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The Sons of Fenris they are, hardened in the forge of their harsh world, eager for battle and honour. They are the grey warriors, ashen like the wolf, whose greatest joy is to hear the clamour of steel amidst the din of war.
THE SPACE WOLVES CATECHISM
The Space Wolves, known in their own dialect of Juvjk as the Vlka Fenryka or "Wolves of Fenris," are one of the original 20 First Founding Space Marine Chapters, and were once led by their famed primarch, Leman Russ. Originally the VIth Legion of Astartes raised by the Emperor at the dawn of the Great Crusade, the Space Wolves are renowned for their anti-authoritarian ways and their embrace of their homeworld Fenris' savage barbarian culture as well as their extreme deviation from the Codex Astartes in the Chapter's organisation.
After the Horus Heresy and the resultant Second Founding reforms of the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Wolves Legion was divided into two Chapters: the new Space Wolves Chapter, which was not compliant with the dictates of the Codex Astartes and retained the name of its parent Space Marine Legion, and the second Chapter which took the name of the Wolf Brothers. The Wolf Brothers suffered from rampant mutation of their gene-seed not long after their Founding and were later disbanded.
Only recently in the Era Indomitus have new successors of the Space Wolves been raised; though many Space Wolves still have doubts about whether the Primaris Marines raised from the genetic material of Leman Russ are true sons of the primarch, the Great Wolf Logan Grimnar has accepted them into the fold as warriors worthy of the Wolf King's heritage.
Since the Imperium came into being, the Space Wolves have fought tooth and nail for the cause of the Emperor. Amongst the most famous of the Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes, their sagas are told from one end of the galaxy to the other. As headstrong as they are fierce, the Space Wolves excel at close-quarters fighting, their warriors vying keenly for glory on the field of battle. The Space Wolves live to fight, and death holds no fear for them.
The legends of the Space Wolves Chapter are told on countless thousands of worlds, and like the greatest of their fellow First Founding kin, they hold so many battle-honours that it would take a battle-scribe an entire lifetime to commit them all to parchment. The manner in which such laurels are won and recounted amongst the Space Wolves is very different to how such things are achieved amongst other Chapters.
The Space Wolves are savage and proud, and they seek glory in all they do. Some, especially the Dark Angels, regard the Sons of Russ as braggarts and gloryhounds, finding their methods crude and their desire to make a name for themselves vainglorious. In truth, every Space Wolves battle-brother longs for his story -- his saga -- to be recounted by his kin long after he has fallen, and for his name to be spoken in the same breath as the primarch himself.
The Space Wolves deviate from the Codex Astartes and the essential nature of what it is to be a Space Marine about as far as is possible. Their genetic inheritance is at once a blessing and a curse, for although each Space Wolf is gifted of the transhuman senses of Russ himself, their enhancedphysiologies can be overcome by the change and mutation can occur.
In organisation, the Chapter has never paid any regard to the dictates of Roboute Guilliman's Codex Astartes, stubbornly cleaving to the structure that saw it through the wars at the very dawn of the Age of the Imperium. In appearance, the Space Wolves are savage and wild, adorning their armour with a combination of finely-wrought talismans and skins, bones, and teeth taken as trophies from beasts they have slain in single combat. Even in their manners, the battle-brothers of the Space Wolves differ from most other Space Marines, for they are competitive and headstrong, and at once individualistic and fiercely loyal to their squad or "pack."
Space Wolves seek to write their saga with every deed they perform and every battle they fight, and perhaps more than any other Chapter, their service is an epic in itself. The rites of initiation that a Space Wolf must undergo in order to be accepted as a neophyte are amongst the most harsh of any Chapter. Often he must actually fall in combat having slain all of his foes first, a guttering spark of life remaining. His deeds witnessed by a so-called "Chooser of the Slain," the young warrior awakens far from his tribe. But this is only the beginning, for so potent is the gene-stock of Leman Russ that most who receive it are overcome, their bodies ravaged by mutation as they transform into savage, once-Human beasts called Wulfen.
Those who can contain this animal potency are judged fit to proceed, and after countless more trials may be accepted into the ranks of the Blood Claw Assault Packs. At this stage in his life, a Space Wolf is likely to be a headstrong berserker competing with his peers for the approval of his superiors. He is also full of the disdain and reckless overconfdence of youth, convinced that his methods are correct and the older warriors are simply stuck in their ways. Only as he matures with experience, faces more foes and suffers the cathartic tragedy of losing beloved battle-brothers does he change, and progress to join the veteran Grey Hunter packs.
Later in life, having faced every foe and seen all there is to be seen, the Space Wolf and his few surviving peers might form a Long Fangs pack, where their hard-fought experience and wisdom affords them the ability to provide fire support to the rest of the force, and to act as an immovable island in the seething ocean of battle. Throughout his service, the Space Wolf compiles his great saga, not in words, but in deeds. He seeks out the most powerful of enemies and faces the most arduous of tasks.
Every Adeptus Astartes Chapter is a cadre of heroes, and the Space Wolves even more so than most, so to earn a special place in the annals of his Chapter, a Space Wolf must perform truly epic deeds and face such foes as would give even the mightiest of figures pause. As a result of these deeds, each Space Wolf carries within him unparalleled expertise, and wears the scars to prove it.
Perhaps more than any other Chapter, the character of a Space Wolves battle-brother is defined by his age. Perhaps the changes wrought within him by the Canis Helix grant him something of the essence of his primarch, a potent and savage nature the battle-brother must struggle to control. Leman Russ was known as a being of wild humours and often contradictory drives. One moment he was jovial, the next sullen. At the conclusion of one battle he might have ordered clemency and mercy, and at another brooked no quarter.
To the Space Wolves, there is no contradiction, for the very world that birthed them, Fenris, is subject to such extremes. One season the land of ice and fire is cold and snow-swept, the next the skies blacken with ash and lava flows dissect the plains. Thus, the nature and character of a Space Wolf depends very much upon his stage in life. The youngest are headstrong and cocksure, seemingly determined to get themselves killed charging headlong into battle.
The Grey Hunters are more mature, knowing the constraints of their abilities but confdent of their skills. The Long Fangs are the oldest and the wisest, affably disapproving of the antics of the youngsters but ever ready with words of advice. The most skilled in battle and leadership serve as Wolf Guard, the guardians of the Chapter's mightiest heroes. Whatever his station, a Space Wolf knows that he travels a glorious path, and that thousands of great warriors have trod it before him.
Since the days of the VIth Legion's inception on Terra, the Space Wolves have remained a Space Marine Legion apart from its fellows, its origins shrouded as it garnered a fearsome reputation for its warriors' prowess as a shock-assault force as well as tireless pursuers and a peerless hunter-killer force. Unexpected violence was the Legion's calling card, its campaigns unsubtle, but brutally swift.
Like their latter-day namesakes, the wolves of Old Earth, its warriors' assaults were calculated exercises in ferocity, aimed to tear and rend until the foe lay in ruins or was driven to its death. But it was with the restoration to the Legion of its primarch, Leman Russ, and its settling on the icy Death World of Fenris, one of the most perilous and strange of Mankind's ancient homes, that the VIth Legion's nature would find its apotheosis and the Space Wolves would truly be born.
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Space Wolves Chapter colour scheme as displayed by a Firstborn Astartes Tactical Marine.
Under its master and gene-sire Leman Russ, the Space Wolves Legion would reave a bloody path across the stars of the Great Crusade, but never stray far in truth from the shadow of the Emperor. For, unlike their brother Legions, the Space Wolves were kept under the tight control of the Imperial Court and unleashed at the Emperor's command as often to chastise those who would renege on their oaths of service to the Imperium as to destroy those who resisted the offer of Imperial Compliance upon the dark frontier.
This oft-served role as bloody-handed tool of punishment, coupled with the secret purposes to which the Legion had been used and the Space Wolves' rapidly increasing cultural idiosyncrasy, steadily drove a wedge between the VIth and the other Space Marine Legions as the solar decades of war ground on.
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Space Wolves Legion Pre-Heresy colour scheme as displayed by a Space Wolf Legionary wearing Mark II Crusade Power Armour.
So it was by the closing years of the Great Crusade and the ascension of the Warmaster Horus to his lofty rank that the Space Wolves in many ways stood a Legion isolated and apart. With some of their brethren they maintained ties of comradeship and respect, however distantly, but with others there simmered mutual acrimony and distrust, and others still considered them no more than leashed monsters, set loose only to kill when needed -- something less than Human and in truth perhaps even less than Astartes.
Of such opinions or considerations the Space Wolves cared little; they knew well enough that they were not the builders of empire, nor were they the watchers on its walls, nor lock-step soldiers who cared for bright pageantry and meaningless contests for rank and perfection -- they were predators, thus they had been made, and woe betide any who fell into their jaws.
The Primarchs
The Space Wolves are one of the greatest of the Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes, their name and honours known throughout the galaxy. As one of the original twenty Space Marine Legions, the Space Wolves were founded by the Emperor Himself over ten thousand standard years ago. The Legions were created to take part in the Great Crusade, the Emperor's reconquest of the galaxy that established the Imperium of Man as it is today.
Before the Great Crusade, Terra had endured thousands of years of isolation whilst impenetrable Warp Storms seethed and howled throughout the western part of the galaxy. This dark period of Human history was known as the Age of Strife. Even the Emperor was trapped upon Terra by the Warp's tumult, and could do little other than secure Humanity's birth planet and prepare His armies for the reconquest to come.
Without the Emperor to guide them through this terrible age, the rest of the Human-settled worlds throughout the galaxy were left helpless against the predations of aliens and the dread creatures of the Warp. One by one, they fell into anarchy and despair. Humanity, it seemed, was doomed to eventual extinction.
During Terra's isolation at the end of the 30th Millennium, the Emperor had striven to create twenty transhuman beings. These primarchs, as he called them, were genetically-engineered creatures, artificial humanoids with astounding abilities. Each was created differently and with his own unique skills, powers, and in some cases, incredible psychic potential. The primarchs were made to resemble Humanity, but many were far more mighty in appearance.
Yet the Primarch Project never reached its intended conclusion. In a disastrous incident, the nascent creatures' incubation pods in the Emperor's gene-laboratories deep beneath the Himalazian (Himalayan) Mountains were swept up by terrible forces that dwelt within the Warp and scattered across the stars. Rather than trying to duplicate the long and arduous work through which he had created the primarchs, the Emperor instead used the raw material developed during the Primarch Project to create the Space Marines.
After much toil, the Emperor and His team of highly-talented geneticists created a number of artificially-cultured organs, each re-engineered from the genomes of the primarchs. These organs were designed so that they could be implanted into the body of an ordinary adolescent Human male. Once implanted, the organs would take root and develop within the host's Human tissues, becoming an integrated part of his body.
Many of these engineered organs were designed to interact with natural body tissues as they developed, enhancing muscle growth, stimulating mental processes, and transforming the recipient into a transhuman warrior. Compared to the primarchs whose incredible power they had partially inherited, the Space Marines were but pale shadows, but they still became the mightiest of men and the greatest of the Emperor's warriors.
The Wolf-Child Comes to Fenris
The Primarch of the Space Wolves had landed upon the icy Death World of Fenris, his incubation pod plummeting down into the flank of a vast mountain. Given the harshness of the Fenrisian climate, it is safe to say that a lesser being would have died almost immediately upon his arrival. Emerging from his smoking capsule, the infant Primarch soon encountered a deadly mother Thunderwolf. He was doomed, yet fate, it seemed, had other ideas. Sensing in the feral youth a kindred spirit, the giant she-wolf did not kill the transhuman child, but instead raised him alongside her cubs as one of her own. The Imperium's records concerning the Space Wolves' heritage and Russ' origins owe much to the life's work of Gnauril the Elder, a contemporary of the ancient Fenrisian king Thengir. Gnauril's saga, The Ascension of the Wolf-King, tells of one fateful Helwinter, when the feral wolf-child was discovered by a hunting party of Fenrisian tribesmen. In a vicious confrontation, the wolf-mother was slain by their spears and arrows, along with many of her cubs. The Primarch fought with terrible fury, slaying a dozen warriors with naught but his bare hands to protect his two surviving packmates, Freki and Geri. It was then that fate intervened once more. One of the tribesmen at last recognised the Primarch for what he was -- human, not wolf -- and called for his fellow huntsmen to lower their weapons. The bloodied youth stood his ground, fangs bared, but understood their peaceful gesture and stayed his wrath. Unsure quite what to do, the tribesmen brought the young Primarch and his wolf-kin -- for he would not be parted from them -- before the court of King Thengir of the Russ tribe. The aging chieftain saw the undeniable potential in the young man and ordered that he be given a place within his household, there to be raised as a true Fenrisian -- as a warrior. Though many were left dumbfounded by the king's decision, time certainly proved Thengir wise.
Learning To Be Human
Amongst his own kind for the first time, Leman quickly learned their skills, showing a natural aptitude for the way of the warrior. He learned to speak, and mastered their primitive weapons -- iron axes and swords. Though he was quick to roar with laughter or bellow tunelessly in song, the Primarch slowly realised that he was more human than wolf, but far superior to both. When Russ handed the Champion of the King's Guard his battle-axes during their third sparring session after disarming him, Thengir admitted to himself that the young man was destined for greatness. The Primarch soon spoke the Fenrisian dialect of Low Gothic with powerful eloquence, and one evening, King Thengir deemed him worthy to receive a true name. The King named the former wolf-child Leman of the Russ. As the Primarch grew to maturity, he became the greatest of their number by far, leading the tribe's warriors to a thousand victories and more. Upon King Thengir's death, Leman of the Russ took his place upon the throne of the Russ. So did the Wolf-King become a living legend across Fenris. It was only a matter of time before word of his fame reached the ears of one who desperately sought news of His lost sons.
A Heroic Rise to Power
Much of what is known of Leman Russ' early years is born of hearsay and legend as his fame quickly spread throughout the tribes of Fenris. It was said that he was able to turn back whole armies of the King's enemies by himself without a scratch, to tear whole oak trees from the ground and snap them over his back in twain, and to wrestle Fenrisian Mammoths to the ground and roast one whole for his meal that evening. When King Thengir died, there was no question as to who should succeed him as the monarch of the Russ. Therefore, King Leman of the Russ took the throne. In time, his leadership was recognised by all the tribes of the frigid world, for all sought to benefit from his wisdom and extraordinary skill at arms on a world where the weak did not survive for very long.
The Wolf King
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Ancient Remembrancer sketch from Carpinius' Speculum Historiale, depicting Primarch Leman Russ, the Wolf King, during the Great Crusade.
Thus it came to pass that Russ was hailed as King of all Fenris, the Wolf-King, his judgment considered to be as strong as his sword-arm and his authority indisputable. No man nor beast could best the Wolf-King. No tribe could stand against his armies. Within Russ' kingdom a truce existed between man and wolf. His court was attended by the fiercest of warlords and the most beautiful of maidens. Tales of his mighty conquests spread like forest fires, and it was not long before the eyes of Terra turned upon his deeds. When the fleets of the Emperor's Great Crusade neared Fenris, they heard tales of Fenris' extraordinary Wolf-King. The legend of the Wolf-King was quickly identified as the work of a missing Primarch, and the Emperor descended to the planet. And so it was that the great, sky-spanning starships of the Emperor travelled to the center of the sea of stars, settling on the icy world of Fenris scant years after Russ' ascension to the throne he had forged by uniting all the fractious and feral tribes of his world.
The Shadow Before the Wolf
Much of the early details of the Founding and intake of the VI Legion remain shrouded under a quite deliberate veil of secrecy woven at the time of their creation, as it is with several of the proto-Legion groupings created in the closing stages of the Unification Wars. Beyond the usual concealment and security that the Emperor chose to surround the Space Marine project with in order to protect the nascent Legiones Astartes, the VI division, along with that of the XVIII Legion (that would later become known as the Salamanders) and the XX Legion who would become the Alpha Legion), was formed and established largely in separation from the rest, and it is generally thought created to very specific ends. There were none save perhaps a handful of the Emperor's closest and earliest confidants surviving from those lost and bloody days who knew the facts regarding this mysterious 'trefoil' of Legions, as it is sometimes known, and the truth likely died with them. Though in the case of the strains of Astartes that would be known as the Salamanders and the Space Wolves, they varied considerably in gene-forged ability to their peers.
This element of mystery surrounding the trefoil proto-Legions can be seen to establish a distance between the three and their brethren, particularly in regards to their earliest intake of Initiates, around which dark rumours circled. In the case of the intake of the VI Legion, a vast divergence in origin and genotype was clear even to the briefest of observations. Closer study of the evidence that remains indicates that representatives of some of the most barbarically regressive and hyper-violent cultures and outcast groups of pre-Unification Terra were chosen to found the Legion, though with such diversity that selection appeared to have been taken on an individual-by-individual basis rather than to invoke or capitalise on any single strain of warrior society. So it was that while certain proto-Legions, such as the X (later the Iron Hands) and the XV (later the Thousand Sons), held strong cultural imprints from Terra's subjected warlord-empires, the nascent VI was almost a blank slate. Instead, what bonded it together was its training in isolation as a coherent military force under the direction of the Strategos of the Emperor's inner circle. What also made the VI singular was the unique nature of its gene-seed, although what separated it from the other proto-Legions was not yet apparent to outsiders.
Evidence further indicates that the VI Legion's passage between stages of expansion was slower than many of its peers, slower perhaps in its first years than any save the XX Legion's, whose strange and obscured origins are the subject of another record. In retrospect this is likely to have been because of the high levels of fatal implant reaction rates among the Legion's candidates, which was to be demonstrated subsequently as a factor of the VI Legion's gene-seed before its later stabilisation with its Primarch's genetic pattern. Regardless, like the other proto-Legions of the trefoil, the VI was largely held back from full engagement in armed conflict during the closing stages of the Unification Wars and the re-conquest of the Sol System. This not only served to further isolate them from their peers but also denied them the boons of vastly increased recruitment intake gained by those Legions that had participated in the subjugation of Luna and the reward of primacy in the use of its gene-labs. Perhaps ironically, this segregation also spared them the travails of the gene-seed crisis which almost destroyed the III (later the Emperor's Children) and caused damage to the V (later the White Scars) and the IX (later the Blood Angels), as well.
It was almost a standard decade after the Great Crusade had broken free of the confines of the Sol System and spread out to distant stars that the VI Legion was to be unleashed openly en masse against an enemy. What occurred in the previous decade remains entirely lost, even to the Space Wolves Legion's own history, but record of that first great battle, the Compliance of "1-122," known to its indigenous human population as Delsvaan, are clear. Despatched from the shadow of the Principia Imperialis, the great Expeditionary Fleet commanded by the Emperor Himself, the then full strength of the VI Legion, some 3,500 Astartes, descended upon a world that had already met the overtures of the Imperium with violence. Delsvaan had weathered the Age of Strife relatively well, maintaining a technologically advanced, highly industrialised society, governed by a militarised plutocracy dedicated to the tangible profits and political control of its many production-combines. Hubris and arrogance rather than any deviancy or deep-seated malignity was its sin, but its people had defied the Imperium and they would be shown the error of their ways.
Left to their own devices as to the planning and execution of the operation -- as was no doubt part of the testing of the Legion, for surely a test this was -- Commander Enoch Rathvin, the VI Legion's first master, executed a multi-vector planetstrike operation aimed directly at Masaanore-Core, the fortified dormitory-city of the most powerful of Delsvaan's combines. Under cover of near-indiscriminate bombardment of the city's outer areas and infrastructure nexus, dozens of separate landing areas were breached in the ensuing confusion by gunship and Drop Pod strike, with Rathvin landing nearly his entire strength within a single solar hour and holding back no reserve. Tactical commentaries made by Imperial observers clearly state that what appeared at first sight to resemble the "point of the spear" shock assault tactics already widely practised by the Legions as pioneered by the XVI Legion under Horus -- then the only extant Primarch -- were quickly shown to have developed, or as some detractors had it "devolved," into something else.
Most of the defenders were killed where they stood, trying to mount firing lines to hold the advance, or cut down in their hundreds as attempted counterattacks turned into routs, the panicked militia themselves soon tangling with thousands of fleeing civilians. Faced with this stampede of terrified humanity, the VI Legion seemed to redouble its attack as if goaded on by the the scent of blood and terror. They fell on the the people of Masaanore-Core and there was great slaughter. There remains debate in the historical record whether at this time Legion command actually lost control of its units to the ongoing violence, however briefly, but in any case Enoch Rathvin did not quickly rein in his forces, and when he finally accepted the surrender of Masaanore-Core, its streets had been painted crimson with the blood of its inhabitants. The fate of the city was example enough however for the leaders of the other combines, and quickly they saw the folly of further resistance and so Delsvaan was brought into Compliance. The cost to one city had been great, but comparably to other Compliance actions, the cost to the world had been minor. The VI Legion's performance, while disquieting to some in the Imperium's hierarchy, more for its apparent ill-discipline than its results, was clearly sufficient for the Emperor's satisfaction to grant it its own sub-fleet to command; Expeditionary Fleet 115 -- still affiliated to the core of the great Armada of the Principia Imperialis but otherwise internally independent with its own tenders, Escort craft and warships.
For the next dozen standard years, the VI Legion continued as an active fleet command of the Great Crusade, its numbers steadily growing to recorded levels of nearly 5,000 at the Battle of Hyn'tal and then 7,000 active Astartes at the start of the Relovs Landing campaign. Given this relatively small size -- Legions such as the Luna Wolves and the Dark Angels of the I Legion numbered thrice and four times that number respectively -- they often served alongside other Legions and large Imperialis Auxilia forces in major campaigns or were entrusted with smaller, often bloody missions to destroy particular knots of enemy resistance in shock assaults. Over time the VI Legion developed particular expertise also in conducting rapidly moving hunter-killer operations, particularly in city-fighting conditions, or in undertaking more generally punitive actions, such as suppressing rebellions by inflicting short, brutal reprisal actions-tasks for which the VI under Rathvin seemed particularly suited, and indeed missions of which type Rathvin often requested for his Legion.
During this period, when many other Legions were adopting liveries and slowly forging their own martial traditions, the VI notably maintained a curiously unadorned appearance, seldom varying its armourials other than to feature an indication of combat role and tactical division.
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notable exception was when it was placed in command of Imperialis Auxilia regiments, the addition of the twin flame-blade insignia of the "Sanghauta" being prominently displayed. This icon, more commonly used by the Discipline Master and Provost Corp of the Imperialis Militant, carried with it a very definite meaning; it displayed clearly the power of life and death every Astartes of the VI had over the lesser troops under his command. It was a power they were infamously quick to exercise in its extreme, a summary punishment for any merely human forces who they felt lacked militancy or discipline alongside them. During the earliest years of the Great Crusade, the VI embodied feral ferocity and aggression, but exhibited little of the control they later possessed. As a consequence, the Legion employed a far larger number of Disciplinary troops than almost any other Legion, barring perhaps only the XII Legion.
This Disciplinary Corps served to maintain order in the ranks, both during and away from battle, as well as curb any attempts to disregard or circumvent orders. The Consul-Opsequiari were selected from among the most stable of the Veterans of the VI and granted the power of life and death over their brothers, and were marked by the distinctive emblem of that oft-maligned Order.
The Molorian Revolt stands as a prime example of the need for such detachments. The world, only recently brought to Imperial Compliance, had declared an open rebellion against the Imperium's rule, and the 8th Company of the Legion had been despatched in response. What began as a surgical strike against the Renegade government's palaces rapidly degenerated into a killing spree as the rebel forces counterattacked. Spreading out across Molar's capital, the Space Marines began to slaughter all they encountered, to the extent that the preservation of the industrial capacity of the world was put at risk. It was only by the brutal efforts of the Discipline Corps that any of the Molorians within the city survived, though that survival was bought at the cost of a number of summary executions.