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I was asking for several reasons as I remember their orginal chapter name ....Fire Hawks. I was curious could these guys make a good case to be the missing 2nd Legion or their descendants? Perhaps more closely related to a thunder warrior/astartes hybrid of early emperor creation where the imperfection of space marine creation mixed in with unknown warp travel and entity combat brought out a mutation. Perhaps the Emperor himself gave them a directive or clandestine mission? If memory serves me correctly, their are tales of Legion of the damned troops even growing in size helping brother astartes to their feet. Also, was there any lore on Sgt. Centurius?

For the record, see the other recent thread about the two missing legions:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/811602.page

Oh....well that pretty much answers that question. I.e. .... GW will spin that however they want to, but this clarifies original intent from the guy who wrote the darn thing. ----

----Ok with all that aside, anyone see the Legion of the damned returning?

I'm sure GW will redo the models at some point.

I think I remember in one of the Ultrasmurf novels (If you trust Matt Ward..) since Fire Hawks were a successor chapter, the MC recognized a ranking Sgt or Lt when the Legion of the Damned came to help them out. I DID like the description of the ethereal flames, and my head cannon is that the flames around them are actually displacements in the warp, since the legion isn't fully in realspace- which makes them a bugger to actually kill.
Gamewise, I don't think they'll be back officially. The 3+ invul. save on "regular" marines is a bit OP. But they're definatly a fan fav with thier heraldry and spooky, mysterious origins.

Here is the other question I had about LotD ..... as far as in game play... were they meant more as a NPC Army to add some fluff to the tabletop battles? When was the last time they were updated? 4e?

 TheChrispyOne wrote:

I think I remember in one of the Ultrasmurf novels (If you trust Matt Ward..) since Fire Hawks were a successor chapter, the MC recognized a ranking Sgt or Lt when the Legion of the Damned came to help them out. I DID like the description of the ethereal flames, and my head cannon is that the flames around them are actually displacements in the warp, since the legion isn't fully in realspace- which makes them a bugger to actually kill.
Gamewise, I don't think they'll be back officially. The 3+ invul. save on "regular" marines is a bit OP. But they're definatly a fan fav with thier heraldry and spooky, mysterious origins.

Matt Ward didn't write those novels so not sure where that's coming from.

Also the Damned Legionaire that Uriel Ventris recognises is Remus Ventanus who led the Ultramarines during the Calth Underworld War during the Horus Heresy.
It could have been one of the Legion simply taking the form of Ventanus in order to spur Ventris on.
IMO as the battle the Legion showed up for was at Ventanus's lost tomb, I'd wager it was the soul of the late Ventanus reborn as one of the Legion which in turn supports the idea of the Legion being the literal Emperor's Angels so to speak.

 Gert wrote:
I'm sure GW will redo the models at some point.

They're popular and people keep bringing them up (for example, a popular theory right now is that Ferrus will return as the leader of the Legion), so I suspect you're right. But it might be a while.

Timas09 wrote:
Here is the other question I had about LotD ..... as far as in game play... were they meant more as a NPC Army to add some fluff to the tabletop battles? When was the last time they were updated? 4e?

They had their own codex in GW’s spammy period where they would gladly sell you a book with rules for one unit. I want to say 6th edition. For a while they were a unit in the main Space Marine codex. Way back I think they had a full army list in WD or CJ.

They were always a unsolved mystery. Warp in, help out, disappear. Part of their charm was the unknown aspect. And the cool aesthetics of the minis for those who liked that. Or a 3++ ignore cover marine unit for those who liked the mechanics. Lots of things for people to attach to.

I would not call them a NPC army, they are more of a mystery spice to add to an imperial force and not really set up to stand alone.

 Nevelon wrote:


They were always a unsolved mystery.

At first, yeah. But eventually, GW released a "this is all but confirmed" background that had them as the last survivors of a doomed chapter that caught a weird warp disease. It wasn't 100% confirmed. But it was 90%+.

Legion of the Damned are not 2nd or 11th legion. They are the remains of the Fire Hawks which caught a warp disease and burned up, plus also various marines from across time and space that were taken into the Legion of the Damned somehow or for whatever reason.

 TheChrispyOne wrote:
Gamewise, I don't think they'll be back officially. The 3+ invul. save on "regular" marines is a bit OP. But they're definatly a fan fav with thier heraldry and spooky, mysterious origins.

Uh, what?

They were never OP, you paid a lot for 3++ and two ccw attacks, against vast majority of things they were just worse (thanks to cost and few options) sternguard. You were pretty much always better off just taking terminators or veterans with storm shields, that also hit much harder per point and actually had chapter/character rules/buffs too.

Eumerin wrote:
At first, yeah. But eventually, GW released a "this is all but confirmed" background that had them as the last survivors of a doomed chapter that caught a weird warp disease. It wasn't 100% confirmed. But it was 90%+.

I am pretty sure it was the other way around, Hawk thing was early, dumb lore that was retconned into 'unknown' later, with implication Hawks just joined the Legion when they died in the warp misjump and are just a small part of it, not lazy copy paste of Ghost Rider comic book bored GW writer just read they originally were.

Well, this seems a timely release!

Please note I am not associated with Olden Demon. But I do simp for that channel.




Chances are I’ve got that Legion of the Damned article in my Rogue Trader collection. Somewhere.

That’s a pretty good video. It’s easily the minimum of information I’d expect from anyone to talk about the topic.

The one thing it doesn’t include is there’s a much later supplemental article by an employee, minor author, that narrates a Fir Hawks Captain Tyrik being prisoner in Nurgle’s Garden, rescued by a squad of Fire Hawks who a protected by a wreath of holy flame, and unknowingly carrying Nurgle’s Rot back to the chapter.

You can read it at this comment (not the post, the perms linked comment): https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/o10saz/comment/h1yc860/?rdt=39618

Eumerin wrote:
eventually, GW released a "this is all but confirmed" background.

The article is less by GW the company, and more by the creator of the Emperor, the warp, and the nineteen gene seed organs, and published one month after that 19 geneseeds article. The Fire Hawks catching an evil plague and becoming rotting, holy zombies is as central to 40k as the corpse emperor or the machine cult.