"We are the Angels Encarmine. Every day is a day for death."
- — Chapter Master Castellan Zargo
The Angels Encarmine is a Second Founding Successor Chapter of the Blood Angels. Of all the Sons of Sanguinius, the Angels Encarmine are considered by their fellow Successor Chapters as the most aloof, displaying a contemptuous disregard for the weak.
Indeed, their arrogance surpasses that of the Blood Angels themselves. It is said by the Blood Angels' archivists that no Space Marine Chapter is as active as the Angels Encarmine. The Angels Encarmine's previous Chapter Master or "Castellan," Zargo, could not rest at peace and so forever sought opportunities to lead his brothers on campaign.
As a result, the Angels Encarmine are rarely at full strength, their numbers worn down by the attrition of constant warfare. This issue is compounded by the fact that Chapter's Death Company is always worryingly large.
What the Angels Encarmine lack in numerical strength, however, is more than compensated for in fervour. They have never once denied a request for assistance by Imperial forces, and have won the approbation of Chapter Masters and Planetary Governors alike for their selfless heroism.
For all their glorious victories, it is worrying to note that the Angels Encarmine rarely take to the field in a major engagement without their Death Company numbering at least thirty Battle-Brothers. This observation implies an increasing instability in the Chapter's gene-seed, and an inability to control their spiritual fury within.
Chapter History
Angels Encarmine Chapter colour scheme as displayed by a Firstborn Space Marine.
The Angels Encarmine share many traits with their progenitor Chapter, the Blood Angels, including the tragic genetic flaw that afflicts so many of the line of Sanguinius. This curse manifests itself in many different ways, but in the case of the Angels Encarmine it has led to a fiery, zealous temperament that drives the Chapter to ever greater heights of valour.
Amongst the Astartes, it is said that no other Chapter is as active or in combat as often as the Angels Encarmine. Their previous Chapter Master, Castellan Zargo, forever sought opportunities to lead his Chapter on campaign against the enemies of Mankind. As a result, this eternal Crusade led to a high rate of attrition amongst the ranks of the Chapter's Battle-Brothers, resulting in the Angels Encarmine rarely being at full strength.
It has been said of the Angels Encarmine that few other Chapters can match the battle honours they have earned, but it is also true that these have come at a terrible price. Where other Chapters might retire after a hard fought campaign to rebuild and reconstitute their numbers, the Angels Encarmine plunge headlong into the next battle.
Angels Encarmine Primaris Marine Brother Donaeo, 7th Company, 14th Squad (Battleline)
Rarely is any time given over to recuperation, meaning that the Chapter is seldom operating at anything like full strength. Though this Chapter may lack significant numbers of active Astartes, they more than make up for this with their determined fervor in battle.
It has been surmised that the Angels Encarmine fight in this manner as a means of staving off the worst effects of the Blood Angels' gene-seed flaw, but some well-placed observers whisper that perhaps the Angels Encarmine fight the way they do to purge their ranks of those in the grip of the Black Rage. Like their genetic primogenitors, this Chapter suffers from both of the genetic flaws of the Blood Angels, the Red Thirst and the Black Rage.
Those Angels Encarmine afflicted by the Black Rage are placed in a Death Company similar to that deployed by the Blood Angels. It has been noted that this company rarely has less than 30 Astartes, making it larger than that of most of its fellow Blood Angels Successors. This could point to an acceleration in the numbers of Battle-Brothers falling prone to the Black Rage, a fact that would surely have heralded the eventual doom of the Angels Encarmine had the Primaris Space Marines not been inducted into the Chapter after the Devastation of Baal.
Notable Campaigns
- Gathering of Heroes (266.M37) - A combined force of Blood Angels, Angels Encarmine and Blood Drinkers engaged with Traitor forces on the archeotech world of Hell's Hollow. Though the Chaos Cultist hosts were swiftly put to death, the attack came too late to prevent their completion of a heretical ritual. The veil was pierced, and a tide of daemons spilled through into the planet's macrocities. The Blood Angels and their brethren reacted to this new development with typical courage and resolve. The main strength of the strike force was deployed in a series of holding actions, stemming the daemonic tide long enough for the Death Company to be hurled against the ritual site itself. Amidst an orgy of violence, the black-armoured Battle-Brothers slaughtered everything in their path, closing the rift at the price of their own lives.
- Achilus Crusade (801.M41) - Due to the Chapter's restless nature and desire to prosecute the foes of the Imperium, it is not surprising that it dispatched a force to participate in the Achilus Crusade. The Chapter's first recorded appearance in the region was in 801.M41, when a demi-company sized battle force took part in a series of fleet actions against Renegade vessels on the outskirts of the Blood Trinity. These battles came to head with the boarding of the Chaos Desolator-class Battleship Symphony of Pain, during which the Angels Encarmine fought their way from their boarding point, through the twisted and winding corridors, in order to mount an assault on the ship's bridge. Though their Company Champion was able to cut down the ship's master -- a blasphemous hybrid of daemon-possessed mortal flesh fused with clanking machinery -- a massive counterattack was launched. The Angels Encarmine did not withdraw before completing their mission, however, setting structural decompression charges keyed to a "dead hand" fuse. Though most of the Angels Encarmine were cut down by the counterattack and massively outnumbered by hordes of screaming Heretics, the Company Champion and several of his brethren fought their way back to their boarding vessel and escaped. With the Symphony of Pain crippled by the compression charges, the Company Champion later took the Apocryphon Oath, serving three consecutive vigils of the Long Watch before he finally returned to his Chapter in 810.M41, a hero of both the Angels Encarmine and of the Deathwatch.
- Rynn's World Campaign (991.M41) - In 991.M41 elements of the Angels Encarmine participated in the Imperial effort to reclaim Rynn's World, the Crimson Fists' homeworld, from the Orks of WAAAGH! Snagrod who had captured it.
A trio of Angels Encarmine Dreadnoughts deploy upon the world of Stromark Secundus.
- Stromark Civil War (991.M41) - A political rivalry within the Stromark System led to a civil war between the two manufactorum worlds, Stromark Primus and Stromark Secundus, that coexisted within that star system. The escalating violence halted the flow of much needed weapons and material from these planets to the wider Imperium, a situation that the Departmento Munitorum's Adepts determined could not be allowed to continue without adversely affecting the security of the Emperor's realm. As a result, elements of two Successor Chapters of the Blood Angels, the Angels Encarmine and the Flesh Tearers, were despatched to the Stromark System with the mandate to end the conflict by any means necessary. The fighting on Stromark Prime was the first to cease. The first engagement by the Flesh Tearers Chapter was also the last, as stories of unstoppable Space Marines hacking a vicious and bloody path through literally tens of thousands of Stromarkian warriors quickly terrified the planet's recalcitrant population into submission. Stromark Secundus took longer to be pacified, as the Angels Encarmine used less "direct" methods than their savage brethren amongst the Flesh Tearers. Several hours of difficult combat ensued that was brought to an end when 5 of the Chapter's Furioso Dreadnoughts smashed into Stromark Secundus' military headquarters and tore the planet's High Command apart, literally limb from limb. The surviving officers of the Planetary Defence Force wisely agreed to immediately end the conflict with their neighbours and resume meeting the system's crucial production quotas.
- Scions of Sanguinius Conclave (999.M41) - Teetering on the brink of oblivion following the events on the Shrine World of Sabien, the fate of the Blood Angels Chapter now required the magnanimity of their Successor Chapters. Lord Commander Dante summoned all of the Blood Angels' Successor Chapters for a conclave on Baal following the near-disastrous Chapter civil war that nearly tore the Blood Angels apart. Dante called for the support of the Blood Angels Successors to help aid the Chapter in the protection of their common primarch's homeworld and his remains from the attack of both the Tyranids and the Forces of Chaos. While Dante lead the discussion at the conclave, the Apothecaria was working on a radical new procedure to replenish the ranks of the Blood Angels in one swift stroke: the lost art of replicae. Caecus was the Chief Apothecary or Apothecae Majoris of the Blood Angels. Disturbed by the dwindling numbers of his Chapter, and dreading its extinction, he was involved in fruitless experiments, which Lord Commander Dante ordered stopped, to clone Space Marines, thus eliminating the need to go through the arduous process of the maturation and implantation of the gene-seed in an Aspirant. However, Caecus disobeyed the order and secretly continued the experiments, prodded by an agent of the vile Chaos Space Marine Apothecary Fabius Bile. He was tricked into bringing Bile, who was disguised as a well-known Adeptus Mechanicus Magos Biologis, to Baal, mistakenly thinking the false "Magos" would help in cloning Space Marines to increase the Blood Angels' numbers. Through Bile's manipulations, Caecus was duped, and only managed to create monstrous, mutant clone-Astartes known as "Bloodfiends" who were consumed by the Red Thirst. These creatures were a shattered mirror reformed in the image of a Blood Angel, but lacked any of the qualities that could be thought of as human. The mutations that cursed the gene-seed of the Blood Angels had been enhanced by the machinations and Chaotic tech-heresy of Fabius Bile, and with each drop of blood they consumed, the thirst that dominated the Bloodfiends grew stronger. The mutants broke free from the confines of Caecus' laboratorium and began to run rampant through the sacred halls of the fortress-monastery of the Blood Angels. The Angels Encarmine, along with the Blood Angels and their fellow Successors successfully defended their most sacred of sites on Baal -- the Golden Sarcophagus of Sanguinius within the sacred sepulchre where the Great Angel lay for all time, sleeping in light, forever preserved. The Sons of Sanguinius destroyed the horde of mutants and erased the stain of Chaos from their midst. They had paid for the continued sanctity of the Great Angel with their blood, and in the aftermath of this misery, Lord Commander Dante took responsibility for what had happened and he accepted it without complaint. Dante believed that it was his hubris that had brought the Chapter to this dark place. The Successor Chapters took this into consideration as well as Lord Commander Dante's original request for the Successors to grant the Blood Angels a small tithe of their Chapter's Initiates in order to replenish the ranks of the Chapter. The Successor Chapters unanimously agreed to hand over to the Blood Angels some of their own Neophytes to help their ancestral Chapter rebuild its strength in the wake of the Chaos assault -- and in preparation for the oncoming assault by the Tyranids and the forces of Chaos.
- Devastation of Baal (ca. 999.M41) - During the Devastation of Baal, the Angels Encarmine stood with the Blood Angels to defend Baal from the assault of the Tyranids' Hive Fleet Leviathan. Castellan Zargo, the Angels Encarmine's Chapter Master, led the defence of the Arx Murus, and paid the ultimate price along with two thirds of his Chapter in the face of the Great Devourer's endless assault. In the wake of this conflict, the ranks of the Angels Encarmine were replenished by Primaris Space Marines raised from Sanguinius' own gene-seed brought by Roboute Guilliman's Indomitus Crusade to Baal.
Chapter Organisation
The Angels Encarmine adhere to the organisation of the Blood Angels Chapter as laid out in the Codex Blood Angels. As such, they are not a fully Codex Astartes-compliant Chapter, as the Chapter is barely at half strength.
It has been observed that the Chapter's Death Company, the formation into which those suffering the worst of the flaw are grouped, is larger than that of most of its fellow Blood Angels Successors. This could point to an acceleration in the numbers of Battle-Brothers falling prone to the Black Rage, at least before the introduction of the Primaris Space Marines into the Chapter.
Chapter Gene-Seed
The Angels Encarmine share many traits with their progenitor Chapter, the Blood Angels, including the tragic genetic flaw that afflicts so many of the line of Sanguinius. This curse manifests itself in many different ways, but in the case of the Angels Encarmine it has led to a fiery, zealous temperament that drives the Chapter to ever greater heights of valour.
Notable Angels Encarmine
- Castellan Zargo - Castellan Zargo was the former Chapter Master of the Angels Encarmine. He sought to keep his Chapter perpetually engaged against the enemies of the Emperor, which has led to the Chapter's extremely high attrition rate. Castellan Zargo was killed during the Devastation of Baal while he led the defence of the Arx Murus along with two thirds of his Chapter.
- Castellan Ilemnial - Former Chapter Master of the Angels Encarmine. Ilemnial fell at the hands of an arch-enemy daemon, the Castellan's sacrifice allowed the Angels Encarmine's librarium to send the creature back to its hellish domain.
- Castellan Jerricho - Castellan Jerricho was the Chapter Master of the Angels Encarmine during the start of the 41st millenium.
- Captain Arjen - First Captain of the Angels Encarmine, Arjen is a vaunted Veteran officer of the Angels Encarmine who struggles mightily with the genetic curse of his bloodline.
- Captain Fracimmion - Captain of the Angels Encarmine and the Master of the Fleet.
- Ptolemius - A Furioso Dreadnought, Ptolemius was once a Librarian of the Blood Angels who fought during the Horus Heresy. He and the other five Dreadnoughts took a great role in the Stromark Civil War.
- Cassiel - Cassiel is a Dreadnought of the Angels Encarmine. He was once a Sergeant of the Blood Angels during the Horus Heresy.
Chapter Relics
"Five hundred and twelve warriors of the Ork force at Graal IV... the so-called Seer Council of Nalathien, numbering five-and-two-score... Gaius Beregil, the Screaming Prophet of Falkata... Gervhardt of the Seven Sigils, Warlord of the Iron Warriors."
- — A selection of the recorded kills of the weapon Red Dawn
- Red Dawn - Though said to have been the favoured weapon of a long-departed Deathwatch Watch Captain, this Power Axe of the Angels Encarmine has a long history on the front lines of the Deathwatch's most perilous missions. Its unique power field maintains a barely perceptible haze over the blade when dormant. When the blade bites flesh or armour, it flares with an incandescent scarlet glow like a newborn star, ripping through the foe with little more resistance than mist.
Chapter Fleet
- In Excelcis (Battle Barge) - The In Excelcis was the primary ship from which Chapter Master Zargo led his fleet during the Stromark Civil War.
- Scion of Baal (Strike Cruiser) - The strike cruiser Scion of Baal was lost at the culmination of a solar-decade-long crusade to rid the galactic south of a Tyranid splinter fleet.
Chapter Appearance
Chapter Colours
The Angels Encarmine's power armour is painted red, with black trim and black backpack and a yellow Aquila symbol on the chest plate.
Like all Successor Chapters of the Blood Angels' Sanguinary Brotherhood, the Angels Encarmine maintain an elite force of Assault Marines known as the Sanguinary Guard and a Death Company to contain those Space Marines who succumb to the Red Thirst and the Black Rage.
However the colours of their Death Company and Sanguinary Guard are an alabaster white, with black shoulder guard trim and backpack, but still bear blood-red saltires to symbolise the wounds of the the Blood Angels' Primarch Sanguinius after he was slain by the Warmaster Horus during the Horus Heresy.
Chapter Badge
The Angels Encarmine's Chapter badge is a single, red droplet of blood with a pair of ebon bat-like wings (displayed and elevated) protruding from its sides, centred on a field of red.
Sources
- Codex Adeptus Astartes - Blood Angels (8th Edition), pp. 14, 18, 20
- Codex: Adeptus Astartes - Blood Angels (7th Edition), pp. 44-46
- Codex: Blood Angels (5th Edition), pg. 54
- Codex: Space Marines (3rd Edition), pg. 47
- Codex: Angels of Death (2nd Edition), pg. 34
- Deathwatch: Honour the Chapter (RPG), pp. 103, 131
- The Stromark Massacre (Audio) by Andy Smillie and C.Z. Dunn
- Terror Nihil: Part Two of the Stromark Massacre (Audio) by C.Z. Dunn
- The Devastation of Baal (Novel) by Guy Haley
- Trial By Blood (Novel) by Andy Smillie
Gallery
