Event · M31
Dropsite survivors
The Dropsite survivors were the loyalist Space Marines who escaped the Isstvan V massacre of 007.M31 and later formed the Shattered Legions. They came chiefly from the Iron Hands, the Raven Guard and the Salamanders, three Legions ordered to the Isstvan system by Warmaster Horus as a supposed punitive action against rebellious Imperial Commanders. The survivors are significant because they were the first organised loyalist force to emerge from the opening blow of the Horus Heresy, and because the Shattered Legions formation is traced to their escape. The massacre began at the Urgall dropsite on Isstvan V, when the Legions of Horus, the Emperor’s Children, the Iron Warriors and the Death Guard turned on the loyalist contingents that had landed beside them. Ferrus Manus of the Iron Hands is recorded as having been killed in the fighting, and Corax of the Raven Guard was gravely wounded. The loyalist Legions were badly reduced; those who survived did so by breaking away into the surrounding mountains and by reaching ships that were able to leave the system, and the relative sizes of the three groups are described differently in later accounts. In the aftermath the survivors retreated from the Isstvan system under Raven Guard leadership, and the remnants of the three Legions are recorded as operating together under the name Shattered Legions. Their later course in the war, including how long the formation held together and which detachments rejoined their parent Legions, is treated differently across accounts and is not settled here. On the map, Isstvan V anchors the massacre itself. On the timeline the event stands at the start of the Heresy, before the Siege of Terra, and it fixes the point at which loyalist and traitor Legions became open enemies.
See where Dropsite survivors occurred on the galactic map during the Horus Heresy.