Captain Tycho

Captain Tycho, properly Erasmus Tycho, was a Captain of the Blood Angels 3rd Company whose career was bound to the Wars for Armageddon. A son of Baal, he was accounted among the most gifted commanders of his generation and, for a time, the presumed successor to Chapter Master Dante, with whom he served across successive campaigns. He is remembered chiefly for the disfigurement he suffered on Armageddon, for the Dead Man’s Hand, the relic weapon associated with his name, and for his death in the Third War.

In the First War for Armageddon an Ork weirdboy’s psychic assault is recorded as fixing half of Tycho’s face into a permanent rictus. The Blood Angels, vigilant for signs of the Flaw within their gene-line, regarded the injury as ominous in so favoured a warrior. Tycho wore a grille mask over the damaged side of his face and did not raise the question of succession again. He returned for the Second War for Armageddon, fighting at Taladorn among other engagements and taking part in the Chapter’s actions against a Tyranid hive fleet. His conduct there led the Sanguinary Priesthood to question his mental fitness, though he retained command of the 3rd Company.

During the Third War for Armageddon, against the renewed Waaagh! of Ghazghkull Thraka, the Chaplains judged that Tycho showed the marks of the Black Rage, the inherited echo of Sanguinius’ death. He was assigned to the Death Company and is recorded as dying in that state while breaking down the walls of Hive Tempestora during the fighting to retake it from the Orks. He was a contemporary of Dante and of Commissar Sebastian Yarrick, who fought against the same Ork invasions on Armageddon. His career links Baal, the Blood Angels’ home world, to the Armageddon system, and shows how the Chapter’s inherited flaw could overtake a captain once marked for high office.