Changes

The Raven Guard specialise in guerrilla warfare, moving behind enemy lines with unrivalled unrivaled stealth, and striking with precise application of force.{{Fn|2a}}

In its earliest days, the XIXth Legion was used for infiltration, reconnaissance, and target identification operations. The Legion was covertly used to quickly annihilate any faction which refused to submit to the new [[Imperium]], striking from the shadows without warning. The XIXth used terror tactics similar to the [[Night Lord]]s.{{Fn|14}} One of the earliest known campaigns by the Legion was the conquest of the central Asiatic region, which was ruled by a tyrant known as [[Kalagann of Ursh]]. They won many battle honors on Terra, and later took part in the expansion of the Imperium into the rest of the [[Sol System]], liberating [[Jupiter]]'s moon of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysithea_(moon) Lysithea] from [[xenos]]. The battle on Lysithea proved costly for the Legion however, and for many years after veterans of the battle wore Jovian runes in its commemorationfor many years after.{{Fn|30a}}

The Legion's Primarch [[Corax]] was not reunited with the Legion for nearly two decades. When the [[Emperor]] discovered Corax on [[Deliverance]], he had just liberated the moon from [[Kiavahr]] Forge-Guilds by using nuclear weapons.{{Fn|30a}} The first meeting between Corax and the [[Emperor]] is shrouded in mystery, as the two spent a day and a night in private discussion, with no records kept about the conversation's contents.{{Fn|2a}} At dawn the next day , though, Corax agreed to take command of the Legion, on the condition that Kiavahr be conquered and brought into the [[Imperial]] fold.{{Fn|2a}}

The Great Crusade was already a century old by the time Corax took command of his Legion, but he quickly imposed his the style of war he had learned on Deliverance on his new troops. Stealth, swiftness, and guile were impressed on a Legion already renowned for its reconnaissance and rapid-strike capability. In particular, the old ways of the Xeric tribes were purged. Corax was also was disheartened by the way how his Legion had been used as a repression, counter-insurgency, and occupation force; , not unlike what he had fought against himselfon Deliverance. He As such, he purged or banished the Legion of its old Terran commanders, such as Lord [[Arkhas Fal]]. Corax also used factories on [[Kiavahr]] to commission several vehicles unique to his forces, most notably the [[Shadowhawk]], a stealth variant of the [[Thunderhawk]] as well as the [[Whispercutter]].{{Fn|30a}}

Before the discovery of [[Corax]], the Raven Guard utilized terror tactics similar to the [[Night Lord]]s. However , when their Primarch was discovered, he was disgusted with these methods and introduced changes.{{Fn|14}} Following the discovery of [[Corax]] the Raven Guard, based upon his teachings, became masters of sabotage, assassination , and other covert operations. Planets that were thought impossible to take fell quickly as the Raven Guard applied precise military pressure to its vulnerable sectors.{{Fn|2a}} Such was the Legion's reputation that [[Warmaster]] [[Horus]] frequently requested their assistance to assure victory, though there was little admiration between the two; unconfirmed reports include the two sides nearly coming to blows on one occasion.{{Fn|2a}} In addition, Corax displayed a consistent ill-favor and mistrust towards veteran warriors of his Legion born of [[Terra]] , as opposed to those native to [[Deliverance]].{{Fn|37}}

Tensions between the two boiled after during the [[Battle of Gate Forty-Two]], where Horus had the Raven Guard launch a bloody frontal assault on enemy defenses that decimated the Legion's numbers despite Corax's warnings that the plan was reckless beforehand. After the battle , the Raven Guard was reduced to 80,000 Astartes. Corax removed his forces from Horus' command, bitterly swearing to never serve alongside the Warmaster again.{{Fn|30a}} He also began to send his Terran-born forces into forgotten [[Crusade]]s on the galactic fringes, ensuring in his eyes that the Raven Guard who remain "pure".{{Fn|38}}

The [[Raven Guard]] were was one of seven legions to be sent to the Istvaan system (Others present were the [[Iron Hands]], [[Salamanders]], [[Alpha Legion]], [[Iron Warriors]], [[Night Lords]] and [[Word Bearers]]) to quell a rebellion lead by the former [[Warmaster]], [[Horus]] — [[Primarch]] of the [[Sons of Horus]] Legion (Formerly the [[Luna Wolves]]).{{Fn|12}} Horus and his other three traitor primarchs ([[Fulgrim]], [[Angron]] and [[Mortarion]]) had entrenched themselves on the planet of [[Istvaan V]], and lay in wait for the Loyalist forces to land and engage.{{Fn|12}} The fighting once joined was fierce and hot-blooded, brother versus brother, and no quarter was given on either side.{{Fn|12}} Mid way into the fighting, Horus and his allies retreated back into their fortifications for no reason that could be grasped by the loyalist factions.{{Fn|12}} The Raven Guard were in the thick of the fighting from the start, though out of their element due to the lack of tactical planning and the close-up-and-personal combat spreading like wildfire across the plains of Istvaan V. They fought both with as much honour and as much skill as any other legion would in the circumstances.{{Fn|12}} When the traitors made a surprise withdrawal back to their fortifications, the Raven Guard used this cease in the fighting to regroup and re-arm.{{Fn|12}} However, when they neared the "loyalist" defences (which were tenfold reinforced by the expert siege engineers of the Iron Warriors legion under their [[Primarch]] [[Perturabo]]'s direction, they were fired upon by the very guns meant to protect them. Hundreds were gunned down in the first few minutes of the betrayal, before they even realised that there were traitors in there their midst.{{Fn|12}}

Four of the seven loyalist [[legions]] sent to Istvaan V had thrown off the colours and pretenses of the [[Imperium]], and set about playing out a totally new performance (hatched from long before Istvaan)their betrayal into motion.{{Fn|12}} The [[Iron Warriors]], [[Night Lords]], [[Alpha Legion]], and [[Word Bearers]] turned on their brethren in a bloody thunderstorm of [[bolter]]s and blades, decimating their numbers numberrs in a multitude of seemingly never ending skirmishes and drudging battles for ground that cost lives for every metre gained or lost.{{Fn|12}} [[Corax]] and his legion were reduced from their mighty 80,000 warriors to a meager 3,000 battle hardened veterans.{{Fn|12}} Himself by now a brooding vengeful demigod, wielding a whip{{Fn|12}} in place of his normal customary left set of talons which were lost in a rage fueled duel with the traitorous primarch [[Lorgar]], which would have ended in [[Lorgar]]'s death had [[Konrad Curze]], [[Primarch]] of the [[Night Lords]] (also known as the [[Night Haunter]]) not intervened and shattered it with a swipe of his own claws.{{Fn|12}} Respite came in the form of a single [[battle barge]] The "[[Avenger]]"{{Fn|12}}, captained by [[Space Marine Commander|Commander]] [[Branne Nev]], a captain originally stationed on Deliverance as a garrison commander, with him came the battered remains of the [[Therion Cohort]] normally serving with the legion under Praefactor [[Marcus Valerius]] who ironically brought [[Isstvan V]] into compliance with Corax the first time. Unbeknownst to both sides, Corax only narrowly escaped death at the hands of [[Angron]] and his World Eaters thanks to the machinations of the [[Alpha Legion]], whose own Primarch [[Alpharius]] had greater plans regarding the Raven Guard.{{Fn|12}}

Core to Corax’s teachings was the '''[[Trifold Path of Shadow]]''', often rendered in pictorial form as a short-bladed trident, or a threebladed triple-bladed lightning claw. The first path of shadow is Ambush, the second Stealth, and the third Vigilance. Mastering one Path, he taught, brought the possibility of victory; mastery of two rendered triumph likely, and accomplishment in all three made the foe’s defeat all but inevitable. From the very first, the Chapter’s Battle Companies were founded around this Trifold Path. Companies 3 through 5 each specialised in one branch, and a battle-brother’s promotion to the 2nd came only when true mastery was attained. Such promotion is far from guaranteed. Even amongst Corax’s sons, there are few who can replicate his skill so completely, and many battle-brothers live out a life of war in the same Battle Company, peerless in their own path, but never truly able to grasp the fathomless depths of the others.{{Fn|44c}}

Upon death, where practical, the body of the Raven Guard will be stripped of it's its equipment and trappings (including the Corvia), harvested of it's [[gene-seed]] and left for the local carrion birds to feed upon {{Fn|21b}}