Legio Crucius

Legio Crucius, the Warmongers, is a loyalist Titan Legion of the Collegia Titanica based on the Forge World of Ryza. A Titan Legion is a Collegia Titanica engine-house that fields god-engines in the service of the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Imperium. The date of the Legion’s founding is not firmly established; it is possibly older than the Great Crusade, and later tradition places its origins among the Ryzan Mechanicum of the Age of Strife. Its colours are recorded as black and white.

Ryza’s culture shaped the Legion. During the Age of Strife the world followed a Cult Mechanicus sect, the Omnissiah Igvita (“Life Blood of the Omnissiah”), which held plasma to be the lifeblood of the Machine-God. The Legion accordingly came to wield a large amount of plasma technology. The Crucius are regarded as planners and forward thinkers, even among the logical Mechanicum, and as early students of Titan-against-Titan combat. They maintain garrisons on Forge Worlds and Mechanicus outposts allied to Ryza, among them Angstrom in the Maelstrom Zone. Before the Horus Heresy, tension over Ryza’s growing power and its hoarding of plasma technology led to a strengthening of the Legion in preparation for conflict with Mars. Its strength at the outbreak of the Heresy is recorded as some 152 Titans, though the figure may understate a force that concealed its true size.

During the Horus Heresy the Legion held to the Imperium. Its fortified outposts on the approaches to Ryza were essential to the Defence of Ryza. On Molech, its stronghold was Iron Fist Mountain, behind the capital Lupercalia. Its Titans defended Leosta beside the Knights of Houses Indra and Kaushik and Lupercalia beside Legio Gryphonicus. When Lupercalia fell to the forces of Horus, the Legion had suffered heavy losses, including the Imperator Titan Paragon of Terra, piloted by Princeps Etana Kalonice and destroyed by Knights of the traitorous House Devine. Grunal Krom is recorded as its Grand Master in this period. Its maniples also fought alongside those of Legio Destructor and Legio Ignatum at the Siege of Travo’anor.

In later millennia the Legion took part in the Siege of Badab, where High Princeps Cadmon Krom led fifteen Titans in three maniples against the hive defences of Badab Primaris and lost three of them. It is recorded as defending Ryza against the Ork Waaagh! Grax in 925.M41, and in 998.M41 it fought two Gargant mobs for the Diabolus Complex in the Third War for Armageddon, with six Titans and eight Gargants destroyed. In the 42nd Millennium it supported Archmagos Prime Farthidya Kantum in the Octarius War, and Princeps Matteus Kalonice led five Titans to Armageddon in the Season of Blood. Further detachments defended Hive Helsreach in the Fourth War for Armageddon. At an undated Battle of Kado, the Imperator Praeco Deictus was lost.