Executioners Background: Selected Battle Honors

During the Plague of Unbelief, the Executioners were one of the first Chapters to declare war on the empire of the heretic Cardinal Bucharis. Bucharis was engaged in an ongoing siege of Fenris, home world of the Space Wolves, and this siege was supplied by the hive world of Nova Sulis. The Executioners assaulted Nova Sulis in order to weaken the siege, and slaughtered every human that did not prostrate themselves before the rampaging marines. When they departed, the severed heads of the populace were left lining the streets of the razed cities.

During these wars, the Executioners found kindred spirits in the more jovial Space Wolves, who ironically referred to the Executioners as "laughing axe men” in Fenrisian. For their role in ending the Plague of Unbelief, the Executioners were granted a successor Chapter, the Iron Champions.

The aging Rogue Trader Hektor Revvokan tried to gain the favor of the Chaos Gods in exchange for eternal life. His fleet slaughtered its way across the southern sectors of the Segmentum Tempestus for 57 years before being cornered by a combined force of Executioners, Mechanic Explorators, and the Imperial Navy. During the battle, the Executioners boarded Revvokan’s flagship, the Night Hag, before it escaped into the Warp. The stranded Executioners slaughtered their way through the Chaos tainted crew along with a band of World Eaters and took command of the ship long enough to bring it back into Realspace.

The Executioners claimed the Night Hag as a prize, and it was sanctified by the Mechanicus of Gryphonne IV in exchange for relic-technologies onboard. The tremendously ancient and powerful Night Hag is one of the most prized weapons of the Executioners and would play a pivotal role in the Badab War.

Responding to a series of distress calls, the Executioners 2^ndCompany found a string of destroyed Imperial outposts on the fringes of the Segmentum Tempestus. While investigating the wreckage on the dead world of Carrion Deep, they were ambushed by Necrons. Surrounded and outnumbered, it was only the leadership of Thulsa Kane that led the Executioners to victory. Leading a savage counter-attack, Thulsa Kane brought the Executioners into close-combat with the Necrons, where the barbaric Space Marines had the advantage. Breaking through a single point in the Necron line, Thulsa Kane challenged the Necron leader and struck it down, though his Crozius Arcanum was shattered and his right eye burned from his face.

This allowed the surviving Executioners to escape, though many wished to fight to the end. Less than a third of the original force survived, but given the circumstances, this is considered miraculous. Carrion Deep remains quarantined.

The end of the 39^th millennium was a tumultuous time for the southern fringes of the Imperium. The approaching Tyranid fleets caused an outbreak of witch cults, alien migrations, and demonic incursions. Following campaigns against Orks and Enslaver outbreaks, the Executioners had been reduced to less than three hundred marines. When the Chapter was weakest, Stygia-Aquilon itself was besieged.

The attackers were an unknown xenos species of rotting, ghoulish flesh eaters. Their powerful ships were able to penetrate the Darkenvault’s defenses and deliver invaders into its catacombs. The assault was unceasing, and the few surviving Executioners were soon pushed back to their inner sanctum.

Deliverance came from the Astral Claws and the Battlefleet Tempestus, just as the Executioners stood on the brink of extinction. The Astral Claws took substantial casualties breaking the siege, including the death of their Chapter Master, Acas Senaca. It took the Executioners more than 150 years to return to their full strength, but they never forgot their blood debt to the Astral Claws. When Lugft Huron called in that debt more than a millennium later, the Executioners did not hesitate to answer, though it could mean the death of their Chapter.