I decided to do some decorating for my recently divorced father. I mean what’s more Iron Warriors than getting divorced?? (Alpharius is here too. No one invited him) + Bonus Custom Warband Lore
This is my Joytoy Iron Warriors collection so far. I want to get the Centurion and Warsmith next, and I have an older school Imperial Fist Mk. III on the way that I will gladly repaint in my Siegewardens warband colors.
⏬ Time for another Siegewardens lore drop!!! ⏬
Basically, the Siegewardens are my custom Iron Warriors warband, but they’ve grown far beyond being just a wandering Chaos Space Marine warband. They control their own fortified interstellar realm called the Iron Marches, centered on their homeworld/system of Spandau.
The easiest way to think about them is almost like a combination of an Astartes legion, a feudal military state, and an industrial empire.
The Siegewardens themselves are descended from the old 36th Grand Battalion of the Iron Warriors. They still consider themselves loyal to Perturabo and follow the Iron Warriors philosophy of siegecraft, discipline, engineering, and overwhelming firepower, but over time they’ve developed their own culture and institutions.
THE IRON MARCHES
The Iron Marches are the territory controlled by the Siegewardens. Spandau is the political, military, and industrial heart of the whole realm.
Rather than every conquered planet simply being directly ruled by Space Marines, the Marches are divided into several major territorial commands:
Northern March
Eastern March
Western March
Southern March
Each March is governed by a Margrave, essentially a military governor/warlord responsible for defending the frontier, expanding Siegewarden territory, collecting resources, and maintaining the military forces under his jurisdiction.
For example, Margrave Domherr Malverkett rules the Southern March.
Spandau itself is different. It isn’t simply another March. It’s essentially the capital territory and center of the entire system, governed by A. G. Arndt, whose authority is above or outside the normal four Margraves.
So politically it works almost like an extremely militarized Holy Roman Empire or Prussian frontier state, except run by Iron Warriors in space.
THE IRON SYNOD
At the top of everything is the Iron Synod of Ferrivox, which is basically the ruling military council of the Iron Marches.
The Siegewardens don’t operate with a completely normal Chaos warband hierarchy where one Chaos Lord controls everything beneath him.
Instead, the major branches of the state and military all have representation in the Synod.
At the high table you have positions like:
The Warsmith, supreme commander of the Siegewarden Astartes and effectively their Chapter Master/Legion Master
The senior Archmagos of the Taghmata Siegewardenis
The Admiral of the Siegewarden Astartes fleet
The Grand General commanding the mortal armies
The senior commander of the human Navy
Other major military and political authorities
The Warsmith is essentially first among the Synod, but the idea is that the entire civilization functions as a gigantic military machine rather than everything depending on one guy screaming orders from a throne.
THE KRIEGWÄCHTER
The actual Space Marines are called the Kriegwächter.
These are the core Siegewarden Astartes and the dominant warrior caste of the Iron Marches.
They’re still Iron Warriors at heart. Heavy armor, siege warfare, artillery, breaching actions, armored assaults, fortification building, void warfare, and basically solving military problems through mathematics, engineering, and absurd amounts of firepower.
But there aren’t enough Astartes to personally fight every war or occupy every planet, which is where the rest of the Iron Marches becomes important.
THE MORTAL ARMIES
The Iron Marches have enormous human military forces serving beneath the Siegewardens.
One of the elite formations is the 144th Iron Castellans, which are basically my Prussian-inspired traitor Guard.
They’re professional soldiers rather than random Chaos cultists. Stahlhelm/gas-mask aesthetic, dark uniforms, disciplined formations, artillery, armored vehicles, trench warfare, etc.
There are also broader Guardsmen/auxilia armies commanded by the Grand General.
So when the Siegewardens invade somewhere, you might only have a comparatively small number of actual Astartes, while tens or hundreds of thousands of mortal soldiers are conducting the larger campaign around them.
The Astartes are the spearhead and command caste. The mortal armies are the mass military power of the Marches.
THE TAGHMATA SIEGEWARDENIS
Then there is the Taghmata Siegewardenis, which is their Dark Mechanicum/Mechanicum element.
They run a huge amount of the engineering, manufacturing, cybernetics, armor production, Titans, servitors, war machines, weapons development, and industrial infrastructure that keeps the Marches functioning.
This is extremely important because the Siegewardens aren’t just raiders.
They build things.
Fortresses, shipyards, manufactoria, artillery complexes, orbital defenses, armored vehicles, siege engines, Titans, and entire fortified worlds.
The relationship between the Kriegwächter and Taghmata is therefore almost symbiotic. The Astartes conquer and defend territory, while the Taghmata turn that territory into something capable of sustaining even larger wars.
They’ve even recovered and corrupted captured Imperial Titans, which are inducted into the Siegewarden war machine as Ferrum Incarnatum, basically “Iron Made Flesh.”
THE FLEETS
There are actually two major naval establishments.
The Siegewarden Astartes fleet belongs directly to the Kriegwächter and transports their Space Marine armies and war machines.
Then there is a much larger human Navy, responsible for things like patrols, logistics, escorts, transports, commerce protection, and fleet warfare throughout the Iron Marches.
The human Navy is overseen by Lord Executor Wolfgang Casval von Bismarck, whose title is essentially the High Adjudicator of Void Compliance.
That distinction is important because I wanted the Iron Marches to feel like an actual functioning interstellar state rather than every ship somehow being crewed and commanded by Space Marines.
HOW THEY ACTUALLY CONQUER
Their wars tend to follow the same philosophy.
They don’t normally just show up, burn everything, and leave.
The Siegewardens identify strategically valuable worlds, systems, resources, shipyards, populations, or transit routes and then systematically dismantle their defenses.
The Kriegwächter attack the hardest targets.
The mortal armies fight the conventional war.
The Taghmata deploy artillery, armor, siege engines, Titans, servitors, and engineering forces.
The fleets blockade the system and destroy or capture enemy naval forces.
Once the world falls, the Siegewardens fortify it, rebuild useful infrastructure, establish military production, integrate its population into the Marches, and move the frontier outward.
That’s why they’re called the Iron Marches. A “march” historically was a militarized frontier territory ruled by a Margrave whose job was to defend and expand the border.
So every successful campaign literally pushes the Iron Marches farther outward.
THE GENERAL PHILOSOPHY
The biggest distinction between the Siegewardens and stereotypical Chaos Marines is that they aren’t trying to create total anarchy.
They actually want order.
Just an extremely harsh, authoritarian, militarized Iron Warriors version of order.
To them, civilization is essentially another fortress.
Every citizen, factory, regiment, shipyard, world, fleet, and Space Marine has a function. Waste, incompetence, weakness, and disorder are unacceptable.
They’re still absolutely Chaos-aligned and capable of being horrifying, but they think like builders and conquerors rather than destroyers for destruction’s sake.
So the Iron Marches are basically what happens when an Iron Warriors Grand Battalion survives for ten thousand years and eventually says:
“Why keep raiding the Imperium when we can build our own?”
And that becomes the Siegewarden philosophy:
Ferrum in corde, Ferrum in mente.
Iron in the heart, iron in the mind.
Ave Ferrum.