All of these Legions with their fancy tricks – they’re sickeningly fragile. Overcomplicated strategies and indulgent logistical planning? The best Astartes don’t need a lumbering supply train or a complex chain of command. You can drop them into the trenches with nothing but a knife and a gun, and they make do. Those highly illegal chemical weapons? Merely resting in the armoury. For safekeeping.
If you’re just joining us, we’re continuing our series of uncompromisingly unbiased reviews for each of the 18 Space Marines Legions involved in the Horus Heresy. Today it’s all about the greatest Legion of them all – the obstinate, inexorable, and unwashed Death Guard.
The XIV Legion were drawn from the belligerent clans of Old Albia, alongside the similarly doughty Iron Hands. These no-nonsense warriors had the genetic memory of sheet rain running to their core, and were dubbed the Dusk Raiders – a nod to the Albian tactic of mounting ground attacks in the eerie shadows of twilight.
While other Legions were waiting around as the Emperor’s personal attack dogs, the Dusk Raiders got on with the job – an attitude that only intensified when Mortarion arrived. Under their new Primarch, the XIV Legion sailed from warzone to warzone, not stopping except to refuel. They barely even painted their armour – battle damage is cooler than any gilded badge.
Mortarion encouraged this relentless approach with his own barebones style. His soldiers learned to fight any foe, in any atmosphere, with the most basic weapons… or none at all. If it was good enough for their gene-sire, it would be good enough for his gene-sons – Mortarion had to march to battle uphill, every day, in acid rain, without power armour!
The Primarch also renamed his Legion after the army he’d led to the toxic peaks of Barbarus – some of whom joined him in its ranks. The Dusk Raiders were old news – now the Death Guard stood ready to cleanse the galaxy of vile aliens, impure witches, and bestial, slavering mutants.
The Death Guard believe in going back to basics, winning footslogging fights through attrition and sheer force of will. Soaring into battle with fancy assault packs and other untrustworthy wargear, while not off-limits, is an infrequent tactic. Instead, they’re Remorseless in their advance. After following the Barbaran cardio regimen, there’s no objective these soldiers can’t reach on foot, and no enemy they can’t dismantle – with their bare hands if need be.
While some Legions stock up on dusty (and unreliable) plasma weapons, the XIV Legion prefer innovative (and volatile) chemical weapons – imagine a watergun that melts flesh into suppurating ooze. These things are so horrible that the Emperor outright banned them – and considering the sorts of weapons he does allow, you’d be right to assume that they’re unconscionably grim.
This armoury saw the Death Guard sent to more and more unpleasant battlefields – nobody wants their new backyard turned into a toxic swamp. Of course, conquering such hellish planets called for even nastier weaponry… it was a vicious cycle. And a viscous one.
Scattered across the stars, each Primarch was moulded by the world on which they landed – alas, the infant Mortarion was washed up on poison-choked Barbarus. The humans on this miserable little ball of toxins were ruled by inhuman psychic overlords, the greatest of whom – named Necare – adopted and named Mortarion. Much like his ironclad brother Perturabo, the young Primarch proved a less-than-grateful surrogate son – though admittedly, his adoptive dad was an ancient horror raising him to be a general for his undead armies.
Escaping his father’s grip, Mortarion discovered the humans who lived in the venomous valleys below, and recognised them as his true species – albeit much smaller, for some reason. His fellow humans were understandably suspicious of this towering ghoul, but he won them over with a shift in the fields – and soon turned his harvesting scythe against the overlords, taking heads in a bloody rebellion.*
On the cusp of Mortarion’s victory against his witch-lord father, the Emperor arrived and challenged him to take on the final overlord alone. When Mortarion fell, overwhelmed by Barbarus’ most potent toxins, the Master of Mankind swooped in and stole the kill right out of his lost son’s hands.
This slight wormed its way into the Primarch’s rotten heart – along with a hatred of psykers, a love of poisons, and all manner of other poor parental influences that he passed wholesale onto his sons.
With the seeds of doubt well and truly sown, Mortarion was an easy recruit for the Warmaster. Horus was among the few Primarchs the reticent Pale King ever got on with – the other being the erratic Night Haunter. Presumably the two bonded over a love of Halloween decorations.
In the Istvann system, the Death Guard became the immovable object that the rather more resistible Loyalist forces broke against during the Drop Site Massacre.** They indulged in some truly heinous acts along the way – unleashing virus bombs on Isstvan III to decimate Loyalist factions – including those from their own Legion.
Mortarion tried to reach out to his biker brother above the ruined world of Prospero, but the Khan knew which way the wind was blowing. The two came to blows, and though Jaghatai’s sharp tongue did more damage than his sword, Mortarion decided that discretion was the better part of valour. When next the brothers met, neither would back down – and the odds would be firmly in the Pale King’s favour.
Even though he’d turned his back on his dad (again), Mortarion hadn’t yet accepted his adoption by a new father figure – or, rather, Grandfather figure. First Captain Calas Typhon would see to that. A psyker who’d kept his abilities secret from his Primarch – understandably enough – Typhon stranded his Legion in the warp, where he became a living host to one of Nurgle’s most potent poxes: the Destroyer Plague.
Without putting too fine a point on it, this went right through them. It turns out “walk it off” and “tough it out” doesn’t work so well for a daemonic illness, and the Death Guard were forced to accept Nurgle into their hearts. And lungs. And spleens, bones, bowels…
By the time of the Siege of Terra, the newly “empowered” Death Guard and their Daemon Prince Mortarion waged a war of disease and destruction on the Throneworld – even after the Khan made good on his promise of a rematch.
Whether you love them at their stubborn best or their reeking worst, there’s a fecund crop of Death Guard fiction to consume – if you’ve got the stomach for it. Flight of the Eisenstein follows hot on the heels of the opening trilogy and follows the Death Guard Loyalist*** Nathaniel Garro and his 70 comrades on a tense mission to bring word of Horus’s betrayal at Isstvan to Terra.
The Buried Dagger digs deep into the rotten core of Mortarion’s hypocrisy, exposing his own dabblings with the warp and the consequences of his defection to the Warmaster. If you want more Primarch action, you’ll be happy to know that the daemon prince is getting his own novel, Mortarion: The Pale King, very soon.
Ready to paint up a grimy host? Our painting team has put together a video to help you out:
Should you feel you possess the drive, determination, and comfortable footwear required to plod into battle alongside the implacable Death Guard, head over to the Horus Heresy website and take the Pick Your Legion quiz to see if you are suitable. It’s also packed with information about Warhammer: The Horus Heresy – Age of Darkness.
* He would continue to use a scythe – named Silence – all the way to the 41st Millennium.
** Who needs finely-decorated fortifications when you’ve got a pile of mud and a few bolters?
*** Who’s the real Traitor here, huh?