For a Legion that won its wars by driving the spearhead ever deeper, the Legion Land Raider Proteus was an ideal instrument of pragmatic aggression. The Sons of Horus loaded it with their fiercest veterans, often the black-armoured killers of the Justaerin, and drove it through the thickest fighting to the very point where a battle would be decided, trusting its adamantine hull to shrug off the fire that would shred a lesser transport. Where other Legions might hesitate before so direct a thrust, the XVI embraced it, for the Warmaster had taught them that the surest path to victory was to strike the enemy's heart before he could steady his line. Its explorator augury guided the assault toward the foe's weakest seam, and once the ramp fell the war was decided at close quarters, on the terms the Sons of Horus preferred above all. Few sights so demoralised a defender as the Warmaster's Land Raiders grinding unstoppably toward his command.
Order of battle
