honour of the Legiones Astartes but at which the Alpha Legion had always excelled. Saboteurs made their presence known on the battlefield by the destruction they wreaked, often in the opening moments of a major engagement, striking against enemy command structures, vital units or defences, leaving the foe reeling before the Alpha Legion's onslaught.