Today we have the story of Alexis Polux, a Marine who was one of Dorn’s trusted fighters and eventually became the leader of the Crimson Fists.
Let’s take a look at a character in history that played a major role on not only the Imperial Fists. But he also led a newly created Crimson Fists on their first operations.
Via: Lexicanium
During the Great Crusade, Polux became one of Rogal Dorn’s most senior captains, rising to his advisory council, the “Stone Men.” When word reached Dorn of Horus‘s treachery, he dispatched a fleet under the command of First Captain Sigismund to the Isstvan system. However, when Sigismund, on the advice of Euphrati Keeler, remained behind on Terra, command fell to Captain Yonnad.
Yonnad and several other senior officers were killed by the warp storms that becalmed the “Retribution Fleet” in the Phall system. Command fell to Polux, despite his internal misgivings.
Over the next several weeks, Polux refused the advice of his subordinates to attempt a breakout through the warp storms, insisting that they had to conserve their ships and manpower. Also, some instinct may have warned him that the storms were no accident, and the fleet had been lured into some kind of trap. For that reason, he relentlessly drilled his fleet in void combat and ship-to-ship boarding actions. This training paid off, as when the Iron Warriors‘ fleet, led by Perturabo in person, emerged from the warp, the Imperial Fists’ fleet was ready for them.
The Battle at the Phall system was no easy affair for the Iron Warriors, despite outnumbering and outgunning the Imperial Fists. Perturabo expected the Imperial Fists to stand their ground and let themselves be torn down like the fortresses they were so fond of building, but Polux organized a “mobile fortress” strategy that had the Imperial Fists maneuvering around the Iron Warriors fleet and inflicting heavy damage on them, especially with ferocious boarding actions.
On being informed by Captain Amandus Tyr that the Iron Warriors’ flagship Iron Blood was among the attacking fleet, Polux made an unexpectedly bold decision that stunned his subordinates: ordering Tyr to assault the Battle Barge with a detachment of the Retribution Fleet and execute Perturabo. The battle was close to turning into a possible victory for the Imperial Fists, when an astropathic message arrived from Terra, bearing Dorn‘s personal orders to return to Terra at once. Faced with the choice of continuing the battle to its end, or ordering a retreat and allowing his straggling forces to be slaughtered, Polux felt he had no choice but to obey Dorn’s orders. The Imperial Fists abruptly left the battle and jumped into the warp, taking heavy losses from the pursuing Iron Warriors.
Perturabo survived both the battle and the Imperial Fists’ strike team, but took no satisfaction in the battle’s outcome. The Iron Warriors had not won the victory, it had been handed to them, and during the first phase of the battle it had almost been denied to them – and not by Sigismund, who Perturabo had believed was in command, but by a “nonentity” like Polux.
In the closing moments of the battle, Polux ordered most of the Imperial Fists complement of his cruiser Tribune to conduct a boarding action on Iron Warriors battle barge Contrador. Polux with his personal strike team was teleported on board the Contrador and after a furious battle managed to take control of the battle barge. He ordered the Navigators that came aboard from the Tribune to plot a course to Terra.
After the Heresy and the formation of the Codex Astartes, Polux led the Crimson Fists. In their first action as a newly-created chapter, Alexis Polux and his forces came to the rescue of a small Imperial Colony founded upon Uralek Prime. During what is known as the Scourging of Uralek Prime, the Crimson Fists defeated a large force of Exodite Eldar who were attempting to destroy the colony. His masterful and stoic defense of the colony serves to this day as a tangible example to new initiates of the chapter.
Within the Assimularum of the chapter’s space-faring Fortress-monastery, is a majestic hololith carving depicting Alexis Polux during the Scourging of Uralek Prime.
