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"You foster discord, Seth. You thrive upon it!"
The Flesh Tearer smiled. "I stand corrected. You do understand my kind after all. You've cut to the heart of me.
"

Chapter Master Gabriel Seth and Commander Dante of the Blood Angels debate during the Conclave of the Scions of Sanguinius

The Flesh Tearers is a Loyalist Space Marine Chapter and the smallest Second Founding successor of the Blood Angels, once numbering only four full companies of Astartes at their nadir before the Devastation of Baal.

They are true servants of the Emperor of Mankind though their heavy affliction with the genetic flaws of their Primarch Sanguinius and the resulting brutality has led to their investigation on charges of heresy by the Inquisition. They have been cleared of suspicion at present.

Like their progenitors, the Flesh Tearers are known for their bloodthirsty nature in battle, bad temper and are feared for the flaws like the Black Rage and the Red Thirst that they carry within their gene-seed.

They fight as mad butchers, ripping apart their foes in a vain effort to quiet the fury in their blood. In battle, the whir of their chain weapons is lost beneath guttural snarls of hate and the pain of the Red Thirst and Black Rage that is the truth of their tattered souls.

The Flesh Tearers' blood-rage is infamous across the Imperium, as are the savage deeds said to have been performed by their battle-brothers. So divorced have the Flesh Tearers become from the rest of Mankind that most Imperial Commanders accept the Chapter's help only in the direst of circumstances.

There is good reason for this caution. On more than one occasion, the enemy body count has not been enough to sate the Flesh Tearers' bloodlust, and many are the Imperial Commanders who have thought themselves saved only to watch in horror as the warrior angels sent to liberate them succumb to their curse.

Lost in the throes of slaughter, the Flesh Tearers often fail to recognise a battle's end, turning their weapons on their allies and even the Humans who thought them angelic saviours. They kill until nothing remains but bloodied ground, churned viscera, and the fading thrum of their double hearts.

This is their truth, the core of their beings -- not the imagined half-divinity believed by the Imperial masses, but the red truth of angels of death lost in a dream of suffering and slaughter.

The Flesh Tearers' relationship with the other Blood Angels Successor Chapters is strained at best. The sons of Cretacia have fallen far from the artisan angel that spawned them, and they stand as a dark mirror of what all sons of Sanguinius might one day become.

It is not a reflection other scions of Sanguinius can look upon without fearful shame. Worse still is the attention that the Flesh Tearers have drawn from the wider Imperium. Continued animosity between the Flesh Tearers and members of the Inquisition have drawn the eye of judgement to the descendants of the Angel and the genetic flaw in their blood.

Indeed, it was only through the intervention of the Blood Angels' High Chaplain Astorath at the trial of the Carmine Court, when the Flesh Tearers' Chapter Master Gabriel Seth stood before Dante and every other Chapter Master of the successors, that the Flesh Tearers were prevented from being cast out and destroyed.

Whatever Astorath knows or has seen of the future, whatever plans he has for Seth and his army of slaughterers, they are a mystery to even Commander Dante himself.

In the wake of the Indomitus Crusade and the Devastation of Baal in ca. 999.M41, the Flesh Tearers' dwindling ranks were brought up to full strength by an infusion of hundreds of Primaris Space Marines drawn from Sanguinius' lineage.

As these new Astartes are believed to be more resistant to the Flaw in Sanguinius' gene-seed than their brethren, it remains to be seen what change, if any, this will bring to the Flesh Tearers' and their penchant for uncontrolled savagery.

The Flesh Tearers generally make use of the tactical organisation pioneered by the Blood Angels, though they favour close combat over ranged warfare and most Flesh Tearer Space Marines are skilled with melee weapons like chainswords or Power Swords and bear them into battle.

The Flesh Tearers call the Death World of Cretacia home. It is a violent, tropical world where the dominant forms of life are giant reptiles very similar to the dinosaurs who once existed on Terra during the Cretaceous Period more than 65 million standard years ago.

It is a common right of passage for Flesh Tearers recruits to hunt these massive animals and bring back a trophy of their kill before they are made neophytes of the Chapter.

Chapter History

"Only in death does duty end. This is the favoured axiom of the rulers of man and the craven orators who speak on their behalf. For our sins, we too have passed on such falsehoods to our own, instilling in them the notion that death is the end of all things. We were wrong about the nature of our duty. We were wrong about death's place in the order of things. It was only at the edge of madness, drenched in the blood of brother and foe, that we learnt the error of our thinking. For only in death does duty begin. It matters not in what colour we daub our armour or which symbol we carve on our pauldrons. Our purpose remains what it was always intended to be. We will kill the enemies of Mankind, and with blade and fire protect the Emperor's domain. We are harbingers of death, angels of vengeance, tearers of flesh."

— Flesh Tearers Chapter Master Nassir Amit
Flesh Tearers Scheme

Flesh Tearers Chapter colour scheme as displayed by a Firstborn Space Marine.

Origins

The Flesh Tearers Chapter was created in the early 31st Millennium after the primarch of the Ultramarines, Roboute Guilliman, who led the reformation sweeping the Imperium of Man after the Horus Heresy in the Time of Rebirth as its first lord commander, determined that all of the existing Space Marine Legions would be broken up into 1,000-Astartes Chapters.

This was so that no single military commander could ever again wield the dangerous power of an entire Astartes Legion. This event is known as the "Second Founding" and the Flesh Tearers was one of the Chapters formed from the Blood Angels Legion, even as they continued to grieve for their fallen primarch, Sanguinius, who had been slain by Horus at the climax of the Siege of Terra.

Flesh Tearer Mk IV

Flesh Tearers Tactical Marine in Mark IV Maximus Power Armour at the time of the Second Founding.

When the Flesh Tearers Chapter was brought into being during the Second Founding, Captain Nassir Amit, the commander of the Blood Angels Legion's 5th Company, was chosen to be its first Chapter Master. Of all the IXth Legion's captains, Amit's reputation -- and that of his company -- was the most bloodthirsty. More than once, the 5th Company had been called to censure by Sanguinius for its zeal in pursuing enemy forces.

It was not for nothing that the outspoken officer had earned the nickname "the Flesh Tearer," when serving in the gladiatorial pits of the World Eaters Legion alongside his Oath Brother Khârn and rather than deny the epithet, he had made it his own.

Amit had a predatory way about him, a sense of aggression barely held in check that was often unleashed in full many times on the field of battle throughout the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy. Like their commander, the battle-brothers of the 5th Company were known to bear bolters and flaying knives in battle.

FleshTearersPrimaris

Flesh Tearers Chapter colour scheme as displayed by Primaris Marine Brother Sevrael, 5th Company, 2nd Squad (battleline). The 5th Company was newly reformed by the Chapter following an influx of Primaris Marine reinforcements during the Indomitus Crusade.

After their official formation, the Flesh Tearers immediately left Terra to embark upon a new Imperial Crusade to eliminate Traitor forces still loyal to the Warmaster Horus as well as continuing to purge Chaos infestations from Imperial worlds during the period known as the Great Scouring.

The Flesh Tearers were assigned the battle barge Victus from their former Legion, which served as their mobile fortress-monastery. The Flesh Tearers' reputation for savagery in battle was soon well-known, and so the terrible flaws of the IXth Legion's genetic legacy must have asserted themselves very soon after the death of the Blood Angels' Primarch Sanguinius.

During this time, these Space Marines remained constantly on crusade, destroying any Heretics whose path they crossed. Those they encountered, they defeated. Those they defeated, they utterly annihilated, leaving no stone left unturned and no living beings to continue any heresy.

Some rumours circulated of their brutality, even going so far as to reach the High Lords of Terra. However, their degree of success in achieving compliancy was nearly unparalleled. During this period of strife, as the Imperium recovered from Horus' treachery, results were valued far more than technique. As such, there were no investigations into the savage rumours that accompanied the Flesh Tearers' implacable advance.

Over time, the Flesh Tearers continued to earn a reputation for savagery. These volatile Astartes revelled in each close assault action and continued to cause unacceptable levels of collateral damage. Some reports indicated that during their mad frenzies, the Flesh Tearers continued their battle actions against allied forces or even against the innocent civilians whom they were assigned to protect.

Their reputation for such savagery has spread through the millennia to the extent that some forces -- including several other Space Marine Chapters -- are no longer willing to engage in allied missions with members of the Flesh Tearers. In spite of this fact, there are numerous instances where the Flesh Tearers have worked in battle zones with other Chapters. On a number of occasions, these included other Chapters that were known to be part of the Blood Angels lineage.

The Flesh Tearers fall prey to the curse of the Black Rage far more often than members of any other Chapter descended from Sanguinius' lineage. This is believed to be due to a mutation in their gene-seed, but their combat doctrines and military philosophy may also influence the frequency of the onset of the tragic psychogenetic syndrome.

At the time of its formation, the Flesh Tearers Chapter discontinued the Blood Angels' practice of imbibing blood transfusions during a neophyte's initiation using the artefact known as the Red Grail. Some Imperial scholars speculate that this change could have contributed to the horrific mutation of their gene-seed that worsened the genetic Flaw of their lineage.

When Flesh Tearers battle-brothers show the characteristic signs that they are falling prey to the Flaw, they are inducted into the Chapter's Death Company and isolated from their healthier brethren. These Space Marines continue their service under the supervision of the High Chaplain of the Death Company, residing in the specially-adapted strike cruiser Death's Cowl until they are called upon.

Birth of Wrath

For over two standard centuries after its Founding, the Flesh Tearers were a mobile, crusading Chapter. Eventually, however, the Chapter chose to establish a permanent fortress-monastery upon a brutal Death World located deep in the galactic west. The Flesh Tearers named it Cretacia, a name taken from the ancient Baal sandscript meaning "Birth of Wrath."

It is a world of gargantuan beasts, magma geysers, and volatile electrical storms. Volcanic eruptions and sharp tectonic shifts threaten to rip apart its continents and swallow those arrogant enough to inhabit its surface.

Cretacia was home to a small population of feral Humans whose genes were pure and who had developed a remarkable Neolithic warrior culture that produced strong and able Flesh Tearers recruits.

The Chapter had great need of this easy supply of manpower, for as the centuries passed, the Flaw in the Flesh Tearers' gene-seed gradually worsened and few Flesh Tearer Space Marines were able to avoid succumbing to the Black Rage after more than 200 standard years in service.

By the end of the 41st Millennium, the Flesh Tearers were able to deploy only four fully combat-ready companies and the degradation of their gene-seed seemed to be only increasing, making it likely that unless a remedy could be found, the Chapter would ultimately cease to exist.

The high incidence of the Black Rage in the Chapter has led the Inquisition to question the purity of the Flesh Tearers on multiple occasions and many other Space Marine Chapters refuse to fight alongside the Flesh Tearers because of their reputation for uncontrolled savagery and genetic corruption, as well as the fear that their bloodlust might be infectious. Since the terrible Kallern Massacres of the late 36th Millennium, the Chapter has essentially remained under the watchful eyes of the Ordo Hereticus.

Inquisitorial Investigation

In 837.M41, Inquisitor Corvin Herrold of the Ordo Hereticus boarded Victus, the flagship of the Flesh Tearers, seeking an audience with Chapter Master Gabriel Seth, officially to question Seth about the recent events at the Shrine World of Lucid Prime, where the Flesh Tearers had been involved in a bloody confrontation with the Space Wolves after they had continued to kill civilians they claimed were corrupted by Chaos.

But the man calling himself an Inquisitor who met with Seth was a decoy, and the real Corvin Herrold secretly infiltrated the flagship, seeking proof of the Ordo Hereticus' long-held suspicions about the Flesh Tearers' heretical nature. He believed himself vindicated when he discovered a Flesh Tearer who had recently succumbed to the Black Rage chained to a wall in the bowels of the voidship. After his gruesome discovery, Herrold was surprised and knocked out by Chaplain Appollus, while his retinue of Acolytes were slain by other Flesh Tearers.

When Herrold regained consciousness, he was given a harsh object lesson in morality by Seth: the Flesh Tearers' Librarian Balthiel created a psychic mind-link between the Inquisitor and the battle-brother he had discovered who had recently been consumed by the Black Rage, and Herrold was forced to endure the full measure of the Black Rage; even a few moments' exposure was almost enough to break his mind.

Seth explained to the Inquisitor that this was the true daemon the Flesh Tearers wrestled with every day, the daemon that, at best, they were sometimes able to harness and use as a weapon against the Emperor's enemies in the form of the Death Company, and, at its worst stole away their lives and their sanity even as they continued to serve the Imperium. Seth demanded to know by what right was someone like Herrold competent to judge the Flesh Tearers guilty of heresy in the face of such a burden.

In the wake of the lesson, Seth allowed the Inquisitor to depart the Victus alone. In the wake of his experience, Herrold took Seth's lesson to heart and removed his Inquisitorial rosette; he decided his service to the Inquisition was at an end, as he clearly could not trust his own judgement of what was heresy and what was not.

A Lost Titan

An abandoned Imperator-class Titan of the Legio Annihilator was discovered by the Flesh Tearers' Chapter Master Gabriel Seth and Inquisitor Nerissa Lekkas at the bottom of a borehole in the Ephesus Ore Mine on the Hive World of Armageddon during the Third War for Armageddon in 998.M41. Inquisitor Lekkas claimed the Titan dated back to the time of the Horus Heresy. The Inquisitor had requisitioned Gabriel Seth and his Command Squad specifically to destroy the Titan, further claiming that it had been corrupted by Chaos and that it was this corruption that was repeatedly drawing the Orks to attack Armageddon.

The Veteran Flesh Tearer Shemal died during the group's aerial insertion into the target zone as their Stormraven was shot out of the sky, but the rest of the strike force landed atop the Imperator Titan Validus that was already in the combat zone. The Space Marines touched down using their Jump Packs while the Inquisitor wielded her psychic abilities to ensure she and her retinue of Acolytes made it to the god-engine safely.

The group rode atop the Validus as it slowly made its way through Armageddon's ocean of industrial waste to the island where the Ephesus Ore Mine was located. They left the Titan behind and made their way down through the subterranean mine works towards the location of the lost Titan. The Flesh Tearers' Company Champion Harahel elected to stay behind to hold off the groups of Orks permeating the mining tunnels, while Seth, Techmarine Metatron, Apothecary Nisroc and Veteran Nathaniel continued ahead with Nerissa and her retinue.

Once the strike force reached the ancient Titan, the Inquisitor wanted to hack into the Titan's data-core to download whatever knowledge remained within and then destroy the derelict god-engine with demolition charges, but Seth executed her two remaining Acolytes before she could do so, stating that the knowledge within the Titan was also likely corrupted by Chaos and that the god-machine should instead be returned to Mars for the tech-priests to repair the Titan and restore it for Imperial use. Seth also noted that the Titan showed no signs of the Chaos corruption that the Inquisitor claimed had consumed the machine.

In fact, the entire mission had been a ruse initiated by the Inquisitor so that she might assassinate Seth for his role in the death of Lekkas' old master the Inquisitor Corrvin Herrold of the Ordo Hereticus, who had sought to infiltrate the Flesh Tearers' flagship to prove that the Flesh Tearers were Heretics as had long been suspected by the Inquisition. Herrold had been captured by Seth and psychically forced to endure the Black Rage through a mind-link with one of the Flesh Tearers' Librarians so that he might learn the burden that every Flesh Tearer faced even as they remained loyal servants of the Emperor. In the wake of this experience, Herrold had left the Inquisition, believing that he could not trust his own flawed judgement.

Her true intentions discovered, Lekkas used her psychic powers to induce the Black Rage in the Flesh Tearers with her, and then sought to flee off-world. Though Seth succumbed to the mental assault and slew Metatron, Harahel returned to his battle-brothers in time to break Seth and Nisroc from the Inquisitor's spell, but not before Nisroc had also killed Nathaniel.

Seth got his revenge upon the Inquisitor when he deployed the Mortis Wrath, an unmarked Flesh Tearers voidship occupied by a unit of Flesh Tearers from the Chapter's Death Company consumed by the Black Rage, against the Inquisitor's vessel as it sought to flee the Armageddon System alongside two Imperial medicae transports carrying wounded civilians from the war zone. The Inquisitor believed that the presence of the transports would prevent any possible retaliation by the Flesh Tearers since they would be hunted down by the Imperium if it was discovered they had slaughtered innocent civilians.

However, Seth ordered the Mortis Wrath to unleash three Boarding Torpedoes filled with Death Company Flesh Tearers which attached to all three ships just before they translated into the Warp. Once within the Immaterium, the Boarding Torpedoes would unleash their deadly cargoes, who would proceed to kill every individual aboard the vessels before they committed suicide. In this way, the ships would simply be considered lost in the Warp, and none would ever know the Flesh Tearers had been involved in the death of the rogue Inquisitor. Yet the demands of the Chapter's honour would be satisfied, even if the cost was the blood of the innocent.

Recent History

"By his Blood I am made.
By his Blood I am armoured.
By his Blood shall I triumph.
"

— Catechism of Blood

In 998.M41, news reached Baal that the Cryptan Shield, the Shield Worlds of the Cryptus System which stood as a bastion of the Blood Angels' homeworld, was endangered by a large tendril of Hive Fleet Leviathan reaching out towards the Cryptus System, and soon, every planet of Cryptus felt the talons of the Great Devourer.

Knowing that the consumption of the Cryptus System would open the floodgates for an unstoppable Tyranid invasion of Baal, Lord Commander Dante took action. The Flesh Tearers was the first of the Blood Angels Successor Chapters to heed Dante's call to arms and quickly joined its parent Chapter in the defence of Baal and the surrounding sectors.

Part of a grand alliance of the Blood Angels' Successor Chapters, the Flesh Tearers had taken their place in a thin crimson line standing against the Tyranids. The Chapter sought redemption for its many past misdeeds, and Chapter Master Gabriel Seth hoped that he might yet bring honour to his dying Chapter, tempering its Red Thirst in the blood of its enemies.

Many Chapters have become wary of the Flesh Tearers, with their dire reputation for unrestrained carnage and their excesses of violence. However, to Dante the Flesh Tearers were still his brothers, born of the blood of Sanguinius, and worthy allies in the war against the Hive Mind. The fact that Seth led the Flesh Tearers to the Cryptus System in such strength speaks volumes about the bond between his Chapter and the Blood Angels.

At this time, there were scarcely four hundred Flesh Tearers left, and during the Cryptan War more than half of the Chapter's number -- some five under-strength companies -- were deployed in the war zones of Armageddon.

Even so, Seth mustered much of what remained for the defence of Baal and its nearby sectors, clinging to the belief that only through the blood of their foes and the manner of their deaths could his Chapter be redeemed. However, this righteous intention would be set against the Flesh Tearers' own dark nature, as they suffer the flaws of their gene-seed even more than the Blood Angels themselves.

Foremost of these flaws is the Red Thirst, a bloodlust that takes the Flesh Tearers battle-brothers in the heat of battle and transforms them into mindless killers. It is this effect of the Flaw that has given them a dire reputation for carnage, and one that continues to define them. Many worlds have lived to regret the coming of the Chapter, for the reckless destruction and rivers of blood and death it has spilled in the throes of its battle madness has sometimes been worse than the predations of the foes it bested.

The Flesh Tearers would prove their reputation for ferocity many times over on the battlefields of Lysios, the Space Marines venting their fury upon the Tyranids in a maelstrom of blood. Supported by the Chapter's finest war machines, theirs would be a horrific war of annihilation upon which they would seek to quench their Red Thirst.

At the head of a mighty strike force that comprised the 1st and 2nd Companies of the Blood Angels, Brother Corbulo, Captain Karlaen, Chief Librarian Mephiston and the bulk of Gabriel Seth's Flesh Tearers, Dante struck out for the Cryptus System and the battles to come.

Devastation of Baal

During the final confrontation between the Blood Angels and their Successor Chapters and the Tyranids of Hive Fleet Leviathan remembered as the Devastation of Baal, Seth was a key commander of the defence and among the Blood Angels Successor Chapter forces and fought alongside Dante at key moments of the battle.

After Dante was critically wounded by the Swarmlord, Seth led a retreat back to the fortress-monastery of the Blood Angels, the Arx Angelicum, and commanded the defences until the forces of the Primarch Roboute Guilliman's Indomitus Crusade miraculously arrived to cleanse Baal of the Tyranid infestation by Hive Fleet Leviathan.

Though Seth knew that in the wake of the Indomitus Crusade the Flesh Tearers would be reinforced with Primaris Space Marines of Sanguinius' lineage who were supposedly not as susceptible to the Flaw and the Flesh Tearers' mutant version of it, Seth was not cheered at the prospect of seeing the Flesh Tearers' numbers swell once more.

He believed that Roboute Guilliman's gift of the Primaris Astartes would transform the Flesh Tearers and the other Successor Chapters of the Blood Angels into further copies of his own Ultramarines who just wore variants of crimson armour rather than blue.

Seth was convinced that without their inherent fury, his Space Marines would lose what had made them true scions of Sanguinius and become something else in time, something less.

Notable Campaigns

  • Zurcon Massacres (021.M31) - Prior to their settlement on Cretacia, the Flesh Tearers were a star-faring Chapter which travelled throughout the galaxy during their initial Imperial Crusade. Still struggling with their new identity as a separate Chapter, the former Blood Angels sought to vent their rage on the enemies of the Emperor. As part of their journey, they even visited the portion of space that would later become known as the Jericho Sector. At this time, the region remained an unconquered frontier, so the surviving records are only fragmentary at best. However, Imperial scholars of the Adeptus Administratum have successfully pieced together some of these data sources, using a combination of resources. Allegedly, the Crusading Chapter answered a distress call of the Zurcon System's main planet. The Flesh Tearers entered the Zurcon System in great strength. Upon their arrival they were immediately attacked by voidcraft belonging to the system's natives. Responding with typical aggression, the Space Marines engaged the enemy with overwhelming force, yet the Zurconians seemed to have accounted well for themselves, as the Flesh Tearers' flotilla was eliminated one-by-one until only the Chapter's Battle Barge, the Victus, and one of its escorting Strike Cruisers, the Shield of Baal, remained. Seeing proof in this aggression that the Zurconians were in fact Heretics, the Flesh Tearers engaged in a series of cleansings of the populations within the Zurcon System. The initial assault was apparently launched according to standard Adeptus Astartes patterns as traces of orbital bombardment could be found on Zurcon Primus. With the system's capital taken, the Flesh Tearers turned their attention to the other two settled worlds. The engagement apparently lasted several standard years, as settlements were active on multiple planets and moons within the region. By the end of their military action, there were no known surviving Human inhabitants within the system. The Zurcon System was only resettled centuries later by colonists from other worlds of the Jericho Sector. The archaeological relics of the Flesh Tearers' assault only hint at its overall brutality, but it is clear that no planetary-scale attacks were used. Rather, the traitorous inhabitants were actually all slain in brutal close combat -- a Flesh Tearers' hallmark.
  • War of the Beast (544-546.M32) - The Flesh Tearers were one of many Space Marine Chapters to participate in the defence of the Imperium against the largest Ork WAAAGH! seen to that time during the War of the Beast.
  • Kallern Massacres (Unknown Date.M36) - During the Imperial defence of the world of Kallern, the Flesh Tearers Astartes present on the planet were overcome by the Black Rage and slaughtered hundreds of innocent civilians as well as the foe. As a result of these massacres, the Flesh Tearers came under the close scrutiny of the Inquisition for potential heresy.
  • Tosovic Pacification (201.M37) - The Flesh Tearers were decried for their part in the Tosovic Pacification, a war of such brutality that nothing now grows upon the wind-whipped plains of that planet.
  • Eypharos Campaign (540.M38) - Over a thousand standard years later the Flesh Tearers' name would once again be linked to the worse excesses of the Imperium when Biel-Tan Aeldari attacked Human colonists on the verdant world of Eypharos. With unrestrained fury, the Space Marines purged the planet of Aeldari, resorting to the use of incendiary bombs to clear ancient forests and poison rivers.
  • Acata Uprising (371.M41) - The Flesh Tearers ruthlessly crushed what was later determined to be a xenos-inspired uprising amongst the void-clans of the Acata Ring. The Flesh Tearers utilised specialised void combat battle rites to fight across the airless surface of the asteroids and to cross from one to the next, systematically destroying the foe in a series of focused and coordinated, yet brutal and bloody assaults.
  • Castigation of Acralem (799.M41) - The Flesh Tearers, working in conjunction with the Astral Knights, the Grey Knights of the 3rd Brotherhood (which included Kaldor Draigo) and nine regiments of the Astra Militarum, descended upon the Imperial world of Acralem to halt the incursion of the infamous Daemon Prince M'kar the Reborn and his Daemonic army. What followed was one of the most terrible battles of that century, though ultimately the Imperial forces proved victorious and M'kar was banished back to the Warp for a time.
  • Achilus Crusade (813.M41) - A Flesh Tearers strike force based around elements from the 1st and 2nd Companies arrived unheralded during the Achilus Crusade in the Jericho Reach around the world of Herisor, soon after the first tendrils of Hive Fleet Dagon hit the Orpheus Salient. The Chapter fought a series of actions trailing along the salient, intercepting tendrils of the Hive Fleet and buying time for other Imperial forces to muster a defence. The Chapter took heavy losses in these actions, yet refused to slow the pace of its operations, throwing itself into battle after battle against the ravening xenos monstrosities that were the Tyranids.
  • A New Beginning (815.M41) - Gabriel Seth becomes the Chapter Master of the Flesh Tearers. His first act was to repair relations between his Chapter and the Blood Angels, as the tradition of brotherhood between the Chapters had been sundered for many standard centuries by the Flesh Tearers' bloodthirstiness.
  • Honour's End (837.M41) - During the Eclipse Wars, the Flesh Tearers fought alongside the Space Wolves and the Angels Vindicant Chapters upon the Shrine World of Lucid Prime. Largely due to a ferocious Flesh Tearers' counterattack, Imperial forces were able to drive off the Chaos Space Marine forces terrorising Hive Ratspire. However, the Flesh Tearers continued their indiscriminate slaughter of civilians even after the Chaos Renegades had been driven away. Despite Chapter Master Seth's insistence that his warriors were simply purging those that had been tainted by the presence of Chaos, the Space Wolves were outraged and attacked the Flesh Tearers at once. The resultant battle saw brother fighting brother, with the death of many hundreds of Loyalists on either side. This terrible event was known forever after as "Honour's End."
Flesh-terms-large

Flesh Tearers Terminators assault Stromark Primus.

  • 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 materiel 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 solar hours of difficult combat ensued that were brought to an end when five of the Chapter's Furioso Dreadnoughts smashed into Stromark Secundus' military headquarters and tore the planet's High Command apart. The surviving officers of the planet's Planetary Defence Force wisely agreed to immediately end the conflict with their neighbours and resume meeting the system's crucial production quotas.
Flesh Tearers on Armageddon

Gabriel Seth leading his Flesh Tearers against the Orks during the Third War for Armageddon

  • Third War for Armageddon (998.M41) - Five full companies of Flesh Tearers participated in the Third War for Armageddon, where the Chapter was nearly declared Excommunicate Traitoris and subjected to investigation by the Inquisition's Ordo Hereticus after they had, in a fit of the Black Rage, slaughtered Imperial citizen militia once they had run out of Orks to kill. Amongst the Orks of Armageddon, the Chapter became known as the "Eaters of the Dead". Later in the campaign, the Orks were known to have retreated when the Flesh Tearers attacked or faced them on the battlefield, a display of fear virtually unheard of among the Greenskins. The incident occurred after the Flesh Tearers were deployed in the Fire Wastes of Armageddon alongside the Sisters of Battle of the Order of the Argent Shroud. The Imperial forces were deployed against the artillery of the Ork Warlord Ruklum, who held positions besieging the civilian settlement of Gaius Point, the citizens of which had formed an irregular militia to aid the Imperial forces in their defence. The Flesh Tearers managed to deploy behind the Orks and force them into the guns of the Sisters of Battle and the Gaius Point militia. After slaughtering the Orks to a Greenskin, the uncontrollable Flesh Tearers assaulted Gaius Point themselves and killed every member of the mortal militia. Rather than fight their own allies, the Sisters of Battle withdrew from the field, but the Order of the Argent Shroud reported the massacre to the Ordo Hereticus and recommended that the Flesh Tearers Chapter be declared Excommunicate Traitoris for their actions.
Flesh Tearers vs

The Flesh Tearers defend the Shield Worlds of the Cryptus System from the encroaching Tyranids during the Cryptus Campaign

  • The Cryptus Campaign (998.M41) - News reached Baal that the Cryptan Shield, intended to hold back the might of Hive Fleet Leviathan, had collapsed. Already Lord Commander Dante had put plans in motion to defend the Blood Angels' homeworld, strike forces fighting hit-and-run battles with the Leviathan's smaller splinter fleets throughout the Red Scar. Meanwhile, the defences of Baal and her moons had been bolstered like never before; indomitable fortresses rose above the sweltering sands, and the might of the Blood Angels' Successor Chapters gathered from across the galaxy. Yet still it may not have been enough, for the Tyranids were seemingly without number, and Hive Fleet Leviathan was learning the weaknesses of its prey at an exponential rate. Knowing that the consumption of the Cryptus System would open the floodgates for an unstoppable Tyranid invasion of Baal, Commander Dante took action. At the head of a mighty strike force that comprised the 1st and 2nd Companies of the Blood Angels, Brother Corbulo, Captain Karlaen, Chief Librarian Mephiston and the bulk of Gabriel Seth's Flesh Tearers, Dante unleashed the Cryptus Campaign. He would see the defences shored up if such a thing was still possible, and if not would do battle with the Cryptoid Tendril directly in a desperate bid for the salvation of Baal.
  • 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 of the 13th Black Crusade. While Dante led 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 the well-known Adeptus Mechanicus Magos Biologis Haran Serpens, 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 Chaos 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 Flesh Tearers, along with the Blood Angels and their fellow Successors successfully defended the 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. With the approval of the Flesh Tearers' taciturn Chapter Master Gabriel Seth, the rest of 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 on Baal itself.
  • Cryptus Campaign (999.M41) - The forces of the Flesh Tearers deployed to aid the Blood Angels in defending the Cryptus System from Hive Fleet Leviathan. Though successful, the campaign only delayed the final reckoning as the Tyranids closed in on the Blood Angels homeworld of Baal.
  • Devastation of Baal (ca. 999.M41) - After sacrificing the Shieldworlds of the Cryptus System to fend off the xenos' earliest advance on the Baal System, the planet of Baal itself came under intense attack by Hive Fleet Leviathan. The Tyranid Hive Fleet was of such mass, even after its considerable losses, that it blotted the stars from the skies. Lord Commander Dante bolstered the formidable defences of the Blood Angels' homeworld and its moons like never before. Not one to await attack, he also sent forth scores of preemptive strike forces to delay, mislead, and whittle down the living armada. Hundreds of splinter fleets were thus defeated. Dante's call, beseeching the Blood Angels' Successors to send immediate aid to their parent Chapter, did not go unheeded. The Flesh Tearers were the first to arrive, and ultimately all the Successor Chapters save the Lamenters answered the call. Even the Knights of Blood, who had been declared Excommunicate Traitoris by the High Lords of Terra, arrived to bolster the defences. It was still not enough. Learning at an exponential rate, Hive Fleet Leviathan could not be thwarted by the same strategy twice. Advancing steadily, their superior numbers cleared the entire surrounding sector of life before the xenos made planetfall upon Baal and her twin moons. The first nineteen waves, each larger than the last, were driven off at great loss to the Blood Angels and their Successor allies. Five Chapter Masters fell in that bitter fighting, three in the Battle at the Dome of Angels alone. The Tyranids began the process of absorbing all biomass from Baal and its moons, absorbing even the radiation-poisoned deserts of Baal Secundus. With their defences in ruin and Baal's moons stripped and broken, the remaining Space Marines retreated back to the rubble of the Blood Angels' sprawling fortress-monastery. There, they prepared for a last stand as the next wave swept downwards. Doom, it seemed, had at last come to the sons of Sanguinius. It was then that the Great Rift cracked open the galaxy in the wake of the fall of Cadia to the 13th Black Crusade, and the withered Baal System was blasted by the aetheric storms. Although no further attack waves came from the Leviathan Hive Fleet, not a single Imperial defender remained alive upon the last moon, Baal Prime. On Baal itself there were already enough Tyranids there to destroy the Imperial troops many times over. Even with no chance of victory, Commander Dante led his troops, each fighting retreat seemingly more hopeless than the last. As the final perimeter was broken, the stars reappeared. Looking skywards, the Tyranids on the surface of Baal sought contact with their Hive Fleet, but it was gone, replaced by a newly arrived Imperial fleet. Like an angel of vengeance came Roboute Guilliman and his Indomitus Crusade. After many more battles, Baal was finally cleared of the xenos threat. A great rebuilding of both world and Chapter was undertaken, for the Blood Angels and their Successors were sorely needed elsewhere in the beleaguered Imperium. What became of the Leviathan is a mystery, although a clue was found upon the now-barren moon of Baal Prime. Xenos skulls were piled impossibly high in the much-reviled, eight-pillared symbol of one of the Blood Angels' most terrible and ancient nemeses: the Bloodthirster Ka'Bandha and his army of Khornate Daemons.
  • Red Scar Campaign (Unknown Date.M42) - Hurled across the void by an empyric convulsion, a T'au colonisation fleet began claiming worlds within the Red Scar. Their efforts were brought to a sudden, violent halt by strike forces of Blood Angels, Flesh Tearers and the Angels Sanguine. The planets of D'sandri and Gendal's Reach were swiftly reclaimed, and the war spilled into the Sevensuns System.

Chapter Organisation

"To live is to kill. To live for the kill is to be of the Blood."

Chaplain Zophal

Flesh Tearer's Vanguard Strike Force

The Flesh Tearers Chapter has recently been reinforced by the arrival of the Primaris Space Marines to its full strength, and has been brought back up to a complement of ten full companies with more than half of the total manpower of the Chapter now provided by Primaris Marines. However, for much of its history, the Chapter faced a near-constant shortage of Astartes.

Decimated by centuries of war and madness, the Flesh Tearers Chapter had been reduced to less than half of its former strength by the end of the 41st Millennium. With so few battle-brothers at his command, Gabriel Seth was forced to restructure the Chapter as best he could so that it could maintain its military commitments throughout the Imperium.

With all of his companies under-strength in the days before the arrival of the Primaris Astartes reinforcements, and few Captains to command them, Seth divided his 1st Company Veterans to bolster each company's fighting strength. These Veterans formed a solid core of leadership around which the diminished companies could be forged into more effective fighting formations. The Flesh Tearers called these mixed demi-companies Vanguard Strike Forces, and in scores of war zones they replaced the standard Codex Astartes organisation:

Vanguard Strike Force Formation

Flesh Tearers Death Company

Every son of Sanguinius fears succumbing to the waking memory of their primarch's death at the hands of Horus -- the Black Rage. Those visions of an Angel broken, of future glories choked by betrayal, overtake Sanguinius' descendants and leave them with nothing but rage. The nobility of angels becomes the fury of beasts, purity of vision becomes a world drowned in blood.

For the Flesh Tearers, such a fate is almost a certainty, and the only escape is to die before that fate overtakes them. It is a matter of when, not if. For those that the kind edge of death in service to the Emperor does not take, the black armour and the sacraments of the Death Company await.

Where the Astartes of the Blood Angels and their Successor Chapters succumb to the Black Rage during the pre-battle ceremony of moripatris, a Flesh Tearer can be claimed at any moment. Many are those who fall to the curse of their blood before they can pass into the Death Company.

And the Death Company is well named, as its warriors will die as surely as they bring death. Clad in black and crossed with crimson, they know no limit to slaughter, nor pain of wounds.

The Blood Angels and most of their successors give swift mercy to the few members of the Death Company who survive an engagement; a bolt round to the head or a powered blade to the neck grants them swift oblivion. No such mercy exists amongst the Flesh Tearers.

Under the watch of High Chaplain Appollus, the Flesh Tearers Death Company live on from battle to battle, bound to their torment until enemies do what their brothers will not. To Appollus, the black-armoured madmen represent the purest state of a Flesh Tearer; they are as close as a warrior can be to Sanguinius.

Whether Gabriel Seth agrees with Appollus' dogma, or whether he sees hope in a Death Company's fury that no others can, he keeps his own counsel. Whatever his reasons, the Chapter Master has stood against Astorath the Grim, the great reaper himself, to prevent the Flesh Tearers Death Company from facing execution, and their numbers grow unchecked save by the blades of their enemies.

So, while the Flesh Tearers have had their numbers recently reinforced, none save Appollus know how many black-armoured warriors wait in torment to be unleashed.

The bulk of the Death Company of the Flesh Tearers are kept aboard a specially-adapted strike cruiser known as the Death's Cowl which is commanded by Chaplain Zuphias.

Flesh Tearers Librarians

Librarian Nuriel

Librarian Nuriel prepares to unleash his psychic abilities.

Like their fellow Astartes Chapters, the Flesh Tearers also maintain a Librarium of potent psykers who are highly talented and trained to master the power of the Warp at the highest levels. Each Chapter selects its Librarians in its own way, either from seed worlds, as it does with the bulk of its Initiates, or from the ranks of gifted psykers brought to the Scholastica Psykana of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica.

Most Chapters train and test chosen psykers following the ancient ways laid out in the Codex Astartes. Librarians of the Flesh Tearers are trained in this way, and, with few minor variances, have been taught to live by the word of the Codex.

Flesh Tearers Librarians have a number of unique psychic abilities only used by the psykers of their Chapter:

  • Depths of Rage - Librarians of the Flesh Tearers Chapter are well-versed in the use of psychic powers while struggling with the Black Rage and Red Thirst. Many have even developed powers which tap into the rage deep within them and use it to further fuel their other psychic powers or enhance their physical abilities in combat.
  • Flensing - Flesh Tearers often live up to their name when engaged in combat, skinning their foes with well-practised blows from their blades and Chain Weapons. Librarians of the Chapter are no exception and the Flensing power has been developed with such hideous injuries in mind, allowing them to more effectively earn such grisly trophies with the precision that only the powers of the Warp can provide.
  • Razor Blades - A Flesh Tearers Librarian, like the other battle-brothers of his Chapter, understands and appreciates the virtues of a good sharp blade. By focusing his psychic powers the Librarian can make edges keener and steel sharper so that it might more easily bite into flesh and bone.

Chapter Homeworld

"We named it Cretacia, from the ancient Baal sandscript meaning "Birth of Wrath." Like us, Cretacia was a consummate killer. Violence lived in its very air. Its winds were the lash of a terrible beast, striking out to flay us from the skies, its clouds, void-dark phantoms whose acid tears stripped the crimson from our warplate. Death met us at every turn, tested our resolve and measured our strength. We were as the angels from old Terran legend, trapped in hell itself. Yet for all our trials, Cretacia's wrath was far from spent."

—Nassir Amit, Chapter Master of the Flesh Tearers, during the Declaration of Conquest, Cretacia, 238.M31
FT Astartes

A savage Flesh Tearers Astartes.

The Flesh Tearers' initial crusade eventually led them deep into the western reaches of the galaxy. It only ended when the Chapter discovered an isolated Death World, which they named Cretacia.

Until Chapter Master Nassir Amit found the planet in the wake of the Horus Heresy, the Flesh Tearers had moved from war zone to war zone without respite for over two hundred standard years. At the time, Amit and his Flesh Tearers were still reeling from the death of their primarch and the dissolution of the Space Marine Legions that resulted in the Flesh Tearers being carved from the Blood Angels.

Anger and resentment ruled, and Amit became obsessed with Cretacia, believing its barbaric conditions a manifestation of the Flesh Tearers' own nature, hoping that if he could tame its peaks, he could temper the edges of his own fury.

The Flesh Tearers' early contacts with the world suggested that, while it was in the habitable range for Humanity, a dense cloud cover and unusual atmospheric conditions might make it an unlivable environment. In spite of this, the Space Marine fleet entered orbit and sent an exploratory force to the surface.

Upon their arrival, the warriors discovered insectoid, reptilian, and amphibious life forms that were both malevolent and inordinately large.

A few of the enormous insects wielded natural weapons capable of penetrating even Power Armour. Some of the other predators were nearly as large in scale as an Imperial Titan.

The battle-brothers immediately began to enthusiastically hunt and slay a few of the creatures, both for security and to slake their inherent bloodlust.

In the course of their examination of the planet, the Flesh Tearers discovered a native Human population that had somehow managed to survive in spite of Cretacia's dangerous environs. These primitives exhibited inordinate levels of athletic ability and fitness -- a clear survival requirement among the massive native fauna.

However, they also exhibited a substantial degradation of culture and social structure. At some point in their history, these beings must have undergone an event that left their society with a near-complete loss of Human spoken language.

In spite of this unusual restriction, the Space Marine Chapter took prisoners from the native population. They then subjected the prisoners to a broad variety of tests to examine their physiological, genetic, and spiritual purity.

Ultimately, the primitives were identified as a reasonably pure strain of Humanity. Their instances of mutation were acceptably low, and their physical conditioning made them excellent candidates for gene-seed implantation. While the loss of language was clearly an inconvenience, all signs indicated that this was a cultural phenomenon and not a physiological change and thus could be reversed during indoctrination.

This combination of an environment that suited the Chapter's martial philosophy with a readily available supply of potential recruitment candidates made Cretacia an ideal world for the Flesh Tearers to make their home. With this realisation, the Chapter ceased its endless Imperial Crusade and established its fortress-monastery.

For millennia, the world has provided an ideal residence for the Chapter. Nearby Imperial worlds benefited from the stability offered by a successful Space Marine Chapter. The Flesh Tearers maintained an adequate initiation pace so that their company sizes were well within the recommendations of the Codex Astartes.

The Chapter's once-impending doom seems to have had little to do with their choice of a homeworld and far more to do with the inherent failure in their gene-seed.

Chapter Combat Doctrine

"We are fury! We are wrath! We are death!"

Chaplain Appollus, Flesh Tearers
Flesh tearer battle brother by diegogisbertllorens

A frenzied Flesh Tearers battle-brother charges into battle.

As with all aspects of the Flesh Tearers Chapter, the Black Rage strongly influences its strategic approach towards military engagements. One of the most important ways that this can be seen is in its reduced numbers.

As a consequence of their losses to the gene-seed curse, these Space Marines were incapable of organising companies in a manner consistent with the Codex Astartes before the arrival of the Primaris Marine reinforcements.

Instead, each of their four companies was organised to be fully and independently functional. To maintain this ability, all battle-brothers underwent constant functional cross-training so that they may effectively serve the role of a Scout, Tactical, Assault or Devastator Marine as the tactical situation necessitates.

Due to the Chapter's constrained size, each company was capable of maintaining sufficient resources in its armoury to equip its members with the gear necessary to fulfil any of these roles effectively.

While this training is necessary and effective, some of its aspects are actually seldom used. This is, once more, due to the effects of the Black Rage. As Flesh Tearers prepare for combat and see the enemy, they often choose to directly engage their foes in melee combat.

This proclivity extends throughout the Chapter from the leadership elements to the newest recruits. As such, when preparing for an engagement, the Flesh Tearers' commanders generally plan their tactics in a way that takes advantage of this tendency, instead of attempting to fight against it.

Consequently, the Chapter often fields an inordinate number of its battle-brothers equipped as Assault Marines. In contrast, they seldom field squads of Devastator Marines. Even among their tactical units, heavy weapons are often left behind, as many Flesh Tearers Sergeants are reluctant to hold their units at range long enough for the weapons to be used effectively.

In many ways, this restricts the Chapter's tactical flexibility and ability to adhere to the tactics presented in the Codex Astartes. However, considering the overall efficiency of their Assault Marines, it is difficult to rationalise such a criticism considering the results of a Flesh Tearers unit in close combat.

Like other Blood Angels successors, the Flesh Tearers field members of the Death Company as part of any significant conflict. However, due to the nature of their curse, this complement is often larger than the ones exhibited by other Blood Angels Successor Chapters.

In many instances, the Death Company's membership includes some of the Chapter's most experienced warriors. This has often led to the Death Company being even more devastatingly effective than when used by other Chapters descended from Sanguinius' blood line.

The vast majority of the Flesh Tearers' vehicles are transports, specifically Rhinos and Razorbacks. Just as the Chapter seldom fields a significant number of squads equipped with heavy weapons, it also limits the number of armoured vehicles that it deploys.

The Flesh Tearers prefer to charge forward into direct melee whenever possible as heavy infantry, eschewing the limitations imposed by a battle tank. The primary exception to their movement away from vehicles regards the numbers of Dreadnoughts that the Chapter maintains.

Many of the Flesh Tearers' most respected heroes fall prey to the Black Rage before they can suffer a noble death in combat. Whenever possible, these respected warriors are assigned to a life-support sarcophagus and placed within a Dreadnought chassis where their abilities and knowledge can be preserved and used in future engagements.

Many of these "Old Ones" enter combat with their fellows in the Death Company, charging directly forward to eliminate any foes that stand before them. Tragically, this results in an unacceptably high incidence of death among the pilots of these machines, but this does have the benefit of freeing new sarcophagi for the use of other battle-brothers that fall prey to the Black Rage.

As the Flesh Tearers often charge into battle, they have taken a number of specialised measures to assist them as they charge. The Flesh Tearers also have a unique battle cry that they let loose as they attack their foes. While the cry is created by the Space Marines' vocal cords, it is enhanced and amplified by their Power Armour's vox-systems.

First-hand reports confirm that opponents are often stunned into immediate submission when they hear the terrible sound as defenders come face-to-face with the savagery of these battle-brothers.

Because of their propensity to fall to savagery and uncontrolled bloodlust, the Flesh Tearers fight alone when possible, standing unaided against the innumerable odds rather than risk the lives of those they have pledged to protect. At other times, they have employed more extreme measures to keep their secret, annihilating planets, star systems and star clusters in a hail of Cyclonic Torpedo warheads.

If it's such measures that have kept the Flesh Tearers within the tolerance of the High Lords of Terra, or the fact that the Imperium has need of every blade to defend it, none can say for certain.

Politically, the Chapter constantly teeters on the abyss of denouncement and persecution as Traitors. To some members of the Inquisition, there is no doubt that the Flesh Tearers are abominations. These Inquisitors see these broken Astartes as proof positive that the entire genetic line of Sanguinius is tainted.

Were it not for the influence and efforts of the Blood Angels themselves, and the fact that the Imperium sorely needs all the sons of Sanguinius to hold back the current press of Chaos, the judgement of the Flesh Tearers might come swiftly and surely.

Chapter Beliefs

"Remember the primarch, for we exist only through his grace and love. Honour the Emperor, for it is His wisdom that must guide us and vengeance that we deliver."

Chaplain Rostalf of the Flesh Tearers 3rd Company

As the Black Rage continues to consume its membership, the leaders of the Flesh Tearers have come to the inescapable conclusion that their beloved Chapter may be doomed to eventual disintegration. They continue to seek a cure for this curse, but some consider their eventual depletion inescapable.

Some among the leadership have begun to embrace the notion that if they cannot continue then their best approach is to make certain that they leave a bold legacy in keeping with the Chapter's proud traditions.

Most vital to these traditions is the way that they embrace savagery in combat. This is likely a combination of their susceptibility towards the Black Rage as well as the Blood Angels' tradition of excellence in assault actions. Even with their acquisition of Cretacia as a homeworld, the Flesh Tearers proudly exhibited this preference. For the natives' survival in the face of that planet's massive creatures requires an ability to overcome even the most extreme odds through constant warfare.

Of course, the Flesh Tearers are tremendously unlikely to compromise with regards to their savagery. The Flesh Tearers have a long tradition of attempting to honour these memories by fulfilling the primarch's and Emperor's wish for a galaxy under complete Imperial Compliance.

In many instances, the only way the Chapter had a reasonable chance to achieve victory is by taking the most extreme of actions against its opponents. There are very few known instances where Flesh Tearers commanders ever hesitated to unleash weapons of cataclysmic proportions.

With each battle won, battle-brothers of the Flesh Tearers Chapter feel confident that their primarch's legend has been preserved. This serves as the most effective method of preserving his glory as well as that of the IX Legion he once led.

In many cases, the worlds targeted by the Chapter have strayed in some significant way from the Imperium. It is these conflicts that offer the greatest temptation for Flesh Tearers to fully engage their thirst for savagery.

Those who show any taint of heresy, or who even choose to ally themselves, however briefly, with Heretics, are targeted for purging. In some instances, purges have continued well beyond a reasonable level, as battle-brothers of the Chapter continued their acts of savage brutality long after any justifiable conflict had been completed.

For many Flesh Tearers Space Marines, such frenzied battles represent a very real warning of the doom that encroaches upon their minds. With each period of savagery, their chance to return to a more normal state of consciousness can become increasingly difficult. This represents a very real sign to these battle-brothers that their final emotional and mental collapse approaches them.

The rank-and-file of the Chapter remains divided over what should be their fate. Some dare to cradle hope that their Chapter Master, Gabriel Seth, will lead them to salvation. They stand proud that they have the strength to fight on the side of the righteous despite the madness in their blood.

Others welcome a swift, blood-fuelled end, asking nothing more than the chance to wreak terrible destruction upon their enemies before the thirst claims them. Which angel of their hearts will rule their fate -- murder or mercy -- only time shall tell.

But the sands of those times run swift as the Dark Millennium closes, and even the most optimistic Sanguinary Priests within the Chapter know that extinction may take them before damnation or salvation arrives.

Chapter Gene-Seed

The Black Rage and the Red Thirst

"Here come The Red, they stalk while you sleep."
"Here come The Red, your blood do they seek."
"Here come The Red, to your soul they lay claim, and you'll never be seen in sunlight again.
"

— Nursery rhyme on the Imperial world of Merron, in regards to the Flesh Tearers
Flesh Tearer Chainsword

A Flesh Tearers battle-brother in the grips of the Black Rage.

The gene-seed of the Flesh Tearers bears all the hallmarks of the Successor Chapters of the Blood Angels, the Sanguinary Brotherhood. Its best known characteristic is the psychic imprint of Sanguinius' final memories, which leads to the affliction known as the "Black Rage."

This can cause them to go insane and enter a berserker rage prior to or during battle as they feel the anger that Sanguinius himself felt during the Siege of Terra. The condition is largely irrecoverable and incurable.

The Flesh Tearers are known to fall prey to the curse of the Black Rage far more often than members of any other Chapter descended from Sanguinius' lineage. This is believed to be due to a mutation in their gene-seed, but their combat doctrines and military philosophy may also influence the frequency of the tragic psychogenetic syndrome.

At the time of their formation, the Flesh Tearers Chapter discontinued the Blood Angels' practice known as Insanguination which involved the drinking of a small sample of Sanguinius' own blood in an artefact known as a Red Grail to activate the implanted gene-seed within their Aspirants. Some might speculate that this practice could have contributed to the horrific mutation and degeneration of their gene-seed without the primarch's blood to serve as a stabilising factor.

Unlike the Blood Angels and their other Successors, the Flesh Tearers are far further along in the descent into madness and their gene-seed carries a heightened version of the flaw which may well spell their complete annihilation within the space of a few short solar decades. This means that even the most mentally stable and strong-willed of the Flesh Tearers feels the touch of the Black Rage and the pull of the Red Thirst, knowing full well that it is only a matter of time before they succumb and the madness takes them completely.

A Flesh Tearer who has begun to fall more heavily under the effects of the primarch's curse begins a rapid and terrifying spiral into uncontrollable rage and fury which places not just himself, but everyone he comes into contact with in danger. A Flesh Tearers battle-brother knows that as soon as he becomes an Initiate of the Chapter it is not a question of if, but when, and how long he has until he completely loses his ability to tell friend from foe.

The Chapter's Apothecaries believe that their gene-seed also grants its recipients a significantly extended life expectancy, even for an Astartes, in keeping with its lineage. However, this point is largely moot. The life expectancy for most new Initiates to the Chapter is less than two standard centuries. While a few of these inductees may die from the exigencies of war, the vast majority fall prey to the Black Rage.

For unknown reasons, the Flesh Tearers succumb to the Black Rage far more than any other Successor Chapter of the Blood Angels, and therefore these Astartes were dwindling in numbers before their recent reinforcement by the Primaris Space Marines.

Numerous efforts have been taken to attempt to mitigate the sudden and severe onset of the Black Rage among the Chapter's battle-brothers. The adoption of nightly bloodletting and purification rituals have not been shown to assist battle-brothers in their efforts to resist the Black Rage, nor has it mitigated the syndrome's effects once a Space Marine has entered the latter stages of the curse.

The only treatment for those who fully succumb is reassignment to the Death Company and isolation within the Chapter's Tower of the Lost in its fortress-monastery. A fortunate few find solace in death, when they continue to serve their Chapter on the battlefield as members of the Death Company. Less fortunate battle-brothers are subject to permanent incarceration once the High Chaplain of the Death Company has lost the ability to control them.

The combination of a rapid decline due to the Black Rage and their proclivity for brutal assaults increased the Chapter's rate of decline. This is why the Chapter until recently only had enough Space Marines in its ranks to deploy 4 full Battle Companies.

In many instances, Flesh Tearers died before their Progenoid Glands could be properly harvested. This combination cut into the Chapter's available supply of gene-seed as well as limiting the number of Veteran Space Marines capable of training new inductees.

For this reason, the number of members assigned to Apothecary training was increased, as did the prioritisation of recovering these precious glands from fallen battle-brothers.

The Flesh Tearers also suffer from the Red Thirst, an overwhelming desire to physically taste their enemies' blood. Unfortunately, when this trait is combined with the Black Rage it can devolve into outright cannibalistic assaults by the enraged Space Marines.

Before the recent infusion of new Primaris Marines, the cursed Astartes of the Flesh Tearers seemed doomed to watch the ongoing collapse of their beloved Chapter. Even as they revelled in the destruction of the Emperor's foes, they also watched as their comrades gave in to the curse of Sanguinius' gene-seed.

In spite of this, they remain valiant servants of the Imperium. Rather than give in to woe and despair, they constantly strive to fight against the curse as bravely as they fight those who oppose Mankind. As true tragic heroes, the Flesh Tearers remain devoted to their cause, even in the face of what may be ultimate defeat.

Primarch's Curse: Dark Fury

"Do not fear the Black Rage, for it is a part of your essence. Learn to embrace the fury that comes with it, so that you may direct the savagery toward those foes of the Imperium who deserve our ire. This is our beloved primarch's parting gift, and as with all he granted us, it must be proudly accepted."

— Carnarvon, High Chaplain of the Flesh Tearers Death Company

When the Chapter's genetic curse manifests itself in an affected battle-brother, it comes on in three stages:

  • Stage 1 - Extreme Frenzy: The battle-brother completely loses control when he frenzies and finds it almost impossible to claw his way back to reason as long as there are foes to fight and blades drawn. Even when foes are not near, the madness of Frenzy grips him and he rages endlessly for battle and blood, howling out his anger and striking the ground with his blade. The Battle-Brother must take care, lest he lose control at any moment. Any time the Battle-Brother takes damage, is confronted with a clear threat, or is put in position of great stress, he must summon all his willpower in order to contain his fury for the duration of an encounter with an enemy.
  • Stage 2 - Blood Madness: The Flesh Tearers thirst for the blood of their foes when in the grips of the Red Thirst and long to see it spilled across the ground in great arcs and gouts. They also crave the feeling of hot blood on their skin and splattering across their armour, staining the dark red battle-plate a darker shade still. The battle-brother must engage foes in close combat if possible, either making melee attacks against them or shooting point black with pistols so that their blood spills at his feet. When he downs a foe, he must resist the urge to hack or blast the foe's corpse apart. If the battle-brother is attacked by a new foe while he is in this state while hacking at another foe, he will turn his attention to his new attacker instead.
  • Stage 3 - Animal Within: Near the end, a Flesh Tearer is little more than an animal filled with fury and madness striking out at all those around him. While he may still have lucid moments where he remembers the warrior he once was, these are fleeting and quickly gone to be replaced with only the thought of killing and the thirst for blood, and he will attack the nearest target (friend or foe) if there is more than one to choose from. At this point, the battle-brother is completely within the grip of the Black Rage and must be transferred to the Death Company.

Notable Flesh Tearers

Pre-Heresy Personnel

Chapter Master Amit

Nassir Amit, the "Flesh Tearer," the first Chapter Master of the Flesh Tearers Chapter.

  • High Chaplain Andras - Andras served as the first High Chaplain of the newly-created Flesh Tearers Chapter in the 31st Millennium for an unknown period.
  • Chaplain Zophal - The secretive Chaplain Zophal served the newly founded Flesh Tearers Chapter at its inception in the early 31st Millennium. Zophal maintained unusually close ties to Chapter Master Amit, openly blaming him for having selected Andras over himself to act as High Chaplain, yet the two warriors visibly had struck some kind of bargain and managed to get along despite their personal differences. Speculations and second-guessing as to the nature of this pact have been ripe, but the Flesh Tearers have always refused to shed light on the matter.
  • First Captain Barakiel - Barakiel served as the first captain of the newly created Flesh Tearers Chapter in the 31st Millennium for an unknown period.


  • Master Librarian Baros - Baros served as the first Chief Librarian of the newly-created Flesh Tearers Chapter in the 31st Millennium for an unknown period.
Lexicanum Nuriel

The Flesh Tearers Lexicanum Nuriel.

  • Lexicanium Nuriel - Nuriel served as a Lexicanium within the Librarius of the newly-created Flesh Tearers Chapter in the 31st Millennium. Born on Baal Secundus, Nuriel was already a formidable warrior at an early age, as he killed a fire scorpion at the age of eleven. Inducted into the Blood Angels Legion, he became one of the elite warriors of the Legiones Astartes, and went on to serve during the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy eras. During the Second Founding, when the Space Marine Legions were sundered into Chapters, like many of his fellow battle-brothers, Nuriel resented being a Flesh Tearer, as the newly-created Chapter did not bear the true colours or noble countenance of the IX Legion. Often he would unleash his rage and frustration, but in the process, lose control while fighting in the training cages. Nuriel was very angry with Chapter Master Amit, as he resented the fact that he had appointed Baros as Chief Librarian, instead of him. During the Flesh Tearers encounter with rebellious forces on the world of Zurcon Primus, Nuriel was overcome by the fell powers of Chaos, and was ultimately corrupted, becoming a host for a Greater Daemon of Khorne in exchange for power. After a hard-fought battle, Chapter Master Amit and the honoured Dreadnought, Ancient Grigori, slew the corrupted Lexicanium.
  • Veteran Sergeant Tilonas - Tilonas served as a Veteran Sergeant in the newly created Flesh Tearers Chapter in the 31st Millennium for an unknown period.
Druel

Veteran Brother Druel in Terminator Armour.

  • Veteran Brother Druel - Druel was a Veteran battle-brother who served in the elite 1st Company of the newly created Flesh Tearers Chapter in the 31st Millennium for an unknown period. Even without his Terminator Armour, Brother Druel was huge for a Space Marine. Clad with it, he more closely resembled the idealised statues of Space Marine heroes that adorn the plazas of Imperial cities.

Post-Heresy Personnel

Trial By Blood coverart

Gabriel Seth, Chapter Master of the Flesh Tearers

  • Chapter Master Gabriel Seth - Gabriel Seth is known as the "Guardian of the Rage," and serves as the current Chapter Master of the Flesh Tearers. Gabriel Seth became Chapter Master of the Flesh Tearers as his Chapter stood upon the brink of annihilation. Millennia of unrelenting savagery had left the Chapter shunned and distrusted by many of the Imperium's fighting forces. Seth knows that he cannot realistically curtail his battle-brothers' bloodlust -- indeed he himself is as prone to rage-soaked savagery as any of his brethren. Yet by striking first, and in isolation from other forces, the Flesh Tearers' worst excesses are concealed, as is the collateral damage amongst allies that once was the hallmark of the Chapter's assaults. Now, worlds that once reviled the Flesh Tearers praise them as saviours. It is too early to tell if Seth's strategy will ultimately bear fruit. Despite his intentions, Seth has done little to dispel the mistrust of his staunchest critics. Yet such things are of little concern to the Flesh Tearers Chapter Master, for, in his heart, Seth has never truly abandoned hope that the Flesh Tearers can be spared from ultimate oblivion. It is a desperate hope, at best.
  • High Chaplain Appollus - Appollus is the current High Chaplain of the Flesh Tearers and the successor of High Chaplain Carnarvon in the wake of the Devastation of Baal. It is his duty to maintain the Chapter's Death Company like his predecessor. Appollus believes that those Flesh Tearers lost to the Black Rage represent the purest expression of the warrior ideal embodied within Sanguinius.
  • High Chaplain Carnarvon (KIA) - Carnarvon was called the "Watcher of the Lost," for he was the Flesh Tearer who commemorated every member of the Chapter who died in combat or ultimately succumbed to the Black Rage. He alone bore the terrible responsibility to watch over the remaining 400 battle-brothers of the Flesh Tearers Chapter for the onset of the Black Rage. He occupied this position for nearly 250 standard years before the creation of the Great Rift and it was whispered by many that the strain of watching so many of his friends and comrades descend into this dreaded affliction had started to take its toll on his sanity. Carnarvon had the final word as to who was to be inducted into the Flesh Tearers' Death Company and who amongst these afflicted brethren had to be permanently incarcerated in their fortress-monastery's Tower of the Lost because they had fallen so far into madness that even he could not control them. During the Devastation of Baal, Carnarvon ultimately succumbed to the Red Thirst and was inducted into the Death Company, where he perished in battle with the forces of Hive Fleet Leviathan.
  • Chaplain Zuphias - Zuphias commands the Death's Cowl, a specially-adapted strike cruiser that serves as the home to the majority of the Chapter's Death Company. Zuphias had been mortally wounded in the Lypherion campaign when a Daemon of Khorne shattered Zuphias' bones and bisected him with a single stroke of its blade. Only the Chaplain's tenacity and burning anger had kept his twin hearts pumping until the Apothecaries found him. They interred him in the command throne of the Death Cowl, keeping his shattered body alive through a regimen of electroshocks and bio-fluids. His body was intended to be transferred to a Dreadnought sarcophagus on his return to Cretacia, given an armoured, cybernetic body in which to continue his battle against the enemies of the Emperor. But operational requirements involving the strike cruiser had necessitated he remain embedded within the command throne of the Death Cowl. Now, after more than six solar decades, Zuphias can no longer be removed from the vessel to which he is hard-wired. Below his waist there exists only bundles of wires and cabling which replaced his legs. Zuphias and the Death Cowl would remain one until oblivion finally claimed them both.
  • Captain Toivo - Toivo was a Primaris Captain of Sanguinius' lineage who served among the Unnumbered Sons during the Indomitus Crusade. Toivo was assigned by Roboute Guilliman and Commander Dante of the Blood Angels to serve as one of the first Primaris Marine reinforcements to the Flesh Tearers. He was greeted at first with great disdain by Chapter Master Gabriel Seth, who was wary of the Primaris reinforcements who he felt might alter the character of his Chapter forever. Before Seth would allow Toivo to join the Chapter he demanded that the Primaris Marine fight him. Toivo at first refused despite Seth's insults against Guilliman and Dante. High Chaplain Appollus aided Seth, by holding a Plasma Pistol on Toivo until he agreed to fight, though he believed he was being betrayed. Toivo agreed reluctantly, but warned the Firstborn Chapter Master that as a Primaris Marine he was simply stronger in every way. Seth laughed and proceeded to physically batter the Primaris Marine into unconsciousness. Seth explained that physical strength was not enough, it was the intent that always mattered more. He also gave the Primaris Astartes a warning. If the Primaris were stronger than the Firstborn Space Marines, might it not also be possible that the genetic flaw of Sanguinius' blood would also prove stronger in them, possibly destroying the Chapter? Toivo had no answer, and with this hard lesson learned, Gabriel Seth welcomed him into the Chapter as a new captain. Toivo's name was Old Terran for "hope," a name drawn from the Throneworld's northern continents.
  • Captain Gorn - Captain of the Flesh Tearers' 4th Company. Gorn was also the Flesh Tearers' Force Commander responsible for the terrible Kallern Massacres carried out by the Chapter when many of its Asartes fell prey to the Black Rage while defending the world of Kallern some time during the 36th Millennium. The Flesh Tearers slaughtered hundreds of innocent civilians as well as their foes. As a result of these massacres, the Flesh Tearers came under the close scrutiny of the Inquisition for potential heresy.
  • Captain Kamien - Captain Kamien was a Captain of the Flesh Eaters and was part of the Chapter forces that were sent to reinforce the Blood Angels prior to the Devastation of Baal. It is unknown whether he survived the siege.
  • Librarian Balthiel - Balthiel serves as a Librarian in the Flesh Tearers Chapter. A potent psyker of considerable skill, he was sent, alone, to kill the traitorous Planetary Governor Kadi Aren, who had recently led the world of Spheris into insurrection against the Imperium of Man. Despite insurmountable odds, Balthiel managed to achieve his objective and kill the Heretic and his retinue of bodyguards, though the monumental effort and strain from overusing his psychic abilities left him in a temporary Sus-an-induced coma. Centuries later, Inquisitor Corvin Herrold of the Ordo Hereticus and his Inquisitorial retinue boarded the Flesh Tearers' flaship to search for evidence of the Flesh Tearers' long-suspected heresy. Utilising a decoy, the Inquisitor managed to covertly make his way into the bowels of the mighty Chapter vessel. There he discovered a battle-brother chained to the bulkhead walls, lost in the throes of the Black Rage -- proof, in the Inquisitor's eyes, of the Chapter's corruption. The Inquisitor was discovered in his investigation, and knocked unconscious by Chaplain Apollus, as the rest of the Inquisitorial retinue were subsequently slaughtered by the Flesh Tearers. Upon regaining consciousness, Inquisitor Herrold was subjected to a brutal punishment meted out by Balthiel, under orders from his Chapter Master, Gabriel Seth, to teach the prying Inquisitor an abject lesson. Utilising his psychic abilities, Balthiel created a mind-link with the recently fallen battle-brother, and exposed the Inquisitor to the full horror that is the Black Rage. Though only exposed for a span of solar minutes, it nearly broke the Inquisitor's mind. Seth explained to Herrold that this was the inner Daemon his Chapter struggled with daily, and through their indomitable will, were able to harness it to use as a weapon against the enemies of the Imperium, or, at worst, have their lives and their sanity stolen as they continued to faithfully serve the Emperor. The Inquisitor was allowed to leave the flagship. As he did so, he purposely dropped his Inquisitorial Rosette to the warship's floor. He had decided that he no longer had faith in his own judgement and thus compromised, that his career as an Inquisitor was effectively over. Balthiel, like his fellow battle-brothers, was among the forces that answered the Blood Angels' call for aid prior to the Devastation of Baal and participated in the defence of that world from Hive Fleet Leviathan.
  • Sergeant Androeus - Androeus is the leader of a squad of 1st Company Veterans of the Flesh Tearers who are some of the most battle-hardened warriors within the Chapter. Vanguard Veteran Squad Androeus is lethal in close combat, using Jump Packs and Chainswords to meet its enemies head-on as it leads the Flesh Tearers into battle.
  • Sergeant Danatael - Danatael is a squad leader of a squad of 1st Company Veterans of the Flesh Tearers. Armed with deadly Lightning Claws and clad in ancient Terminator Armour, Squad Danatael makes a devastating assault force capable of tearing apart almost any foe.
  • Sergeant Lucien - Lucien is the squad leader of a squad of 1st Company Veterans of the Flesh Tearers. Tactical Space Marines, like those of Squad Lucien, form the solid foundation upon which Chapter Master Seth creates his strike forces. Sergeant Lucien, distinctive in his pale tabard and laurelled helm, carries a powerful Combi-Melta -- an ancient artefact of the Chapter.
  • Harahel - Harahel is the Flesh Tearers' 1st Company Champion. He took part in his Chapter's efforts to defend the moon Baal Primus when Hive Fleet Leviathan invaded the Baal System. The battle went poorly for them, however, and when Chapter Master Seth gave the order to evacuate, Harahel was among the few Flesh Tearers to escape from the doomed moon. Harahel normally wields a massive Eviscerator as his primary weapon, but has also wielded an Assault Cannon and Chainfist when wearing his Terminator Armour.
  • Sergeant Noxx - Noxx is a squad leader from the 4th Company.
  • Veteran Brother Raeloen - Armed with paired Lightning Claws, Brother Raeloen is a warrior of the Flesh Tearers Terminator Assault Squad Danatael. Well protected by his heavy armour, Raeloen was able to wade into the Tyranid swarm, ripping apart his foes in sprays of ichor. Having served in Squad Danatael for almost a standard century, Raeloen had fought on countless worlds before setting foot on Lysios during the Cryptus Campaign. Each time he had emerged from battle covered in dripping gore, his Red Thirst sated for a while by the relentless butchery.
  • Veteran Brother Garth - An accomplished Assault Marine prior to his membership in the Deathwatch, Veteran Brother Garth has consistently earned the respect of his peers for his talents with bolter and chainsword. Through numerous engagements, particularly on worlds near the fringes of the Hadex Anomaly, the battle-brother has defeated hundreds of mutants who bore the taint of Chaos. In fact, members of the Watch Fortress' other Kill-teams have trained with Garth on numerous occasions. This is generally at the behest of those who wish to have first-hand experience with his savage approach to melee. After ten standard years of service within the Jericho Reach, dark rumours have begun to circulate that Veteran Brother Garth may be showing early signs of the Black Rage. The most commonly cited reasons are his shortened temper and an increased savagery during training. After a recent mission, he was the only member of his Kill-team to safely return to the Watch Fortress. Since that incident, he has not been assigned to a new team, but has been sent on missions with other established teams. A number of battle-brothers are concerned that if Garth were to fall prey to the Black Rage without a Death Company Chaplain to calm him, the consequences could be grave.
  • Maion - Maion is a battle-brother of the Flesh Tearers.
  • Helorius - The Flesh Tearers' genetic flaw leads to a high proportion of their battle-brothers falling to the spiritual sickness of the Black Rage. On Lysios during the Cryptus Campaign, dozens of battle-brothers like Helorius would succumb when the madness of battle finally unhinged them, robbing them of their reason. When Helorius was taken by the Black Rage his armour was painted black and symbols were daubed upon his shoulder plates and weapons in an ancient and sacred ritual. This was to show Helorius' new status as one of the damned, so that others might bear witness to his sacrifice.
  • Skoraen the Bloodied - The ancient Dreadnought Skoraen the Bloodied was a relic of a time when the Flesh Tearers had been at the height of their glory. Skoraen fought for the Flesh Tearers many Terran centuries ago, before he was mortally wounded and interned within the armoured hull of a Dreadnought. As a Space Marine, Skoraen had been part of the Bloodiron Charge at Vetix IV that broke the back of the World Eaters Bonescar warband, and personally held the line against the Heretics of the Taunhaus Rebellion. These deeds, and the many that had come after, would be recorded upon the hull of his Dreadnought in icons and symbols, the meaning of many of which was known only to Skoraen himself. Furious in combat, Skoraen's rage is born not just of the blood of Sanguinius that still courses through his flesh, but also from having been forced to witness the slow death of his Chapter. Skoraen can do nothing to stop the madness and decay that is eating away at the Flesh Tearers, and so instead vents his anger upon his foes.
  • Renegade Battle-Brother Krayth - Krayth was once a battle-brother of the Flesh Tearers. Ironically, it was his attempt to overcome his Chapter's overpowering battle lust that led to Krayth's fall. He always despised the lack of self-control that his flawed gene-seed imposed on him. As he grew older, he became devoted to discovering a cure, or at least protection from this Flaw. After many years, a trail of false promises led him into the Screaming Vortex, one of two malefic Warp Storms that separated the Calixis Sector of the Imperium from the Koronus Expanse in the Segmentum Obscurus, and finally to the Slaaneshi Daemon Prince Seiyr. By the time he concluded that there was no cure for the Flaw, he had already slaughtered so many loyal servants of the Emperor in his single-minded pursuit that he saw no going back. Betrayed by his genetic legacy and with no home remaining for him in the Imperium, Krayth bitterly betrayed his heritage in turn. Krayth now harbours a burning resentment for the Emperor who made him with flaws he cannot escape, and for all of the Emperor's works. Although he despises the base, weak nature of most of the wretches in the Screaming Vortex, they are allies in his great crusade of revenge. More than one of his new comrades is curious about his origin, but they have also been witness to the painful end awaiting anyone foolish enough to broach the subject with him.

Chapter Relics

"I am His vengeance as He is my shield. I will deliver death to His enemies as He brings deliverance to my soul."

—Brother Maion
GabrielSethBloodreaver

Flesh Tearers Chapter Master Gabriel Seth wielding the relic chainsword Blood Reaver.

  • Blood Reaver - Blood Reaver is the massive, two-handed chainsword wielded in battle by the Flesh Tearers Chapter Master Gabriel Seth. As a butcher wields a cleaver, so does Seth wield Blood Reaver. Rarely has a weapon been so suited to its charge as this massive, two-handed chainsword. Blood Reaver is every bit as unsubtle and savage as the Chapter Master. Forged with teeth taken from the chainfists once worn by the Flesh Tearers' first Chapter Master Nassir Amit, Blood Reaver serves as both armament and banner, its guttural roar a rally cry to the enduring nature of the Flesh Tearers and the violence they will inflict on those before them.
  • Bones of Baelsor - Baelsor was a great hero of the Flesh Tearers, both when he walked as a Space Marine and then later when he had been encased in the sarcophagus of a Dreadnought. Though he ultimately fell during the Bloodiron Charge against the World Eaters, his armoured shell endured. An ancient composite of ceramite and plasteel, it was passed down to other Dreadnoughts, and most recently to Skoraen the Bloodied.
  • Grisly Trophies - While all Space Marine Chapters have been known to collect trophies from their vanquished foes, such as battle standards, skulls, or battered suits of armour and weapons, in the heat of battle a Flesh Tearer may claim a more grisly trophy from those he kills, such as bloody heads or bleeding hearts. These trophies are a primal symbol for the Flesh Tearer of his dominance over the foe -- an animalistic response to triumphing in battle and proving one's strength. While they might fill the battle-brother with righteous rage and purpose, calming his Black Rage for a time, they can be repellent to other Space Marines and alarming to lesser warriors who might well wonder if it is to be their head that will adorn the battle-brother's armour next.
  • Memor Nihilis - This massive Eviscerator is intricately worked, with each tooth of the roaring chainblade inscribed to a level of detail few artisans could manage. This ornate work was done by the hand of a Sanguinary Priest, to commemorate the loss of the Chapter's warriors claimed by the Black Rage. Barely visible script details the history and heraldry of dozens of warriors along the length of the blade, ever reminding its wielder of the peril of losing control of himself.
  • Shield of Cretacia - For long Terran centuries the Apothecaries of the Flesh Tearers have tried in myriad ways to mitigate the genetic curse that sleeps within the flesh of their battle-brothers. The Shield of Cretacia is one of these failed experiments. A suit of Artificer Armour, it incorporates a complex system of blood filters to process the battle-brother's vital fluids, in the hope that it could slow the progress of the Red Thirst. Though this proved not to be the case, an unexpected side-effect of the armour was the protection it afforded the wearer from poison, above and beyond that of a normal Space Marine's enhanced physiology and the abilities of his battle-plate.
  • Slayer's Wrath - For millennia the Flesh Tearers have defended the Imperium and its worlds, and they earned great honour and gratitude from their allies before the Chapter's gradual decline. Slayer's Wrath is a relic of this time, gifted to the Chapter by the Inquisitor Hyboran of the Ordo Xenos, for aiding her in crushing the Xorin Infestation. Crafted by some unknown master artisan of the Imperium, this boltgun has minute inner technological workings of unknown design that create frozen bolts impregnated with a mix of rare and deadly poisons.

Chapter Fleet

The Flesh Tearers possess a number of strike cruisers that have been modified to gain an extended transport capacity for their vehicles. Other than that, the following vessels are known to have been or still are part of the Flesh Tearers Chapter Fleet:

  • Shield of Baal (Strike Cruiser) - An ancient Flesh Tearers vessel commanded by Captain Eligus following the Chapter's formation in the early 31st Millennium.
  • Death's Cowl (Strike Cruiser) - Commanded by Chaplain Zuphias, whose body was hardwired into the vessel's command throne, the Death's Cowl is a specially adapted strike cruiser that is home to the bulk of the Flesh Tearers' Death Company. Its innards have been ripped out to make room for extra assault launchers, Drop Pods, and boarding torpedoes. It is a terrifying vessel, a living morgue inhabited by the dead who have not yet found their release, a dark herald of the fate that might wait for all of the Flesh Tearers. It stands as a grim reminder of glories lost and the strength needed to protect what is left.
  • Bleeding Fist (Strike Cruiser) - Flesh Tearers vessel commanded by Captain Aamon following the Chapter's formation in the 31st Millennium. The Bleeding Fist was destroyed in the early years of the Great Scouring.
  • Mortis Wrath (Strike Cruiser)
  • Butcher (Gladius-class Frigate)
  • Redeemer (Gladius-class Frigate) - Flesh Tearers frigate commanded by Sergeant Namtar following the Chapter's formation in the 31st Millennium. The Redeemer was destroyed in the early years of the Great Scouring.

Chapter Appearance

Chapter Colours

The Flesh Tearers have a two-tone colour scheme with maroon covering the torso, arms and legs of their power armour, while the helm, shoulder pauldrons and backpack are jet black.

Like the Blood Angels, the Flesh Tearers' company designation is displayed on the right shoulder plate in the form of a skull (for the Veteran 1st Company) or a differently-coloured drop of blood for the other companies.

A Flesh Tearers' squad designation is determined by a Low Gothic numeral placed on the right knee plate. Librarians of the Chapter wear blue power armour with only the left shoulder plate painted black.

Heraldry of the Host

Like their predecessors, the Blood Angels, the Flesh Tearers adhere to a strict heraldic system, allowing them to recognise what company and squad any given battle-brother belongs to at a glance.

The advantages of such swift recognition amid the madness of battle are obvious. More than this, however, all the sons of Sanguinius revere their heraldry, and bear these markings as badges of pride.

Squad Designation

FT 3rd Co Aslt Badge

3rd Company shoulder plate bearing close support badge.

The Flesh Tearers make use of symbols from the Codex Astartes for squad specialty designation. They favour a white symbol, indicating either battleline, close support, fire support or Veteran, on black with contemporary markings over the top.

Squad Number

Unlike the Blood Angels, the Flesh Tearers use simple Low Gothic numerals to identify individual squads, commonly presented on the warriors' right knee guard.

Company Markings

FT Company Markings2

Example Flesh Tearers Company Markings

Like the Blood Angels, the Flesh Tearers use variations of the blood drop to denote company, even though their companies are often divided into ad-hoc battle groups:

  • 1st Company (Veteran): A white skull over black background on the right shoulder plate. On Terminator Armour (Tactical Dreadnought Armour), the left shoulder plate shows the First Company's specific heraldry, the right shoulder guard displays the Chapter badge in white.
  • 2nd Company (Battle): A single yellow blood drop.
  • 3rd Company (Battle): A single red blood drop.
  • 4th Company (Battle): A single green blood drop.
  • 5th Company (Battle): A single black blood drop.
  • 6th Company (Reserve Battleline): Twin yellow blood drops, side by side.
  • 7th Company (Reserve Battleline): Twin red blood drops, side by side.
  • 8th Company (Reserve Close Support): Twin green blood drops, side by side.
  • 9th Company (Reserve Fire Support): Twin black blood drops, side by side.
  • 10th Company (Scout Marines): The Flesh Tearers' Scout Company wears a black skull on the right shoulder plate, and the Chapter badge on the left.

Chapter Badge

The Flesh Tearers' Chapter badge is a white serrated blade with a red blood drop centred in it. It represents the customised chainfists that the first Chapter Master once carried into battle.

Canon Conflict

Earlier editions of the Flesh Tearers' history states that they spent thousands of standard years as a fleet-based Chapter after their formation and that it was a Chapter Master named Amit who finally settled the Chapter on the world of Cretacia.

Current canon claims that only 200 Terran years were spent by the Flesh Tearers as a crusading Chapter before the discovery and settlement of Cretacia.

However, Amit appears as a captain of the Blood Angels Legion in the Horus Heresy series of novels who was the founding Chapter Master of the Flesh Tearers.

Amit has a vicious and savage reputation, even by the standards of the World Eaters and his Oath Brother, Kharn. It was during his frequent fights in the World Eaters gladiatorial pits that Amit earned his nickname the "Flesh Tearer."

During the Blood Angels' Signus Campaign, Captain Amit of the Blood Angels served as the captain of the Battle Barge Victus. This Battle Barge would later find service with the Flesh Tearers Chapter as their only known vessel of that class, and is rumoured to have been in their possession since the Founding of the Chapter.

Sources

  • Black Crusade: Games Master's Kit (RPG), pg. 8
  • Blood Angels Painting Guide - Sons of Sanguinius (Supplement), pp. 50-63, 146-172
  • Codex Adeptus Astartes - Blood Angels (8th Edition), pp. 11, 14, 18, 21-23, 39, 51-52, 56
  • Codex: Blood Angels (5th Edition), pp. 14, 54-55, 71
  • Codex: Angels of Death (2nd Edition), pg. 34
  • Codex: Grey Knights (5th Edition), pg. 38
  • Codex: Necrons (5th Edition) pg. 26
  • Codex: Space Marines (3rd Edition), pg. 47
  • Codex: Space Wolves (5th Edition), pg. 19
  • Deathwatch: Honour the Chapter (RPG), pp. 50-57, 130
  • Deathwatch: Rites of Battle (RPG), pp. 62-63
  • Imperial Armour Volume Two: Space Marines and Forces of the Inquisition, pg. 47
  • Imperial Armour Volume Two, Second Edition - War Machines of the Adeptus Astartes, pg. 20
  • Index Astartes I, "Blood Frenzy - The Flesh Tearers Space Marine Chapter"
  • Shield of Baal: Exterminatus (7th Edition), pp. 10, 18-20, 54-56, 58-63, 66, 71-79, 127, 171, 173-176, 178, 181-182, 185-189, 195-196, 231, 267, 284, 296, 304, 309, 337-352
  • Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader (1st Edition), pg. 168
  • Butcher's Nails (Audio Book) by Aaron Dembski-Bowden
  • Fear to Tread (Novel) by James Swallow
  • Death and Defiance (Anthology), "Virtue of the Sons", by Andy Smillie
  • Crimson Night (Short Story) by James Swallow
  • Virtues of the Sons (Short Story) by Andy Smillie
  • Sins of the Father (Short Story) by Andy Smillie
  • Flesh of Cretacia (Novel) by Andy Smillie, pp. 7, 22
  • Helsreach (Novel) by Aaron Dembski-Bowden
  • Red Fury (Novel) by James Swallow
  • Black Tide (Novel) by James Swallow
  • Know Thyself (Short Story) by Andy Smillie
  • Gabriel Seth: The Flesh Tearer (Novella) by Andy Smillie
  • Flesh Tearers Quick Reads - Fury and Rage (Anthology)
  • Beneath the Flesh (Novella) by Andy Smillie
  • Immortalis (Novella) by Andy Smillie
  • The Quickening (Special Advent Issue) by Andy Smillie
  • Legends of the Space Marines (Anthology), "At Gaius Point", by Aaron Dembski-Bowden
  • Blood in the Machine (Audiobook) by Andy Smillie
  • Trial By Blood (Novel) by Andy Smillie
  • Sons of Wrath (Novel) by Andy Smillie
  • Hunger (Audiobook) by Andy Smillie
  • At Slaughter's End (Audiobook) by Andy Smillie
  • The Last Son of Dorn (Novel) by David Guymer, Ch. 1
  • Warhammer 40,000: Rulebook (8th Edition), "Devastation of Baal", pg. 52
  • Third War for Armageddon Worldwide Campaign - Forces Disposition, Imperial Forces: Flesh Tearers
  • The Devastation of Baal (Novel) by Guy Haley, pp. 380-384, 385, 425-435, 440-443, 493-496, 497
  • Warhammer 40,000: Deathwatch (4 Issue Comic Series) (2018)
  • White Dwarf 40 (December 2019), "Index Astartes: Flesh Tearers" by Andy Smillie and Tom Horth, pp. 70-81

Gallery

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