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The Infiltration of Hive Sawa was an action carried out by the Blood Moon Hunters Space Marine Chapter during the events of the Blue Hand Heresy in M39. Hive Sawa was, at the time, the Capital of the World of Levan Prime in the Levan System, Levan Sub-Sector of the Mandavi Sector of Segmentum Ultima.

When the Blood Moon Hunters arrived, the 1st, 3rd, and 6th Companies of the Blue Hand Chaos Warband were assaulting Hive Sawa, which was being defended by the world's PDF under the command of Planetary Governor Lord Giovanni Levan, last of the House of Levan, which had settled the planet millennia before. The Governor's forces were focused on the defense of Ajaccia Spire, as was the Blue Hand Assault. This meant that much of the Hive was uncontested, although nominally in Chaos's hands.

The conflict can broadly be separated into three phases, which took place concurrently to events of the broader conflict for Levan Prime, such as The Fall of Ajaccia Spire, The Scouring of the Outhives, and The Final Day. These Phases are:
 * Phase 1
 * The Cult War


 * Phase 2
 * The War of the Two Hunters


 * Phase 3
 * The War Beyond Ending

The Infiltration of Hive Sawa can be said to have ended with the death of Blue Hand Captain Pacifi Calcanea and the arrival of the Astra Militarum Army Group under Lord General Militant Darrick Garvaan, although the Blood Moon Hunters would go on to fight through the rest of the Blue Hand Heresy, until it's culmination during the Second Battle For Craw.

The Blue Hand Warband and Cults
Pacifi Calcanea, Captain of the Blue Hand 1st Company led the assault on Levan Prime for the former Chapter Master, turned Warlord, Azulite Manibus. Calcanea initially also had the assistance of the 3rd and 6th Companies, although they would later be called off world.

Captain Calcanea was a masterful Strategist and gifted Tactician with a specialty in Seige and Urban Warfare. Warlord Manibus had chosen the 1st to lead the assault on Levan Prime explicitly because of their leader's experience capturing or demolishing Hive Cities. The Captain took the field with a Master-Crafted Bolter and a Relic Combat Sheild. He was rarely spotted alone, nor was he known for leading assaults personally. While he preferred to travel with his squad of Veterans as his bodyguard, he would not hesitate to commit them when his strategy called for it.

At his side was Caelum Unguiculi, the 1st Company Champion. Caelum was an exceptional warrior with an almost preternatural ability to sense danger. As a Battle-Brother, he served as Equerry to the previous Chapter Master, a common step for aspiring Champions. Unguiculi dual wielded Power Mauls, however he moved with such incredible speed and finesse that his lack of a was shield rarely a hindrance.

The Blue Hand had always sought to make its nine oversized companies identical to each other, and the 1st Company had only a single squad of Veterans, along with two squads of Scouts, and three squads each of Tactical, Assault, and Devastators.

Additionally, the 1st Company contained Venerable Palmaris, a Mark IV Castraferrum Dreadnought whose occupant was over 2000 years old. He was armed with a Dreadnought Power Claw and an Assault Cannon, however, that is not why he became such a dangerous foe. Since his turn to Chaos and his arrival on Levan Prime, Palmaris had recruited his own small cult (arguably the first real Cult of the Blue Hand).

While he abandoned the siege and wandered the underhive, Venerable Palmaris encountered a mutant named Figaro Barabara who, while physically weak, was a potent Psyker. Palmaris allowed Barabara to ride upon his frame, proclaiming the will of Tzeentch. Barabara was capable of projecting a powerful shield, and warp lightning. The two came to be surrounded at all times by devotees, including a dozen mutant bodyguards, whom Palmaris chose for near Ogryn levels of strength.

The Blood Moon Hunters Space Marine Chapter
The Bloodmoon Hunters are a stalwart and dedicated non-codex compliant Loyalist Space Marine Chapter created during the 13th Founding, the so-called 'Dark Founding'. Little is known of this mysterious founding as there are no reliable records that indicate how many Chapters were conceived during this Founding or what became of them. Extant records indicate that the Bloodmoon Hunters were supposedly created during this Founding around the time a recorded prophecy foretold their inception. It is generally believed that the Adeptus Mechanicus might have played a role in the creation of this Chapter, as their inception occurred sometime in early M35, during the divisive and widespread doctrinal conflict known as the Moirae Schism. The Bloodmoon Hunters were known to maintain close ties with the Archmagos of the Cult Mechanicus as well, receiving a wide diversity of arms and weaponry, including power blades and relic weaponry of the finest quality and rare, advanced patterns of armored vehicles and gunships.

The Bloodmoon Hunters Chapter is highly unusual among its fellow Space Marines and its modus operandi is quite different from that of the bulk of the Adeptus Astartes. The Bloodmoon Hunters do not fight as a single force or even usually as full companies but instead second squads drawn from the Chapter's companies and make use of bonded cybernetic enhanced humans and creatures. During the Infiltration of Hive Sawa, this modus operandi was seen in the deployment of the Scáth Hiachóir Hunting Party.

Scáth Hiachóir Hunting Party.
Formed by the Senior Veteran Sergeant of the 5th Hunt Company "Stalkers of Ishtar" for the express purpose of hunting the traitor marines of the Blue Hand Heresy. Sergeant Scáth Hiachóir and his second in command Artificer Jared Leictreach gathered members of the company choosing who would go on this grand hunt. An Apothecary with Five Lupine School Biker Tactical Marines, Five Arachnid School Infiltration Marines, Three Arachnid School Devastator Marines, Three Raptor School Assault Jump Marines, and Five Apprentice Scout Marines would make up the whole of the Hunting party plus some vehicles and Artificer Jared's Cyber-menagerie.

Levan Prime PDF
Lord Giovanni Levan was the last in a long line of Planetary Governors, going back to Lady Sawa Levan herself. He was a loyal servant of the God Emperor, but he lacked flexibility or tactical acumen.

When the Blue Hand assaulted his world, he pulled his PDF forces back to protect the center of Hive Sawa, particularly Ajaccia Spire. This was not necessarily a bad decision, but by switching entirely to a static defense, he surrendered the initiative to Traitors, and by focusing too heavily on the upspire world of his birth, he may have missed opportunities that might have resulted from a tactical withdrawal.

Following Lord Sawa's death, and Fall of Ajaccia Spire, surviving PDF units scattered, while some disciplined units held out to buy time for the others. Many of these forces would eventually unite with the Blood Moon Hunters, but others would lead their own resistance, go to ground or disband, or seek to travel to one of the nine Outhives, where loyalist PDF forces continued to resist well into the Scouring.

Levan Hive Gangs
Like any Hive, Hive Sawa had numerous gangs, along with Militias, Hab Defense Pacts and other quasi-legitimate groups assembled for defensive or offensive purposes. However, for the purposes of this conflict, four Hive Gangs were of particular importance:
 * Maztech Montague's Manglers
 * Maztech was a disgraced techpriest who after being stripped of his rank for offending his superiors ran and hid in the underbelly of Hive Sawa. There he built an empire not of actual territory but of contacts and mercenaries. Maztech's empire of a hive gang became known as one that stretched even to the proto-hives. He was smuggler and fence for most other gangs and had built a wealth that allowed him to hire mercenaries of all shapes and sizes to protect his and his own. Further those that crossed him usually ended up as a specialized servitor in his service anyways.


 * Killer Capulet's Gang
 * 'Killer' Capulet controlled the most phyiscal territory of the four major gangs. Looking like he had Orgyrn blood in his lineage he was a fearsome person to look upon. He was known to use fear and physical threats to keep his people in line. A Killer born of miners and slum scum, he worked his way to the top of the gangs through murder and intimidation.


 * Desi's Dazelers
 * When she was young, Desdemona Rocker killed the man who raped her, and found that she rather enjoyed it. She began to recruit other young women of a similar mindset, and soon found that there were enough rapists in several of the local gangs to make it simpler to wipe out the gangs and take over their territory, than to try to pick out the guilty from the innocent.
 * By the time of the Blue Hand Invasion, Desi controlled a large territory on the East Rim. Crime is rampant in Desi's domain, and profitable, but rape is not.  The Dazzlers make sure that anyone who forgets this becomes a… colorful example, to discourage others.


 * The Black Moors
 * The Black Moors were the smallest of the four major gangs, but they were also the best organized and the most secretive. Little was known about their leader, a man known only as Othello, but he was widely rumored to be ex Guard, which would have explained why he is able to run such a disciplined outfit in the chaotic South Slope of the Sawa underhive.
 * One was much more likely to encounter The Black Moors second in command, a young gun named Iago Sicario. Sicario was the public face of the outfit, in times of peace.  If the Black Moors went to war, their face became the muzzle of an autogun, or the end of a blade.

The Hand of God is Upon His Mind
Come and listen! cried the great walker, Come and here the Prophet speak, for the hand of the True God is Upon his mind!

The powerful Mark IV Castraferrum Dreadnought walked the corridors of the underhive. At first, it had walked alone, rejecting it's brothers as they battered on the doors of the Hive Spire, but he had not walked blindly. No, after two millenia of darkness, of unthinking obedience to the will of the Emperor, Venerable Palmaris now walked with it eyes wide open.

It was there, in the squalor of the dim underhive, there in the refuse and the stink, where it had found the voice of God.

This is my turf, don't come in here! the voice had said.

Before, in its blindness, Palmaris would have ignored the pitiful creature, or perhaps it would have trode him under foot. But now...

The massive walker turned his auto-sensors upon the frail mutant. He was small, small even for a regular human, and tiny before the mighty war machine. He looked at it with his one working eye, caught somewhere between defiance and terror... and madness.

Yes, madness was there, but that word captures only the barest fraction of what the Dreadnought saw. The creature's mind was open to truths no sane mind could comprehend, he had the capacity to look upon reality of the universe and not run screaming, for he had no sanity to protect. The colossus rotated in place, then, gentely, it lowered itself forward, prostrating itself before the mutant.

He stared up at it, What'cha doing?

The great metal voice boomed from its Vox Grill, ''You are the prophet of the true God, the hand of Tzeench is upon your mind. You are here to lead us to salvation, and I am your vessel, your servant, and your protector. Now, tell me, what does the voice command?''

Nope. the little creature replied, turning to shamble into his hovel. ''Ain't none of those here. Just little Figy who don't hear no voice, no sir.''

Venerable Palmaris rose and followed the creature, Figy. As it walked, it spoke, camly, and reasonably. As it walked, it àlso demolished Figy's hovel, the next structure Figy ran for, and two load bearing walls in between.

''Oh prophet, you have nothing to fear from me. I wish only to aid you in your glorious work.''

Figgy can't do no work. he replied. ''No jobs for your kind, that's what the factorum man said. Figgy's only job is to stay out'a sight, not let no witch hunters or Arbites near'm. That's what Mama Barabara said.''

Finally cornering the small man, the Dreadnought stopped a pace in front of him. It said, ''Prophet, Figy, I have strode the battlefield for 2,000 years. I pick my teeth with witch hunters, I wipe my feet on factorum men, and the Arbite who can challenge me has yet to be born. You are safe, perhaps for the first time in your life, nothing can harm you. I just want to talk to you. I want to talk to you about the voices.''

The mutant looked up pathetically, But they ain't real.

The Astartes replied, Oh, but they are.

You can hear'um?

''Yes, but only you can understand them. Only you can tell me what I must do.''

And, you'll listen? the prophet asked?

His servant replied, ''I shall listen to you, I shall protect you, and I shall carry you. Together, we shall lead these people to salvation.''

With that, the Dreadnought bent forward and extended it's arm to the small man, who grasped it with a hand, and the the other, and then both feet. Soon the mutant had scampered onto the Walker's top, and the War Machine had risen to it's full hight.

Palmaris asked, What is your name, oh prophet of Tzeench?

In a small voice, touched with just the first breath of confidence, the man replied, Figaro Barabara.

''Come and hear the word of the Prophet Figaro Barabara, beloved of the one true God and herald of the new dawn! Heed his words for the Blue Hand of Tzeench is upon his mind!'' and so, the two set off into the underhive, about their great commision.

The Blooding of the New Hunt
The Bloodmoon Hunters among the first to respond to the distressed messages of Levan Prime. Dispatched in Spejder (Hunter-class Destroyer), Sergeant Scáth Hiachóir's Hunting Party made stealth insertions to the planet before the orbitals were completely closed off. By use of an advanced stealth augurs on their vessel, his Hunting party made it down in just a few trips of their Nighthawk Pattern Storm Eagle. By Astartes standards sending less than 25 marines to deal with a renegade chapter and heresy would be an affront. But for the Bloodmoon Hunters that represented a rather large Hunting Party. The resources devoted to the Hunt of the Blue Hand Chapter represented quite the importance to the Chapter Command.

To get a feel for the psychologies of the Blue Hand Chapter and the tactics they were likely to use, the Bloodmoon Hunters under Sergeant Scáth Hiachóir decided to not declare their presence to any forces enemy nor allied. Their allies for the moment would have to hold the siege on their own. Their objectives were to set up in the underhive of Hive Sawa and use it as a base to began a campaign of resource denial until a liberation fleet could arrive. Unfortunately due to the state of the neighboring sectors that could take some time. The Bloodmoon Hunters were to by time one planet at a time. Levan Prime and Hive Sawa were to become their home.