Vipers Astra

The Vipers Astra are the VIIIth Legion of the Legiones Astartes raised by the Emperor during the First Founding. The Legion was originally famed for its role as the spearhead of many early campaigns, while the worlds brought into compliance would often become model worlds and devouted to the Imperium.

Under their Primarch, Nehushtan, they would undergo a radical reformation, ditching their noble roots and obsession with honour, and instead became a Legion concentrated on attritional warfare, with previous notions of honour being scoffed at. This, in addition to a particularly pure gene-seed, led to the Vipers adopting a universal recruitment strategy, taking any applicant that could accept the gene-seed. This led to it ballooning in size to becoming one of the largest Legions, though its high casualty rate often led to it failing to overtake the Steel Men and Sun Angels.