Characters among the Iron Warriors novel series and background. Note that many, especially in later stories, are also in Ultramarines novels and can be found on the character page for that series.
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Perturabo
One of the twenty Primarchs created by the Emperor of Mankind for the Great Crusade, Perturabo and his brothers were scattered to the stars by the forces of Chaos. Landing on Olympia, Perturabo found by the guards of Dammekos, the Tyrant of Olympia, while crawling in the mountains. Recognizing he was no ordinary child, Dammekos took Perturabo in and raised as his own son. While Dammekos gave the boy warmth and affection, Perturabo never returned it. When the Emperor came to Olympia, Perturabo submitted to him and overthrew Dammekos. The fallen Tyrant would try to mount a resistance, but it would fail. Perturabo was given command of the IV Legion of the Adeputs Astartes, the Iron Warriors.
During the Great Crusade, the Iron Warriors became masters of siege warfare, developing a rivalry with Rogal Dorn, Primarch of the Imperial Fists, with a similar mastery of sieges. Resent, bitterness, and the eventual rebellion of Olympia drove them into allegiance with the traitors during the Horus Heresy. After the Horus Heresy, the Iron Warriors defeated the Imperial Fists in the Iron Cage incident, and Perturabo ascended to Daemon Prince, ruling over the Daemon World of Medrengard in the Eye of Terror.
For more information on Perturabo, see his entry under Horus Heresy - Traitor Legions.
- Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence: He's ascended to Daemon Primarch long ago by the time the series starts.
- Evil Overlord: As Daemon Prince of Medrengard, he nominally rules over the entire planet. In practice, he generally confines himself to his personal stronghold within the mountains, occasionally stepping in to upset Medrengard's status quo.
- A Father to His Men: Only in the literal sense, as the Horus Heresy indicates that even before declaring for Horus he was killing Iron Warriors who had fallen from favor.
- The Ghost: His presence is literally felt on Medrengard, and figuratively in his Iron Wariors making it their home. He otherwise makes no appearances. Well, not unless you brought a limited edition of Storm of Iron, where he makes an appearance to talk with Honsou.
- Greater-Scope Villain: As the supreme leader of the Iron Warriors, he's indirectly responsible for the majority of the series' events.
- Hates Everyone Equally: In the end. Despite being a largely unpopular Primarch, he enjoyed spending time with Magnus as they both shared an interest in researching the great innovators of Terra's past.
- Hidden Depths: He was in fact a cultured artist; the fact no one knew that pissed him off more. By the time he becomes a Daemon Primarch, as far as we can tell, he had all but abandoned this aspect. Downplayed in the limited edition story Warbreed - he's still rather cultured, as shown in his talk with Honsou.
- Meaningful Name: "Perdurabo" is Latin for "I will endure", reflecting his stubborn nature and mindset.
- Orcus on His Throne: He hasn't led an attack on the Imperium since ascending to Daemonhood. Averted with recent materials where he's been revealed to occasionally lead an attack with devastating results.
The Warsmith's Grand company
Honsou
The leader of the Warsmith's third company. Has not been named Captain despite holding the post for two centuries, due to his status of having some Imperial Fists gene-seed in with the his Iron Warriors gene-seed.
- A Father to His Men: Surprisingly enough, he is this. While he is a member of Chaos and Kick the Dog is practically a requirement, he would never send his men to their deaths without good reason and wouldn't execute them for anything less than outright treachery. It's noted in-universe that he would have been a great Imperial leader had things been different.
- Arch-Enemy: To Uriel Ventris.
- Artificial Limbs: Loses his right arm in the siege, and is given an augmetic arm that belonged to one of the Warsmith's old lieutenants as a sign of favour. He later replaces it with a liquid metal arm of xenos origin, which drinks blood and contains a power directly opposed to the daemon in his axe.
- Bald of Evil: Honsou's artwork shows him to be completely bald and he's the Villain Protagonist of the series.
- Berserk Button: Do not call him "half-breed" or otherwise reference his mixed-blood status. At one point, he nearly gets dismembered by one of the major Chaotic players of the setting, Huron Blackheart, because he mouths off when Huron calls him "half-breed".
- Black Sheep: Amongst the Iron Warriors, Honsou is generally looked down upon and derided due to his mixed geneseed. Honsou himself is also pretty indifferent to his legion's legacy and dogma, preferring to use unconventional tactics and focus on his own desires.
- Breakout Villain: Storm of Iron was written as a standalone novel, but Honsou quickly became a popular character, and one of Graham's favorites to write.
- Combat Pragmatist: Honsou repeatedly uses dirty tricks and pragmatic tactics to turn a battle in his favour such as having a ship with a skeleton crew ram a starfort's fortifications, or giving waves of prisoners dummy weapons then forcing them toward an enemy fort, letting him learn its guns ranges as they fire on the prisoners. This extends to unarmed combat, where he's described as a down and dirty gutter fighter.
- Deadpan Snarker: It's how he lets his anger out in a way that isn't killing people. Although he does kill a lot of people.
- Demonic Possession: He gets "possessed" by a minor daemon during the battle for Hydra Cordatus, though it only really used him to channel its power. The Warsmith is impressed.
- Dragon Ascendant: By the time Dead Sky, Black Sun rolls in, he's taken control of the Warsmith's Grand Company.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Amongst the non-loyalist characters, he's called the half-breed. He isn't shy about advertising it himself.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: A minor example - he can't believe that Pasanius and Uriel really are loyalists sent to fight against Chaos, as opposed to opportunistic renegades fighting for an unknown master.
- Evil Is Petty: Does some of the worst things in the setting just to get back at Uriel, right down to killing a world. To put this in perspective: he killed an entire world, set a Daemon Prince free, and killed almost half the Ultramarines(when casualties from both the Bloodborn invasion and the star fort battle are added up), all to spite a single man.
- Evil Weapon: His daemon axe. Of course, Honsou isn't that far behind it.
- Freudian Trio: Honsou forms one with Forrix and Kroeger during Storm of Iron. He's the Ego of the three, balancing a legitimate devotion to Chaos and willingness to break conventions with a pragmatic, rational attitude to the siege.
- The Unfettered: The author describes him this way, as someone totally unbound by ethics and who doesn't give a damn about the consequences of his actions so long as he comes out of it better than he otherwise would.
- Villain Protagonist: Of the Iron Warriors side of the ongoing conflict.
- Villain Respect: Contrary to most Chaos and even Imperial leaders, he shows a surprisingly amount of respect for both allies and enemies if they prove themselves Worthy Opponents.
- Visionary Villain: Genuinely believes in the dream of Horus using the power of Chaos to unite humanity and protect it from Xenos threats. Of course, being a Chaos Marine, it's more along the lines of "subjugate humanity", and he's quite easily sidetracked into his elaborate campaign of vengeance against Uriel Ventris.
- Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Discussed when he faces Uriel and Pasanius; when Uriel challenges him to a one-on-one duel, Honsou derisively notes he'd be stupid to accept as opposed to than having his bodyguards (who outnumber them ten to one) shoot them dead.
- You Are in Command Now: After Forrix and Kroeger are killed during the last stage of the Battle of Hydra Cordatus, the Warsmith passes his rank down to Honsou before departing for the Warp.The Warsmith: "I do not name you Captain. I name you Warsmith."
The Warsmith
An ancient Warsmith of an Iron Warriors Grand Company, leading the siege on Hydra Cordatus. He is planning to capture the gene-seed within to assure his status as a Daemon Prince.
- Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence: After sacrificing and eating much of the gene-seed stored on Hydra Cordatus, he becomes a Daemon Prince and departs for the Warp.
- Bling of War: Wears heavily customised artificer Terminator Armour. He also has a massive throne that Perturabo supposedly crafted, which is surrounded by luxurious furnishings.
- Brown Note: He's seething with so much Chaos, just looking at him causes nausea in his own underlings, and keeps an entire regiment of guardsman from being able to raise their weapons against him. It's because he's slowly transforming into a Daemon Prince, with the Hydra Cordatus mission as his last hurdle before transformation.
- Crazy-Prepared: At Hydra Cordatus, he probably had a hand in getting the Mechanicus infiltrator inside, which came about roughly a hundred and fifty years before Storm of Iron, and presumably built the hidden teleporter in the citadel which they used to infiltrate Cycerin in towards the end of the siege.
- Eats Babies: He triggers his ascension by feeding on Progenoids after finally breaking into the Citadel. The organic "storage" for is essentially a tailor-cultured fetus.
- His Name Really Is "Barkeep": Subverted. The Horus Heresy series gives him the name Barban Falk, but he eventually sheds this as part of his That Man Is Dead moment at the end of Angel Exterminatus.
- Karma Houdini: Becomes a Daemon Prince and buggers off into the Warp, avoiding any payback for his evil deeds.
- Large and in Charge: He's big, even for a Space Marine.
- That Man Is Dead: After something happened to him on an Eldar Crone World during the Horus Heresy, he shed his former identity as Triarch member Barban Falk and went solely by the name of "The Warsmith."
- No Name Given: Until Angel Exterminatus, also by McNeill, anyway. Barban Falk, in case you were curious.
- Time Abyss: Originally came from Olympia, and took part in the Great Crusade. He even designed the Citadel on Hydra Cordatus.
Forrix
The First Captain of the Warsmith's Grand Company. Once eagerly believed in Horus's dream of uniting the galaxy under Chaos, but has become jaded over ten thousand years.
- Badass Bureaucrat: His chief talent is supreme organisational and logistical skills. He's seen running the day-to-day operations of a siege until he figures out what the Warsmith is becoming, after which he rejoins the fighting with relish.
- Bifurcated Weapon: Wields a combi-bolter with an underslung meltagun.
- Bling of War: His combi-bolter is described as "heavily ornamented."
- Co-Dragons: He's one of three Captains serving under the Warsmith, alongside Honsou and Kroeger. Forrix is nominally superior to them due to his knowledge of logistics and position as First Captain.
- The Cynic: Gave up on Horus's dream long ago. By now he follows Chaos pretty much purely because he's got nowhere else to go. He gradually regains his fervour for Chaos over the course of the siege of Hydra Cordatus which eventually gets him killed, as his newfound energy leads him to recklessly take on a Warhound Titan.
- Demoted to Dragon: It is revealed in Angel Exterminatus that he and the Warsmith were equal in rank during the Heresy. Now he's a subordinate First Captain serving under his former colleague.
- Freudian Trio:
- During Storm of Iron, Forrix is the Superego of the three warsmiths Freudian Trio; he's a jaded, cynical bureaucrat who serves Chaos for lack of any other option, while also being a genius logistical expert who handles the majority of the siege's heavy lifting.
- He forms a similar trio with Barban Falk and Kroeger during Angel Exterminatus, being the most overtly logical and rational of the three compared to Falk's fairly balanced personality and Kroeger's blunt, emotive one.
- Frontline General: Once he puts on the Terminator armour and gets into the trenches. Forrix even oversees the storming of the Tor Christo bastion, letting the Iron Warriors begin advancing toward the main citadel.
- Karmic Death: After slaughtering a Titan's bridge crew, he finds himself facing the guns of the other Titan, and has enough time for a Little "No" before the Titan completely annihilates him.
- Power Fist: Another favoured weapon of his, which he uses to help bring down a Warhound.
- Time Abyss: Is over 10,000 years old.
Kroeger
The Captain of the Second Company of the Warsmith's Grand Company. Slowly falling into the grips of Khorne.
- The Berserker: And he knows it.
- Blood Lust: At one point in the siege, he slashes a guardsman's throat open then lifts him overhead, drinking the man's blood and openly relishing its taste.
- The Brute: Lacks anything remotely resembling finesse. Even before Khorne got to him, he favoured straight-up melee combat and breach-storming over anything else.
- Chainsaw Good: Wields a Chainsword in most of his battles. Ironically this is the weapon used to kill him in the finale.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Disembowelled, dismembered, and stabbed in the eye repeatedly by the woman he tortured wearing his own armor.
- Demoted to Dragon: Like Forrix, he used to hold a rank equal to the Warsmith.
- Eye Scream: How he dies. Ironically, it comes at the hands of the guardswoman he had enslaved, tortured, and abused throughout the book.
- Freudian Trio: He's the Id of the Honsou-Forrix-Kroeger trio, being an Ax-Crazy Blood Knight fuelled mainly by emotion and a desire to kill.
- Gorn: Spends almost all of his time on-screen drenched head-to-toe in blood or killing people violently in hand-to-hand combat.
- Karmic Death: After spending most of the book tormenting the captive guardswoman Lana Utorian, he dies when they wear his daemon-possessed armour and then dismember him with his own chainsword, before stabbing him repeatedly in the face with the bone dagger she used to clean his gear of blood.
- Never Found the Body: Played With. The Iron Warriors do find his body, but are unsure if it was actually him. The fact that his killer escaped into the Warp wearing his armor makes it harder for the Iron Warriors to really be sure of his fate.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: He breaks from guarding the Daemon Engines to get his slaughter on. This bites him in the ass when these Daemon Engines get destroyed by the Imperial Fists, enraging the Warsmith.
- Time Abyss: He's almost as old as Forrix, being a veteran of the Great Crusade. Ironically, Forrix still calls him a newblood. Even he lampshades how ironic it it.
Jharek Kelmaur
The Sorcerer of the Warsmith's Grand Company.
- And I Must Scream:The Warsmith ends up turning him into a Chaos Spawn after deciding he outlived his usefulness. It's implied that he's still sane and aware of his new state, at least for a time.
- Bald of Evil: Hairless, and very evil.
- Evil Genius: Acts as the Warsmith's personal precognitive, using sorcery to find out details about what will happen in the future.
- Evil Sorcerer: Runs a whole coven of these. Also acts as the Warsmith's personal seer, and helped kick off the events of the series as a whole by finding Hydra Cordatus had gene-seed on it.
- Eye Scream: His eyes have been permanently sewn shut.
- A Fate Worse Than Death: The Warsmith turns him into a Chaos Spawn as punishment for failing him and then running out of usefulness to him.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Kelmaur's failure to intercept the loyalists' distress signal and subsequent decision to lie to him let the Imperial Fists slip by their orbital blockade. This in turn provides the defenders with much-needed reinforcement and lets them sabotage the Iron Warriors' guns, throwing the Warsmith's plans out of whack.
383rd Jouran Dragoons
The regiment of Imperial Guard tasked with defending the Citadel of Hydra Cordatus.
Castellan Vauban
Leader of the 383rd Jouran Dragoons.
- Badass Normal: Fights and takes off Honsou's arm in sword-to-sword combat, despite being an unarmoured human going up against a millenia-old Chaos Space Marine.
- Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: While Vauban manages to maim Honsou, he's killed moments later due to falling for a feint and having a sword driven through his chest by his opponent.
- Blue Blood: Mentioned offhandedly to be the heir of a noble family on Joura.
- Frontline General: Leads his men from the front during the first attack on the Iron Warrior lines.
- The Leader: Commander of the citadel on Hydra Cordatus.
- Killed Off for Real: Killed after taking off Honsou's arm, when Honsou feigns a retreat and then stabs him through the chest.
- Unstoppable Rage: Goes into one of these during the first attack on the trenches, after an enemy tank crushes one of his men. He charges after it in a blind rage and destroys the tank by shooting it in its weakly-armoured back vents.
Guardsman Julius Hawke
An unruly Guardsman who was assigned to the listening outpost of Sigma IV.- Action Survivor: A lowly Guardsman who survives two encounters with Iron Warriors Marines, and even makes it out of the siege alive.
- Badass Normal: A completely ordinary human who kills three Iron Warriors personally, survives weeks out in the wilderness by himself, and even lives to tell the tale.
- The Bus Came Back: After being packed off back to Joura by the Imperial Fists at the end of Storm of Iron, He makes an appearance in the Priests of Mars trilogy, also by Graham McNeill].
- Sole Survivor: The only known member of the 383rd Jouran Dragoons to survive and escape the siege of Hydra Cordatus.
- Unlikely Hero: No one imagined that an undisciplined, unruly excuse for a soldier like Julius Hawke would help do the greatest damage to the Iron Warriors during the siege, least of all the man himself.
Legio Ignatum
The demi-Legion of Titans assigned to the Citadel of Hydra Cordatus.
Princeps Fierach
Leader of the Legio Ignatum forces on Hydra Cordatus.
- Dying Moment of Awesome: Goes down severely wounding the Dies Irae, with his Titan's meltdown managing to disable the corrupted Imperator for the majority of the book. The damage he causes eventually leads to the Dies Irae's fall, with its weakened reactor armour being breached by Daekian.
- Fatal Flaw: Pride and Wrath: He decides to go head-to-head with Dies Irae, a corrupted Emperor-class Titan, out of anger and his own pride. It gets him killed, along with the bulk of his Legio.
- General Failure: Played With. He's quite successful in Titan-scale combat, with mention of multiple Titan kills on his part. However, his Fatal Flaw causes him to forget the wider battle and causes both the attack's failure and his own death, along with that of the majority of the Legio Ignatum force.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Gets killed in the same chapter he is introduced in.
Princeps Daekian
Second-in-command of the Legio Ignatum forces on Hydra Cordatus.
- The Atoner: Desires to atone for Fierarch's actions, to the point of offering the Guards' leaders the right to kill him if he fails.
- Dying Moment of Awesome: Takes down the damaged Dies Irae at the climax, despite it destroying his entire Legio and wounding him unto death.
- Mutual Kill: With Dies Irae, by tearing open its reactor bay and crushing the plasma core. This destroys the Imperator, at the cost of killing Daekian and destroying his own titan.
Adeptus Mechanicus
The members of the Adeptus Mechanicus overseeing the Citadel's systems.
Archmagos Caer Amaethon
The leader of the Adeptus Mechanicus on Hydra Cordatus. Responsible for all the citadel's systems.
- Asshole Victim: Considering he was responsible for letting the guard regiments (implied to be in the millions or more) get poisoned, and killed several thousand retreating guardsmen when he ordered the tunnels sealed, it's hard to find sympathy when Naicin offs him.
- A Million Is a Statistic: Amaethon has no hesitation in burying several thousand soldiers under rubble to prevent the Iron Warriors reaching the Citadel, and was complicit if not directly responsible for poisoning millions of guardsmen to death to keep Hydra Cordatus' secrets.
- Body Horror: He's nothing but a face and a few scraps of brain, kept alive by a life-support tank.
- Cloudcuckoolander: As a result of his extreme age and augmentation, Amaethon's not all there in the head. Merely communicating with him is noted by Naicin to be difficult, and he needs frequent reminders of recent happenings to keep him on track.
- The Leader: Top member of the Adeptus Mechanicus on Hydra Cordatus.
Magos Naicin
Amaethon's ambitious second-in command.
- Body Horror: His true face is a mass of worm-like tendrils, with multiple eyes and needle teeth. His fingers are also acid-spraying proboscises.
- Kill and Replace: Actually a mutant, who killed and took the real Naicin's identity.
- Malevolent Masked Man: He's an ambitious and fairly ruthless man wearing a bronze face-mask, responsible for killing thousands of guardsmen. He's also a traitor secretly serving the Iron Warriors.
- Manipulative Bastard: Outright lies to Leonid and Vauban that Amaethon was the one who blew the tunnels, killing thousand of guardsmen to try and get himself promoted. He's also been lying through his teeth for the majority of the siege, having poisoned the Astropaths and manipulated Amaeton all the way through.
- Smoking Is Cool: Smokes specially rolled cigars, and swears blind that they're healthy.
Other Iron Warriors
Shon'tu
The leader of The Sons of the Forge, notable for being the one who tortured Imperial Fists Captain Lysander.
- Arch-Enemy: To Lysander.
- Black Sheep: Most Iron Warriors don't really like him due to how often he works with daemons, in fact its hinted he's not even a Warsmith, but a WARPsmith.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: To Lysander, in between talking about how awesome he is.
- Crazy Enough to Work: His most well know plan involved: Finding a Tyrant Hive Fleet (this after the first Tyranid war but before the other hive fleets came to the Galaxy), stuffing it into a space hulk and wiring a Navigator into its controls and fired it right at Terra.
- Deal with the Devil: Heavily works with Deamons.
- Legacy Character: There is in fact two, a Warlord during the Age of Strife and the current Warsmith.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Claims to be the reincarnation of a great warlord and with surpass even Horus in the level of feats, he's the leader of a warband that's been wiped out, twice.
Soltarn Vull Bronn, the Stonewrought
Once the greatest of the Iron Warriors' combat engineers, Soltarn Vull Bronn ended up under Honsou's authority, and commanded his forces while Honsou went on a mission behind the lines.
- A Day in the Limelight: He's the viewpoint character of "The Iron Without" short story, and appears in Angel Exterminatus as a supporting character.
- A Million Is a Statistic: Considers the loss of several thousand slave workers 'negligible', being more concerned with the loss of machines.
- The Engineer: His skill at construction was so notable that he was one of the few Iron Warriors with a fancy nickname. Perturabo himself often referred to his geological expertise during the Horus Heresy.
- Even Evil Has Standards: He retains some semblance of his honor, even into the 41st millennium. It doesn't work out for him.
- How the Mighty Have Fallen:
- During the Heresy, even Perturabo respected his entrenching skills. Fast-forward ten thousand years and he's subordinate to Honsou.
- Also holds this view of Honsou's Warband, regretting that they choose to ally themselves with the 'dross' of xenos species, 'inferior' Astartes, and sorcerers.
- Killed Off for Real: "The Iron Without" ends with an Ultramarine executing him with a headshot as he lies dying under rubble, though he gets a couple good verbal jabs in before dying.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: It's not entirely clear whether his ability to sense the composition of rock is Warp-based, or whether he's just that good.
- Red Baron: He's known as "The Stonewrought" due to his nigh-supernatural ability to understand a world's geological makeup. It's shown he needs only a touch or two to figure out exactly where to dig, where to avoid, and how long the entrenching is likely to take.
