Luna Wolf: Animal Wizard (Alesha Dixon's exciting, magical new book, perfect for young animal fans!)

Product Information

In the days that followed his miraculous recovery on Davin's moon, Horus' officers detected a change in his character. The Warmaster proceeded to use the warrior lodge present in the XVI th Legion to begin to subvert his officers and their Astartes to the service of the Dark Gods and to build support for his plan of rebellion against the Emperor. Much of the Luna Wolves' reputation was the reflection of the qualities of their primarch. Horus' charisma and unequalled record of victories, as well as his known closeness to the Emperor, lent him a measure of respect unrivaled among his brother primarchs. Horus demonstrated an almost preternatural talent for wielding the relative strengths of the other Legions to their best advantage on a strategic level. Horus was said by some to be without peer as a commander and a ruler within the Imperium, surpassed only by the Emperor Himself. Now falling firmly into the grip of Chaos, Horus chose the world of Istvaan III to dispose of those members of the four openly declared Traitor Legions -- the Sons of Horus, the Emperor's Children, the World Eaters and the Death Guard -- that he could not trust to follow him or serve the Chaos Gods in his new quest to dethrone the Emperor and rule the galaxy himself.

The Luna Wolves' approach to the Great Crusade was direct and brutal, and their results were often inelegant if unmistakably effective. Though it proved bloody, the XVI th Legion's progress was undoubtedly swift and laurels of victory were heaped upon the Luna Wolves and above all upon their primarch Horus, the most beloved son of the Emperor. Later, Loken was discovered as a half-crazed berserker Astartes who now called himself "Cerberus." Surviving his ordeal on Istvaan III, he was recruited from the undead-haunted ruins of the Choral City by his fellow Loyalist Space Marine Captain Nathaniel Garro, formerly of the Death Guard Legion, and the Agentia Primus of Malcador the Sigillite's Knights-Errant, to serve as one of the Knights-Errant. In other Space Marine Legions a company would form part of further layers of hierarchical military organisation, variously referred to as battalions, cohorts, chapters, regiments or by any number of other titles. Horus seems to have preferred to avoid this extra layer of fixed organisation, which eroded over time in the Legion and was largely academic by the time of their transition to become the Sons of Horus.Records, tainted as they may be, place the Sons of Horus at a fighting strength of approximately 130,000-170,000 Space Marines in the period leading up to the Isstvan III Atrocity. Although the figure may have been higher, this estimate would also tally with more general assessments of the Sons of Horus Legion being in the upper quarter of the Legions in terms of the Space Marine manpower available to them. At some time the notion of the Emperor sending His "wolves" to break intractable or potential enemies took root in the consciousness of the new-born Imperium of Man, with the Pacification of Luna in the late 30 th Millennium -- considered by many the first true battle of the Great Crusade -- its apocryphal source. The XVI th Legion embraced the epithet "Luna Wolves" they earned after this first campaign with relish. After Horus' corruption by the Ruinous Powers of Chaos following his healing by the Chaos Cultists of the Serpent Lodge on Davin's moon, the Mournival became divided. Abaddon and Horus Aximand gave themselves over completely to their beloved leader and chose to follow him into the worship of the Chaos Gods, while Torgaddon and Loken remained loyal to the Emperor of Mankind.

It was on the moon of the Feral World of Davin that Horus' fate was sealed. This was the second time his Legion had been posted to this world; after the previous visit sixty standard years earlier the Luna Wolves had adopted the native Davinite institution of warrior lodges. Though these lodges had begun as simple fraternities of warriors, their secretive nature handed Lorgar, the primarch of the Word Bearers Legion and his First Chaplain Erebus, the tool they needed to manipulate Horus towards the service of the Chaos Gods. One avatar of the increasing influence of the Legion's Cthonian brothers was the late reemergence of Cthonian gang-sigils graven into a given Space Marine's armour that recorded his notable kills and deeds, as well as to which company of the Legion they belonged. This was a practice which accelerated rapidly after the XVI th Legion had transitioned into its new identity as the Sons of Horus following the elevation of Horus to the rank of Warmaster. Before being chosen to join the Mournival, Loken's place had been filled by Captain Hastur Sejanus of the 4th Company, a particularly beloved friend of Horus who had been murdered during the negotiations to gain Imperial Compliance of the world of Sixty-Three-Nineteen.

Spice-Up Your Kitchen on Black Friday with the Comfee FLASHWAVE Toaster Oven

The First Pacification of Luna in 703.M30 was perhaps the most famous of these early victories for the XVI th Legion, but the breaking of the Coriolis Enclaves and the Five Winter left scars in the collective consciousness of Terran society that persist even now. In the Capridian Sinks, it is still common for traders and gamblers to refer to the Legion's ancient number of sixteen as "the counting of the wolf." Grael Noctua - Noctua was a Tactical Squad Sergeant assigned to the Sons of Horus' 25 th Company during the Horus Heresy. Noctua was recommended to become a member of the Mournival by Captain Horus Aximand following the Battle of the Mausolytic Precinct on the planet Dwell to replace the Mournival members who had been lost on Isstvan III during the conflict between the Traitors and Loyalists within the Sons of Horus.

It was a traumatic and devastating blow for the Sons of Horus. Leaderless, the remnants of the XVI th Legion fled into the Eye of Terror, where the Legion's First Captain Ezekyle Abaddon eventually rose to claim the mantle of Warmaster of the Forces of Chaos and become Horus' heir as the greatest of the Champions of Chaos.Tactical Squads made up half this strength numerically, with the Legion placing in general great importance on the use of Tactical Squads in every deployment. The rest consisted of two veteran units, three reconnaissance units, a heavy support squad and multiple batteries of support weaponry.

The XVI th Legion's Great Crusade fleet was accorded to be among the greatest under any single commander's flag, with in excess of one hundred capital ships and perhaps three times that figure in smaller Cruisers and Escorts under Horus' direct command. I was never a Son of Horus. I was and remain a Luna Wolf. A proud son of Cthonia, a loyal servant of the Emperor, beloved by all. I am your enemy." Pacification of Schravaan (Unknown Date.M30) - This was a joint Imperial Compliance conducted by the Luna Wolves, Iron Warriors, Imperial Fists, and the Emperor's Children Legions against the xenos Badoon on the world of Schravaan. The Iron Warriors won a great victory when they stormed the final refuge of the Badoon. They breached the defences and held while the other Legions carried the city beyond. During the following victory feast, Horus proclaimed Perturabo the greatest master of siege warfare in the Great Crusade. Fulgrim, the primarch of the Emperor's Children then inquired to his brother Dorn whether he thought even the defences of the Imperial Palace could resist the Iron Warriors, in which Dorn replied that he regarded the defences as being proof against any assault if well-planned. Perturabo flew into a rage and unleashed unfounded accusations against his brother. After this the two rarely spoke, and neither Legion would serve again in the same campaign for the remainder of the Great Crusade. However, following their corruption by Chaos, the Sons of Horus Legion's Space Marines started to exhibit random genetic mutations, and it is likely that this taint now affects their gene-seed as it has almost all of the Traitor Legions. The regular practice beginning in the Horus Heresy amongst the Legion's Astartes of seeking daemonic possession may also have accelerated the effect.The rank of Captain within the Legion also held subtle variations of authority. Generally those in command of a lower numbered company outranked those in a higher numbered company, while those who had once had overall command of a campaign were considered superior to those officers he had commanded during that action. At the top of this informal but very real hierarchy of Legion officers were those Captains who served as Horus' closest advisors and in particular the First Captain of the Legion who commanded the elite 1 st Company and also served as his primarch's principal field officer and second-in-command. Though the Luna Wolves had won many victories in their years of ceaseless conflict, one would eclipse all others and see them reborn once again. The greatest of the nascent Imperium's victories during the high point of the Great Crusade came in the form of the defeat of the largest Ork empire ever encountered. King Eater (Battle Barge, Unknown Class) - Flagship of First Captain Abaddon during the Manachean War.