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Battle of Macragge - The Behemoth Falls: When the fleet-bound Ultramarines returned to Macragge, they found a landscape subsumed by carnage. Though a few survivors were found in the ruin of Macragge's southern fortress, none were discovered in the north. The body of a Hive Tyrant believed to be the Swarmlord was found on the corpse-littered ice fields outside the northern polar fortress, but the damage it had sustained made it impossible to identify with certainty.Rumours persist that the beast had somehow escaped death and that the Tyranids would one day return. It would be solar decades before the truth was revealed. |
Battle of Macragge - Aftermath: Since the Battle of Macragge, the Ultramarines have become instrumental in the Imperium's wars against other Tyranid Hive Fleets. In the aftermath of the Battle of Macragge, the Ultramarines were faced with the Herculean task of rebuilding their most experienced body of Veteran warriors -- the 1st Company.Responsibility for this undertaking fell to Chaplain Ortan Cassius, whose hatred for the Tyranids and all they had done to the worlds of Mankind knew no bounds. Cassius petitioned Marneus Calgar for the authorisation to raise a new body of Ultramarines drawn from the ranks of those Astartes who had survived the First Tyrannic War. Only those Space Marines who had been tested like he had could truly understand the threat posed by the Tyranids. Marneus Calgar eventually acceded to the Chaplain's request. With the Chapter Master's sanction given, for the first time in the Chapter's history, the dictates of the Codex Astartes were re-written.The Chaplain gathered his corps of Tyrannic War Veterans. Under Cassius' leadership, those Battle-Brothers who had fought the hardest against the Tyranid swarms that had assaulted Macragge were elevated and afforded additional duties, until each was eventually judged worthy of joining the ranks of the slowly reconstituted 1st Company. These Tyrannic War Veterans make up the first and most powerful of the Chapter's reformed 1st Company, and are second to no other warriors of the Imperium because of their experience, training and upgraded Power Armour.Though a minor deviation from the Codex Astartes, Marneus Calgar tolerates his mentor's divergence from its sacred tenets, sensing that someday there shall be another reckoning between the Ultramarines and the Tyranids, and that Cassius' Tyrannic War Veterans may be the key to final victory. |
Battle of Manask - Battle of Manask: The Battle of Manask was a campaign fought between the Grey Knights and the Chaos Space Marines of the Ebon Sentinels, a Renegade Chapter of Space Marines, during the Indomitus Crusade. The Ebon Sentinels had been corrupted by the influence of a Greater Daemon imprisoned for eons on the Dead World of Vengla in their home star system. The Grey Knights moved to eliminate the threat and banish the Daemon back to the Warp before the Ebon Sentinels could receive Primaris reinforcements from the Conqueror's Forge Torchbearer Fleet. |
Battle of Manask - Origins: The Ebon Sentinels were originally a lauded Loyalist Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes, the defenders of the Sunnan Strait since their Founding millennia ago.Though an unrecorded incident early in their history saw them censured, the Ebon Sentinels' one-hundred-and-one-standard-year crusade of penance brought so many worlds back to the Imperial fold that a plaque of honour was consecrated upon the Cardinal World of Ophelia VII and the Chapter's good name was restored. |
Battle of Manask - Conqueror's Forge: Records from prior to the opening of the Great Rift revealed the Ebon Sentinels' grievous losses of both warriors and starships in gruelling wars, their recruitment struggling to compensate. They were thus amongst the first Chapters of the Segmentum Tempestus to be assigned a Torchbearer task force during the Era Indomitus to proceed with replenishment.Conqueror's Forge was one of an unrecorded number of the vital Torchbearer task forces. They had already made perilous journeys to deliver Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl's arcane science, tonnes of ordnance, armour and war engines to the Astral Spears and Condemnors Chapters, returning to Terra after each expedition.Despatched next to the Manask System, Conqueror's Forge carried Greyshield reinforcements and Primaris Marine creation technologies to the Ebon Sentinels Chapter. The fleet's mass bulk hauler and vast Ark Mechanicus were shepherded by sleek and dangerous destroyers and light cruisers, equipped to ensure the completion of the mission by smashing any foes in their way, but with orders to ignore distracting pleas for aid.The task force's Navigators maintained a swift route and its astropaths directed unanswered hails at Manask. Sisters of Silence spread through the ships eased their passage through the Warp with their soulless aura. They were not the only esoteric envoys of Terra's will. The Astrolineator who commanded the Ark Mechanicus held nominal authority over the task force, but beyond oversight of the Primaris technology, emergency powers were wielded by others aboard. Gilded giants of the Adeptus Custodes, a dour Rogue Trader employed as sub-sector pilot and Inquisitor Lord Giorgius Kavnar of the Inquisition all stood ready to issue diktats should the need arise.Known only to the senior Custodian and the Inquisitor, a second flotilla shadowed Conqueror's Forge, unseen by their ships' sensors. The Prognosticators of Titan had seized damning omens from the Immaterium of what Conqueror's Forge would encounter at Manask. The Ebon Sentinels were clinging to survival after punishing campaigns of loyal service. In their desperation to stave off extinction they had heeded dark whispers that emanated from Vengla, a Dead World of their home star system. Promises of renewal, of swift and easy power led the Space Marines to employ the Warp in their recruitment and the Grey Knights had secretly accompanied Conqueror's Forge to purge the wayward Chapter. |
Battle of Manask - Battle of Manask: Arriving in the system simultaneously with the task force, Grey Knights of the the 6th Brotherhood, the "Rapiers," and the 8th Brotherhood, the "Silver Blades," spread out to isolate and destroy the Ebon Sentinels' orbital assets. Though much reduced in outright numbers, the Traitor Chapter had the resources of an Adeptus Astartes homeworld with which to defend their newfound power. A splinter of the Grey Knights warded the system's fringe, issuing the Edict of Forbiddance via Inquisitor Lord Giorgius Kavnar to the Torchbearer force. They remained at the system's Mandeville Point to ensure no Ebon Sentinel ships could escape and also to ensure none of the Torchbearer fleet strayed in-system.An encirclement of rapid strike vessels, led by the strike cruiser Damnation of Fiends, surrounded the Ebon Sentinels' homeworld and scuttled the remains of their fleet at the Forghost orbital docks. Teleporting Terminators and Strike Squads, meanwhile, attacked the linked weapons platforms of Ta'rond. Reinforced psychic communion from Ta'rond revealed the depths to which the Ebon Sentinels had sunk.There, corrupted Space Marines, possessed by Daemons to create the unnatural pairings known as the Possessed, mounted counterattacks against the Grey Knights. At Ffion's Chorus -- the system's astropathic relay -- Grey Knights Terminators, Interceptors and Purgators deployed via gunships. There they destroyed the Ebon Sentinels' capacity to call for aid by eliminating the surviving astropaths to ensure any Daemons had less chance to manifest.Following the Prognosticators' strongest warning, the greater portion of the Grey Knights struck at Vengla, where they discovered an ancient daemonic presence imprisoned in its core. The beast's psychic influence, amplified by the influence of the Great Rift, seeped out beyond its million-Terran-year-old bonds, exploiting the Ebon Sentinels' desperation to survive and planting the seeds of their doom. Six squads led by Brother-Captain Mithrac Tor of the Silver Blades and the 8th Brotherhood deployed to enact a grand ritual of banishment. The Daemon at Vengla's core responded by summoning a horde of Warp-spawned vassal Daemons to its prison planet's surface, and with the addition of the debased Heretic Astartes of the Ebon Sentinels fought back, though ultimately the Grey Knights prevailed in banishing the Daemon and all its kin. |
Battle of Manask - Manask Encirclement: Brother Gorvenae, Venerable Grey Knights DreadnoughtTydoric Vesta, Techmarine, 6th BrotherhoodKrevn, Terminator Squad, 6th BrotherhoodBoldarius, Strike Squad, 6th BrotherhoodVohr, Interceptor Squad, 6th BrotherhoodDamnation of Fiends, Strike CruiserMalleus Nox, Unidentified vessel, light cruiser displacementFellbanes, unidentified vessels, rapid strike squadron |
Battle of Manask - Purge of Vengla: Mithrac Tor, Brother-Captain, 8th BrotherhoodDanmar Guerest, Codicier, 6th BrotherhoodThrast, Terminator Squad, 8th BrotherhoodSorlen, Terminator Squad, 8th BrotherhoodDerban, Terminator Squad, 8th BrotherhoodShewtus, Purifier SquadArenal, Purgation Squad, 6th BrotherhoodCrenthor, Paladin Squad |
Battle of Manask - Silencing of Ffion's Chorus: Eldon, Interceptor Squad, 6th BrotherhoodJestor, Interceptor Squad, 6th BrotherhoodMannas, Purgation Squad, 6th BrotherhoodOracles of Salvation, Stormraven gunship squadronAquilae Argentum, Thunderhawk gunship squadron |
Battle of Manask - System Wardens - Mandeville Point: Thrane, Terminator Squad, 8th BrotherhoodSoulbrights, Unidentified vessels, rapid strike squadron |
Battle of Phall - Battle of Phall: The Battle of Phall was a major void engagement that took place following the start of the Horus Heresy in 007.M31 between the entirety of the Iron Warriors Legion's fleet and a formidable Imperial Fists Legion Retribution Fleet.At the command of the Warmaster Horus, Perturabo, Primarch of the Iron Warriors Legion, was sent to halt an encroaching Imperial Fists fleet that had originally been sent to Isstvan III by Rogal Dorn to reinforce the beleaguered Loyalists trapped on that world.The Traitors could not allow such a strong complement of Astartes to infiltrate their controlled area of space, for they would have seriously disrupted preparations for the Traitors' attack on Terra.Commanding the entirety of his Legion's war fleet, Perturabo led his warships in a sudden and devastating attack upon the Imperial Fists fleet in the nearby Phall System where the Loyalists had massed.Ultimately Perturabo failed in his attempt to annihilate the entirety of the Loyalist fleet, due to the vigilance and foresight of Captain Alexis Polux, the commander of the Imperial Fists Retribution Fleet, who had kept the warships under his command at a high state of combat-readiness.Though they sustained significant damage, Captain Polux was able to launch a successful counterattack against the Iron Warriors' fleet and inflict significant damage as well as destroy or disable multiple capital ships.When the Retribution Fleet's astropaths finally managed to make contact with Terra, they received a direct order from Rogal Dorn recalling the Retribution Fleet to Terra to prepare the defences of the Imperial Palace.Launching a bold counterstrike, the Imperial Fists drove off the embattled Traitor fleet and managed to break orbit and manoeuvre to their jump points, where they entered the Warp and made for Terra to prepare for the Traitors' coming assault upon the homeworld of Mankind. |
Battle of Phall - Horus' Perfidy: During the opening days of the terrible conflict that would become known as the Horus Heresy in later years, the Warmaster Horus launched his treacherous attack on the world of Isstvan III against the Loyalist elements within four of the Space Marine Legions that turned to Chaos, including the Sons of Horus, the Emperor's Children, the World Eaters and the Death Guard.It is believed by Imperial savants that the Loyalists made up approximately one-third of the combatants at Isstvan III. This devastating and tragic campaign came to be known by Imperial historians as the Isstvan III Atrocity.During the initial orbital bombardment of Isstvan III, 70 Loyalists of the Death Guard Legion and the Imperial Saint Euphrati Keeler led by Battle-Captain Nathaniel Garro had commandeered the Imperial frigate Eisenstein and, evading the Traitor forces of Horus, were able to escape from the Isstvan System into the Immaterium, after being told what was happening on the planet.The Eisenstein was badly damaged by the Death Guard battleship Terminus Est during its escape from Isstvan III and it was assaulted by undead minions, including the first known Plague Marines of Nurgle while it was within the Immaterium.This assault by Warp entities forced the ship to make an emergency blind-jump and emergence from the Warp. The repeated traumas left all of the frigate's astropaths dead, and its lone Navigator was mortally wounded. However, Garro managed to attract the attention of passing Loyalist starships by setting the vessel's Warp-Drives to self-destruct and ejecting them from the starship.The Imperial Fists Legion's massive mobile fortress-monastery Phalanx and the Legion's fleet had been becalmed in the Warp for some time due to the waxing power of the Ruinous Powers as the Heresy began, and their Navigators sensed the detonation of the Eisenstein 's Warp-Drives.Charting an immediate course for the location of the detonation, the Primarch Rogal Dorn met with Garro, who explained to him all that had happened with the Traitor Legions.Dorn was reluctant to believe Garro's tale, but overwhelming proof from a Remembrancer named Mersadie Oliton who had escaped from Horus' flagship, the Vengeful Spirit, and Garro's dogged insistence finally convinced the primarch of Horus' perfidy. |
Battle of Phall - Retribution Fleet: When Dorn had seen the evidence of his brother's treachery in the Isstvan System, he had wanted to go and confront Horus himself, to hear the Traitor's confession and bring retribution with his own hands.But duty had held him back: duty to the Emperor and the Imperium that Horus now sought to destroy. He and his First Captain Sigismund set course and returned to Terra, but not before Dorn had sent his sons as emissaries of his anger.He had named it a "Retribution Fleet"; 30,000 Imperial Fists Legionaries comprised of 300 companies and over 500 warships had struck out towards Isstvan III, a third of the VIIth Legion, a force great enough to subdue a hundred worlds, bearing a brother's wrath.Captain Alexis Polux of the 405th Company was attached to this Retribution Fleet under the command of veteran Captain Yonnad, master of the Retribution Fleet.When the fleet had translated back into reality on the edge of the Isstvan System, the power of the Warp Storm caused Geller Fields to fail as hulls sheared into fragments and burned in the fires of their own reactors. Some ships had reached safety, but many had died, their corpses spat out of the Warp to freeze in the void.Two hundred warships were lost, their remains left spinning in the light of a forgotten star. The Imperial Fists had found Captain Polux in the remains of one of those broken wrecks. He was one of the few survivors. Nearly 10,000 Imperial Fists were gone, a staggering loss that was difficult to grasp.Now only 363 warships remained -- a force that was still one-fifth of the VIIth Legion's full strength. Yonnad had not survived, and since Polux had been designated as his successor, the right of command of the remaining Retribution Fleet fell to him.Though he felt deeply honoured he also felt completely alone. The truth was that he did not fear the responsibility of such a heavy burden for Yonnad was the Legion's finest fleet master and Captain Polux his best pupil.But the new fleet master had doubts that he was the best choice, for there were other warriors that had survived the wreck of the fleet that were more worthy: commanders with more campaign experience, higher in the rolls of honour, and more skilled at arms. But the Imperial Fists followed form and order to the letter, something not so easily set aside.The Imperial Fists' warfleet established a base of operations in the Phall System. The two habitable planets of Phall were unremarkable agrarian worlds, lightly populated and of no great strategic importance. For reasons they could not ascertain, the Warp was calm in this region and the Imperial Fists found that they could navigate to and from the system with some surety.With their astropaths blind, as time wore on, the Legion's commanders had grown increasingly frustrated. Though a few amongst the senior captains and battlegroup commanders might chafe at Polux's orders, the majority of the fleet's commanders could not fault the young fleet master. The fleet was vulnerable, and an attack was likely. In such a position one needed to create a solid defence and conserve fighting strength.Polux's deployment addressed all of these needs with a direct elegance. The Retribution Fleet formed a sphere close to the Ocean World of Phall II. Each commander in the fleet led a battlegroup of smaller vessels. Every battlegroup moved on a precise looped course. Together the whole resembled a cage spun from the tails of comets.Captain Polux quickly established a routine. While regular scouting missions were launched into the Warp, the Legion's astropaths busied themselves with trying to break through the Warp Storms and make contact with Terra and in particular the Loyalists at Isstvan III.The fleet was kept at full battle-stations and Polux relentlessly drilled his shield-equipped Breacher Squads, honing their skills at war like a blade edge made sharp only by harsh practice.They wanted to be prepared in case of any inevitable boarding actions. When an enemy came the Imperial Fists needed to be ready. The opinions of others, whether they agreed with Polux or not, were of no consequence -- strength required obedience, not thought. |
Battle of Phall - Wrath of Iron: The Drop Site Massacre of Isstvan V was one of the major turning points that occurred early in the great galactic civil war that engulfed the Imperium of Man following the tragic events that played out on Isstvan III.After the news of the Isstvan III Atrocity was brought to the Emperor of Mankind by the Loyalists aboard the Death Guard frigate Eisenstein, He ordered the combined forces of seven Space Marine Legions to assault the positions of Horus and his Traitor Legions in the Isstvan System.During that assault on the world of Isstvan V, three Loyalist Astartes Legions -- the Iron Hands, the Salamanders and the Raven Guard -- were betrayed by the 4 other Legions of the Loyalist second wave -- the Alpha Legion, Night Lords, Iron Warriors, and a large contingent of Word Bearers -- who they had believed were loyal to the Emperor of Mankind, but in fact had already betrayed the Imperium and secretly turned to the service of the rebellious Warmaster Horus and Chaos.As the Loyalists retreated back towards what they believed were friendly lines, the hidden Traitors revealed their allegiance by opening fire upon the Loyalists, catching them between a Traitor hammer and anvil and nearly destroying all three Loyalist Legions.This victory demolished what the Loyalists had believed to be their numerical superiority and opened the path to the conquest of Terra for Horus and his allies amongst the forces of Chaos.The Primarch Perturabo and his warfleet had sat waiting patiently in the Isstvan System after the Drop Site Massacre, awaiting new orders from the Warmaster. Their patience paid off, as they soon received word from Horus that over 300 Loyalist warships were caught in a backwater system like fish in a whirlpool. A fleet of ships pinned in place and waiting for extermination, and here were all of those ships' dispositions and characteristics, listed and laid out for him.Though Perturabo knew that this was a fleet of one of the mighty Legiones Astartes, this wasn't just any ordinary fleet. This was a fleet composed of the Iron Warriors' most hated rivals, that of the sons of Rogal Dorn. The information had been gathered first-hand by scout elements in the system. But in the Lord of Iron's mind, he knew that the intel that he had received from the Warmaster was too perfect...too neat. How could the Warmaster have achieved such a thing? It was daunting in its implication.Perturabo realised that this was no random event, this had been planned before the Iron Warriors had come to kill the weakling Legions of Isstvan V. But then what else would he expect from the Warmaster? Perturabo thought of the massacre they had just committed, of the the Legions they had butchered. They were weak and destroying them had been nothing more than another task to be completed.But the Imperial Fists were rivals of old of the Iron Warriors, arrogant pretenders to honours and reputations they had bought with lies. The possibility of breaking Dorn's sons was a prospect so rich the primarch could almost taste it. This was obviously a part of the price of their allegiance to Horus. The chance to break one enemy bought by the deaths of others.The Iron Warriors' captains questioned the Lord of Iron of how they would be able to engage the Imperial Fists through the tumult of the raging Warp Storm. Perturabo responded that their passage would be possible, for the Warmaster had guaranteed it. That anyone could make such a guarantee staggered the primarch's subordinate commanders.Warsmith Forrix, one of Perturabo's vaunted Triarchs, cautioned the Lord of Iron that if the Imperial Fists suspected the possibility of an attack, they would be prepared. But Warmsith Berrosus, the 2nd Grand Company commander, interjected that if it was First Captain Sigismund who commanded the Imperial Fists fleet, then he would not sit patiently in his cage. Sigismund would make attempts to break through the storms, making them less prepared, and more vulnerable.Perturabo believed that, without a doubt, Sigismund commanded this fleet, for his brother primarch would not have trusted this fleet to another. Berossus offered to take his fleet, an equal number of starships, to launch an immediate attack to break the Loyalist fleet.The Lord of Iron struck down the Warsmith's request, informing his subordinate commanders that the Imperial Fists must not simply be broken, they must be ground to nothing.Dorn did not deign to come himself, therefore his favoured pup would bleed for him. All of the ships currently under Warsmith Berossus' command would go, but it would be the Lord of Iron who commanded the attack himself. |
Battle of Phall - Surprise Assault: The attack led by Perturabo was sudden and overwhelming. From his flagship the Iron Blood, the Iron Warriors primarch commanded the first one hundred warships that burst into reality at the same moment. The Iron Warriors vessels brought their weapons to bear, firing as one upon the Imperial Fists vessel Hammer of Terra.The doomed vessel exploded spectacularly as the enemy salvo set off a chain reaction in the ship's plasma engines. Within seconds of the death of the Hammer of Terra 12 of its sisters followed, consumed by nova-shell explosions and torpedo spreads. The Imperial Fists' grand cruiser Sulla fired a single salvo before macro-shell fire stripped its shields and its hull became molten slag. The six destroyers clustered around it ended in the explosion of its plasma reactor.The Crusader and Legate lasted scant seconds longer. They and their escorts took a trio of vortex warheads and vanished into the hungering dark. Twenty-four grand cruisers and battle-barges made up the tip of the Iron Warriors' fleet. In close formation around the capital ship Contrador they moved as one.They rammed through the debris of their kills, fire and molten metal smearing their prows. Around the Iron Blood hundreds of warships followed in close formation. Behind them hundreds more pulled themselves from the warp to add to the Iron Warriors fleet.Initially, the Imperial Fists' fleet fragmented under the attack. Flame-wreathed battle-barges pulled back, trying to outpace the guns of the Iron Warriors. Heavy cruisers staggered in their flight, the first one taking fire and then the next, while faster strike cruisers tried to cover the heavier warships as they pulled away.As the golden fleet broke into pieces the Iron Warriors continued to press forwards. Smaller ships crippled targets, and then larger ships delivered the killing blows. It was methodical and merciless, like a siege drill eating through rock.Plunging his fleet into the midst of the Loyalist fleet, Pertuabo's strategy was to scatter the Imperial Fists' fleet formation and then destroy it piecemeal. His plan was dependent upon the loyal ships not being able to fight back quickly enough to break the momentum of his thrust.However, Captain Alexis Polux and his fleet commanders quickly recovered from the shock and suddenness of Perturabo's attack and fought back.Directly in the path of the Iron Warriors a lone battleship turned to meet its enemy. Forgotten hands had made the Oath of Stone under the light of a sun far from Terra. It had been old before it served the Imperium, and it had aged in scars and honours since.Its guns blazed, filling the closing space between it and the enemy with fire. Its target was a grand cruiser that bore the name Stheno. The Iron Warriors ship faltered, its void envelope peeling back as it pushed forwards through the storm of fire. Lance beams spat from the Oath of Stone and suddenly the Stheno was burning, a glowing gouge running from its spade-shaped prow to its fins.The Oath of Stone surged forwards to finish its kill, but the Stheno was only one ship amongst a closing fist of iron. Three heavy cruisers fired. Energy crackled across the Oath of Stone’s void shields as they burst like oily bubbles. Shells and missiles hammered into the old ship. Its armour cracked and glowed. Crenellated gun towers sheared off, scattering clouds of stone and metal in their wake. Hundred-metre armour plates flaked off its hull. Deep inside the hull fire ran between compartments, suffocating those it did not burn.Trailing wreckage, the Oath of Stone continued to close and fire on the Stheno. For a moment it seemed as if it would face down the might of an entire fleet and survive. Then a line of turbolaser fire cut its engines in two. Building-sized thrusters fell away as explosions kindled in the wound. With the last of its momentum and guttering engines' power the Oath of Stone rammed the Stheno.It hit the grand cruiser in the belly, its prow ramming through the iron ship's spine. The Stheno shuddered, transfixed like a fish on a spear. Gas and fluid sprayed from its hull. For a moment the two spun on, locked together in death.Then the Oath of Stone’s prow ripped free of the Stheno's hull, and pulled the guts of the grand cruiser with it. Discarded and dying the Stheno drifted on, turning end over end, like a broken spear thrown at the night sky. The rest of the Iron Warriors fleet did not even slow down.Around the Iron Blood hundreds of warships followed in close formation. Behind them hundreds more pulled themselves from the warp to add to the Iron Warriors fleet. Months ago scout units had captured details of the Imperial Fists' fleet, each capturing a single snapshot of data and pushing it into the mind of the astropath slaved to each machine.The psykers' death screams had cut through the storms, carrying dream images of the Imperial Fists fleet. They had used that data to plan, and that plan was a timetable for obliteration. Perturabo ordered his second captain to scour the Imperial Fists fleet to find where Sigismund lurked. He was to be found, not killed. That honour would belong to the Lord of Iron.The killing continued with murderous rhythm. The ships at the front of the Iron Warriors fleet had begun to split into groups to hunt smaller Imperial Fists ships. Behind them fresh arrivals advanced in a tight block. These were the macro-vessels, vast cliff-sided ships filled with battalions of Iron Warriors and thousands of slave troops. Beside them lurked the hell burners.Old system ships, orbital haulers and tugs, they had ridden through the Warp on tethers behind the macro-ships. Unstable plasma fuel and munitions filled each of the ramshackle craft.Their slave crews, lobotomised into blind obedience, drove the hell burners into the throats of the Imperial Fists guns. Many detonated before they reached their victims, but more did not. Chains of explosions formed glowing nebulae that hung in the void like lava clotting in water.The Imperial Fists ships that emerged from these infernos were half-dead, their armour peeling from their superstructure, their weapons blind. The macro-vessels poured boarding craft onto the crippled ships as they limped from the firestorm. The Imperial Fists crews did not die swiftly. Swamped by thousands of slaves, they held until the Iron Warriors came to finish them in person.Dozens of ships died this way, gutted from within and left to drift, their insides filled with the dead of both sides. To the Iron Warriors the process of victory had begun and the only question was how long it would take to complete.The first sign that all was not as it seemed was a bright explosion on the trailing edge of the Iron Warriors fleet. The Imperial Fists cruiser Veritas and a destroyer wing cut towards their prey. Their target was a grand cruiser, a hulking brute named Calibos. The destroyers released a spread of fast-running torpedoes towards the Iron Warriors ship as they closed.It tried to evade but turned too slowly. Blisters of fire opened along its dark metal back. The destroyers accelerated past the injured ship. The Calibos listed drunkenly, its course veering as the rest of the fleet pulled away.The Veritas struck an instant later, its dorsal cannons crumpling the Calibos's shields and punching through its carapace. Half-dead, it tried to turn its prow towards its attacker.The Veritas raced past, broadsides raking the Iron Warriors ship. The grand cruiser exploded in a shockwave of energy and atomised matter. As the Iron Warriors fleet responded, the Veritas and its strike group was beyond its reach and turning for its next attack run. It was the first blow of many. |
Battle of Phall - Counterattack: Despite their long sojourn at Phall, the Imperial Fists fleet had been kept in a state of constant battle-readiness. This policy paid off for the Imperial Fists as they began to concentrate their fire at the leading ships of Perturabo's fleet. It was what the solar months of planning had been for, the hundreds of hours of training. The Retribution Fleet was ready to resist an attack, but they faced an enemy far greater than Captain Alexis Polux had ever planned for.The Iron Warriors had taken losses, but their strength remained. If the Imperial Fists had broken in the first moments they would have died. If they attempted to fight the Iron Warriors head-on they would have been slaughtered. The Iron Warriors knew their weaknesses, the Imperial Fists theirs.The Iron Warriors had hoped to find the Loyalists unprepared, but they had not cracked after the first attack. The Imperial Fists' defence had snapped back into place like the cogs of a clockwork mechanism. It was an unfixed fortress made of moving strike groups, fading resistance and punishing counter-attacks.Slower battleships drew fire, pulling Iron Warriors ships out of formation, while on the edge of the battle sphere fast strike groups looped around and through the margins of the Iron Warriors fleet. They struck again and again, crippling, destroying, trimming ships from the edge of the enemy fleet like fat carved from meat.The Iron Warriors fleet was pulling itself apart as it tried to engage the Imperial Fists, and it bled at every turn. The Imperial Fists rallied and began inflicting casualties, significant casualties. The Iron Warriors still had greater numbers, but that margin quickly diminished.Commanded by the Imperial Fists' 14th Company Commander, Captain Amandus Tyr guided the vessel Halcyon through the battle storm. Its leaf-blade hull glowed with reflected light from explosions and weapons fire. The void was thick with debris and plasma clouds, tumbling together like blood and entrails sinking through water.The Halcyon fired as it dived, prow and dorsal weapons thrusting ahead of its path. Behind it two of its sister ships followed: Unity and Truth. They were smaller, knife blades to the Halcyon’s spear tip. They spun, their flank batteries spiralling a bright helix around them as they sliced through the Iron Warriors fleet.This near to the core of the Iron Warriors formation, the hulls of enemy ships were so close that the gunners could aim by sight. The Halcyon and its escorts relied on raw speed and aggression to keep them alive. Though the Imperial Fists had lost two ships in three passes they had managed to kill four times as many.As the Halcyon continued its attack run, it approached the Iron Warriors battle cruiser Dominator. The Halcyon rotated on its axis, swooping under the Dominator, its flank batteries firing. The belly of the Iron Warriors ship split open in a string of explosions. The Unity and Truth followed close behind the Halcyon, hammering into the gaping gut wound in the Dominator's hull.It disintegrated, plasma from its ruptured heart burning it from within. The Halcyon arced away from its kill, engines clawing for speed as it aimed for the edge of the battle sphere.The Iron Warriors battle-barge came out of the surrounding swirl of battle. The Unity vanished in a spread of detonations. As the Halcyon came out of its attack run, Captain Tyr spied a massive vessel -- 15 kilometres of cold iron and battle-blackened adamantium.This vessel was the oldest daughter of the ship forges of Olympia, a breaker of fleets and planets -- the Iron Blood. Tyr knew that only one being had ever been her master, the Lord of Iron. The Imperial Fists commander ordered the vox-master to get a signal to Fleet Master Polux, to warn him that Perturabo had come. |
Battle of Phall - Desperate Gambit: When Tyr informed Fleet Master Alexis Polux of Perturabo's flagship leading the enemy fleet, the captain did not expect the response that he received; Polux immediately placed 50 ships under Tyr's command. The Iron Warriors fleet was pulling itself apart as it tried to engage the Imperial Fists, and it bled at every turn. But that was not enough. Not enough for Polux, not enough for his lost battle-brothers, not enough of a blood price for betrayal.Tyr's objective was the Iron Blood. He was to execute Perturabo. Captain Tyr led an assault force of 53 Terminator Armour-clad Veterans to assault the Lord of Iron's flagship. They were going to go into battle against another Legion, against a primarch. It was a battle none of them had ever thought they would fight, but there was no doubt or hesitancy amongst them.Polux had ordered this strike against Perturabo. That had surprised Tyr; he had thought that his brother lacked the boldness for such a gambit. That this mission might be his last did not matter. That was the nature of war, and the Imperial Fists knew that death was often the price of victory.The Imperial Fists concentrated their fire at the leading ships of Perturabo's fleet. The impact of this was devastating to the Traitors as their lead ships were torn apart in the firestorm. As the lead ships were battered the following ships of Perturabo's fleet broke off their attack to regroup. This gave the Loyalists the chance to go on the offensive but before they did so, the fleet's astropaths relayed a critical message to the loyal commanders.The Retribution Fleet had finally succeeded in making contact with Terra and the Imperial Fists had urgent orders to return there, by the will of their primarch, Rogal Dorn. These orders came with the highest priority. They Imperial Fists were not to let anything delay them. Coincidentally, a passage seemed to have somehow opened up in the Warp Storms surrounding the Isstvan System, though the Imperial Fists were not sure how long it would last.If they were to obey their primarch's orders, they had to withdraw while there was a chance of making it through the storms. Embattled against the Traitors of Perturabo and his Iron Warriors Legion the Loyalists had an opportunity to force the issue and launch a counterattack against Perturabo's fleet, perhaps dealing a wound to the enemy so severe that the Iron Warriors might never recover. But they had their orders; it was the will of Rogal Dorn that they return post-haste.When it came, the order to withdraw spread like poison through the Imperial Fists fleet. The first to run were the smaller craft, the frigates, gunboats and strike cruisers. Alone or in small squadrons, a hundred and thirty of the proudest warships of the Imperium fled the sphere of battle. Every Imperial Fist on every ship knew what the fleet master was doing, and why; it was a judgement of who was most likely to survive. It was also a death sentence for those that remained.Behind the fleeing ships their heavier cousins fired on the enemy with renewed fury. Rolling fire hit every Iron Warriors ship within range, clouding their sensors with a haze of energy as munitions detonated against void shields. It worked for a while, until the first of the Imperial Fists dropped into the Warp.For a moment nothing changed. Then more of the fleeing ships vanished, and the Iron Warriors realised what was happening. They fell on the breaking Imperial Fists like starved jackals on wounded lions. A second wave of Imperial Fists craft began to run for the system's edge and the Warp's embrace.The Lacedaemon, the ship that had carried the first Imperial Fists beyond the Sol System, was the first to break away. Its captain, the obedient Iago, pushed his ship until its engines bled raw plasma.Twelve Iron Warriors ships ran him down, raking the Lacedaemon with constant fire. Its hull blasted to a twisted ruin, the Lacedaemon fired back on its killers until the last inch of its hull integrity gave out. Of the rest of the second wave of retreat, a handful made it to clear space and jumped to the Warp. Most followed the Lacedaemon to death.The battle had become a slaughter. The Imperial Fists were running. Squadrons of ships tried to keep the Iron Warriors at bay while the others made for clear space and the possibility of escape. Freed of the pressure of attacks, the Iron Warriors fell on them. Every passing instant saw another ship die under Iron Warriors guns. They simply hammered them into twisted metal and cooling slag.There was an abandon to it, a wasteful brutality that required no skill. But the Imperial Fists died just the same. The Contrador and Polux's command ship, the Tribune, met in an embrace of fire and punctured metal. The Tribune fired every remaining weapon at the closing Iron Warriors ship.Macro-shells, Lance beams and plasma jets flicked across the narrowing distance and broke over the Contrador's shields. The return fire blew out the Tribune 's gun decks and gouged a long wound in its side. The Contrador closed until it was drifting alongside the Tribune’s wounded flank.Assault pods and boarding torpedoes slid across the gap. A weak flurry of turret fire reached out to meet the swarm of assault craft and hammered a handful into wreckage.The rest came on, unconcerned and undeterred. They hit in a wave, punching through gold-plated armour and disgorging their cargo into the guts of the Tribune. |
Battle of Phall - Blood Price: Though Alexis Polux knew that the Tribune was as good as dead, he would claim its death price. With the Tribune lost, Polux ordered the remaining units aboard to withdraw and jump to Terra as ordered. On the external hull of the Tribune a hundred assault craft boosted into the void like a cloud of fireflies; the Tribune's contingent of Imperial Fists left their fortress for the last time.The 30 members of Polux's personal strike force were still with him, waiting. Before he departed he nodded to the enginseers. There was a flash of light and the Tribune's teleport chamber vanished from around them. Precisely five seconds later the enginseers performed their last duty. They never questioned the fleet master's order, never showed the slightest doubt or emotion at what was asked of them.The Tribune's Plasma Reactors overloaded. For a second the Tribune held its form, a golden fortress floating in black night, then it detonated. The Imperial Fists still on board were vaporised and their Iron Warriors enemies with them.Tongues of plasma licked out from the sun-hot core. Vast lumps of armour plating rode on the growing sphere of hot gases. The blast wave hit the Contrador, and broke fields and burnt out its sensors and range finders. Imperial Fists attack craft descended upon it a moment later like the vengeful spirits of the dead.The killing began to slow. The Imperial Fists Retribution Fleet was no more; only the crippled and dead remained. The Iron Warriors ships had stopped firing on their victims, as if the overwhelming firepower of the earlier battle had left them spent. Surrounded Imperial Fists remnants fired all they had into the face of their enemies. Some managed to strip the void shields off an Iron Warriors ship; some even put wounds into their hulls. But the Iron Warriors came on, shrugging off damage like a bull Grox trampling a dog into the dirt.They swarmed their remaining enemies, their boarding pods clustering on golden hulls like ticks feeding on cattle. Their boarding parties struck plasma reactors, shutting them down and letting the ships choke to death without power. Life support systems, artificial gravity, and weapon systems went silent.Then the Iron Warriors left and the cold of the void reached into the lightless hulls to do its slow and silent work. A few Imperial Fists ships remained, fighting to the last, a shrinking cluster of resistance that became smaller by the second. They fought to the death, firing on enemies with undimmed fury, covering limping comrades even as the Iron Warriors brought them down.When the Tribune exploded amongst the last Imperial Fists ships few of the Iron Warriors took note. The Contrador had their kill, and the primarch had the head of the Imperial Fist who had dared to stand against him.That the Contrador lingered at the site of its victory drew no suspicion. And so, sustaining horrific losses, the Imperial Fists Retribution Fleet withdrew from the massive void conflict and made good their escape. |
Battle of Phall - Aftermath: Captain Alexis Polux and his strike force managed to fight their way to the Contrador's bridge and take control of the Iron Warriors warship. Polux ordered the Contrador to depart. As the Iron Warriors vessel's engines fired to full life, it moved away from the debris of its battle with the Tribune.Though the ship was severely damaged inside and out, half its crew dead, and its command seized by its enemies, it was still able to run. By the time the rest of the Iron Warriors fleet realised something was wrong, the Contrador was already beyond their range. Its engines breathed comet trails as it made for the edge of the Phall System, deaf to the signals that followed its flight.The Iron Warriors pursued until the Contrador ripped a glowing hole in the starfield and dove into the Warp Storms beyond. The Imperial Fists fleet was gone. Some had managed to flee and jump to the Warp, but most now drifted in the void, shattered and blackened.The force that had boarded the Iron Blood was dead to a man. The final dozen or so Imperial Fists Terminators that had miraculously managed to reach the flagship's bridge, were slaughtered by the hand of the Lord of Iron himself. Their broken bodies lay scattered about his command throne. There was no enemy left to fight.Meanwhile, the Contrador struggled to break through the violent Warp Storm whose frustrated fury raged at the hull of the Iron Warriors' vessel. Some of the Human crew had died, for there had been violence. Some of the crew had still held loyalty to their Iron Warriors masters but their futile attempts were quickly put down by the resolute and grim Imperial Fists. Others died of hunger, their bodies withering away to nothing.Their time in the Warp was impossible to measure, for time was inconsequential within the Immaterium. After an indeterminate time within the Warp, the Imperial Fists' Navigator finally discovered a way through the storm, detecting the faint luminescence of the holy Astronomican.Using the guiding holy light of Terra, the ship's Navigator guided the Contrador back to Terra. But much to their shock, the surviving Imperial Fists emerged from the raging Warp Storm into a system not unlike their own.Weapon platforms and void stations ringed the planets in heavy chains as warships moved through the void. The forces gathered there were the greatest ever seen amongst the surviving Astartes.It was a star system made into a fortress, a seat of power and unbending might. Captain Polux and his Imperial Fists had not arrived in the Sol System. They had arrived instead in the Realm of Ultramar. |
Battle of Pluto - Battle of Pluto: The Battle of Pluto was one of the earliest engagements of the Solar War, when the Traitor Legions, under Warmaster Horus, began encroaching upon the Sol System and the Imperium of Man's Throneworld of Terra during the later years of the Horus Heresy in 010.M31. This campaign began as infiltration forces and probing raids from without, and Dark Mechanicum attacks and attempted break-outs from the besieged Traitor forces on Mars from within, to test the defences of the Throneworld of humanity.The Alpha Legion carried out multiple diversionary attacks of sabotage and preparation, which plunged the Sol System into complete chaos. Their true target, however, was the fortress moon of Hydra which orbited Pluto. Here, the Primarchs Alpharius Omegon would be confronted by Rogal Dorn, the Praetorian of Terra, in an epic duel that would go unrecorded in official Imperial history but would result in the death of one of the twin Primarchs. |
Battle of Pluto - History: As the Horus Heresy raged throughout the galaxy, Lord Dorn fortified the defences of the Throneworld and the Sol System for the Traitors' inevitable push on Terra. Spheres of defence were created that extended from the literal walls of the Imperial Palace to the darkness beyond the edge of the Sol System. On this outer wall stood the Praetorian of Terra, Rogal Dorn, and his Imperial Fists. All the defences and forces within each Sphere were commanded by a senior Imperial Fist raised to the rank of Lord Castellan by Rogal Dorn.The First Sphere was the outermost, and came under the command of Sigismund. The Second was commanded by Halbrecht, while the Third, under Efried, enclosed the Martian battle sphere and had the traitorous Dark Mechanicum Tech-priests present on the Red Planet bottled up. Terra was marshalled by Rogal Dorn himself. The Imperial Fists forces in the Solar System were divided between each of these commands, along with thousands more warships, void defences and millions of mortal troops.Separated by millions of kilometres, Vox signals sent between the forces assigned to each sphere took solar hours to reach each other. When the Traitor invasion finally came, word would pass by a single astropathic flare, a psychic message that moved as fast as thought that said that the Traitors had come to the walls of the Solar System -- "Fire on the mountains". |
Battle of Pluto - The Solar Campaign: With its network of operatives and bondsmen- and -women, it is believed that even in the state of civil war that the Imperium had fallen into, the Alpha Legion had the means and opportunities to transfer materiel and personnel between sectors, including the Segmentum Solar and the strategically vital Sol System, whose defence had been entrusted to the Imperial Fists and their Primarch, Rogal Dorn, the newly proclaimed Praetorian of Terra.Under the tireless efforts of the Imperial Fists, the Sol System had become a fortress, each strata of the Solar System being turned into a perfectly organised defence zone to break the Warmaster Horus' eventual assault. Given the Alpha Legion's need to prove its own superiority, it would not simply suffice to break open Terra's outer defences. To humiliate the VII Legion, they would have to infiltrate the most secure location in the entire galaxy -- the Imperial Palace itself.Activating assets that had been dormant and hidden on Terra for several standard decades, the Alpha Legion would eventually succeed where all others had failed before, infiltrating several agents within the Imperial Palace and especially the Investiary, where great statues had been erected to commemorate the Great Crusade's greatest generals -- the Primarchs of the twenty Space Marine Legions. Two plinths had stood empty for a long time, the statues adorning them destroyed when their respective owners were cast to oblivion and their history erased -- the Lost Primarchs. But the nine statues of those Primarchs having turned against the Emperor had merely been covered up.This was the Alpha Legion's target. Infiltrated Legionaries succeeded in penetrating the Investiary and destroyed all the statues except two of them -- those of Alpharius and Rogal Dorn. Intended as both a challenge and a message, this feat was deliberately kept secret from the other organisations within the Imperial Palace. Even the Regent of Terra, Malcador the Sigilite, and the Emperor's own bodyguards, the Legio Custodes, were forbidden to enter the Investiary and witness the shaming of the Imperial Fists.By what means the Sigilite still discovered the presence of the Alpha Legion on Terra remains a mystery, but Rogal Dorn was adamant that he would deal with the treacherous XX Legion in due course. Shortly after this act of sabotage, an Alpha Legion fleet, led by Harrowmaster Kel Silonius, attacked the Sol System's outermost defences, and managed to even capture several of Pluto's moons, which constituted the heart of the outermost defence perimeter. What truly occurred there remains a well-guarded secret, one only kept by Rogal Dorn himself and his Huscarl-bodyguard. |
Battle of Pluto - Battle of Pluto Begins: In order to prepare for Horus' advance towards Terra, the Alpha Legion was charged by the Warmaster to carry out vital acts of sabotage and preparation, which would plunge the Solar System into complete chaos. Though heavily defended by the Imperial Fists Legion, led by the Praetorian of Terra, Rogal Dorn himself, the Primarch Alpharius, aboard his flagship Alpha, led his fleet towards the Sol System. He managed to successfully infiltrate the outer defences of the system by putting himself, and the entirety of the personnel within his fleet, into stasis.Meanwhile, the Alpha Legion fleet approached at minimum speed and powered its vessels down to the bare minimum, in order to reduce their overall heat signature. Thus it took an entire standard year for the Alpha Legion fleet to drift towards Sol and successfully reach the outskirts of Terra's defences undetected, as Warp travel had been strictly forbidden.At the same time, Alpha Legion Sparatoi (augmented and highly adept human agents) as well as Alpha Legion operative teams activated throughout the Sol System. These "sleeper" cells had been planted Terran years earlier before the outbreak of the Horus Heresy, and upon activation, performed their primary functions of sowing destruction and diversionary terrorist acts, causing panic and anarchy.Multiple acts of murder and sabotage were conducted on a number of planets to distract the beleaguered Imperial defenders from the Alpha Legion's true objective -- Pluto -- the lynchpin of the Loyalists' surveillance network within the Sol System. As Rogal Dorn was distracted by these diversionary attacks across the system, Alpharius' fleet, comprised of over 200 vessels, led by the Alpha, struck Pluto and its moons Charon, Kerberos, Nix, Styx and finally Hydra. As the fleet arrived, a further uprising, instigated by Alpha Legion infiltrator teams, erupted across the Sol System.The Alpha Legion's primary objective was Hydra, a fortress moon that orbited Pluto and was a major astropathic monitoring station. Alpharius himself led a team of Alpha Legion warriors in the attack on the moon. Meanwhile, the Loyalist defenders, led by First Captain Sigismund, had just 30 ships to defend against the massive Alpha Legion fleet.Due to the unexpected and brutal assault, the severely outnumbered Loyalist fleet was badly mauled by Fire Ships hidden among the Alpha Legion fleet, to wreak havoc on the Imperial Fists defenders. The captured fortress moon of Kerberos rained down deadly fire upon Charon, Nix, and Styx with heavy weapons. Despite facing overwhelming odds, the Imperial Fists resolutely stood their ground in the face of the Alpha Legion's overwhelming assault. |
Battle of Pluto - Death and Rebirth: Meanwhile, Archamus, Rogal Dorn's Master of the Huscarls, was eventually able to deduce the Alpha Legion's true intentions -- to sabotage the Imperial astropathic monitoring network centred on Hydra. During the fighting, Archamus led a Huscarl contingent in a daring assault upon the Alpha Legion force led by Primarch Alpharius himself. In the subsequent fighting, the Huscarls were killed and Archamus was left mortally wounded. All seemed lost, as the battle seemed to swing in favour of the Traitor forces.But miraculously, the Imperial Fists' mobile star-fortress Phalanx, led by Rogal Dorn himself, arrived with a massive Imperial Fists fleet in tow. They were boosted by additional reinforcements from the Armada Imperialis. Utilising the competing gravity wells throughout the Solar System, the Imperial Fists fleet managed to arrive quickly by slingshotting itself towards Pluto. The Imperial Fists reinforcements immediately pacified the captured guns on Kerberos, as Rogal Dorn led his Huscarls in an assault upon the astropathic chamber on Hydra.Dorn and his remaining Huscarls teleported directly into the locked chamber, and soon joined battle against Alpharius and his elite Lernaean Terminators. Archamus looked on helplessly, as the two Primarchs fought one another in an epic life-or-death duel. When Alpharius was about to impale Dorn with his Pale Spear, the now-dying Archamus attempted to intervene in the battle after spotting Alpharius was primed for a killing blow, however his seax rebounded harmlessly off of the spear's haft.Archamus was unaware that Dorn had anticipated the strike and stepped in to take the blow with his shoulder to pin Alpharius in place, then grabbed the spear with one hand and using his deadly Chainsword, Storm's Teeth, Dorn sliced through Alpharius' wrists, severing his hands from his arms, before slashing his brother across the chest and impaling him with his own spear. Finally, Dorn finished off Alpharius with a deadly chop of his mighty Chainsword into the top of his brother's skull.With the death of their Primarch, the Alpha Legion fleet withdrew and retreated from Pluto. At the moment of his twin-Primarch's death, Omegon sensed the demise of his sibling and became distant. Shortly thereafter, he was notified that the Warmaster demanded that Alpharius speak with him so that he could know the status of the Alpha Legion's attack on the Sol System. Like he had done many times before, Omegon immediately took upon himself his brother's name, and permanently assumed the mantle of sole Primarch of the XX Legion. |
Battle of Port Demesnus - Battle of Port Demesnus: The Battle of Port Demesnus was a conflict fought between the Space Marines of the Deathwatch and the Harlequin Aeldari of the Masque of the Midnight Sorrow on Coheria, the crystalline moon of the Imperial War World of Port Demesnus. The Harlequin troupe was led by none other than the Farseer Eldrad Ulthran of the Craftworld Ulthwé.Using the campaign for Port Demesnus as a distraction, Eldrad and his allies among the Midnight Sorrow performed a ritual that was intended to awaken the Aeldari god of the dead, Ynnead, within the Immaterium. The ritual was subsequently disturbed before its completion by the forces of the Deathwatch, led by Watch Captain Artemis of the Mortifactors Chapter and Astartes from watch fortress Talasa Prime.Despite the interruption by Imperial forces, the ritual succeeded in partially awakening the god of the dead. Ynnead immediately reached out across the galaxy to anoint his prophet Yvraine, who founded the Ynnari and offered a new hope to the entirety of the Aeldari species. |
Battle of Port Demesnus - The Hidden Path: From long-hidden valleys and subterranean arbours emerged warhosts from Craftworlds Saim-Hann and Ulthwé. They burst from ancient Webway gates, the tunnels of the labyrinthine dimension allowing them to bypass the cordons that made the planet of Port Demesnus an Imperial Navy stronghold.As the Craftworld Aeldari forces fell upon the population, the cacophony of Port Demesnus' giant industrial complexes was drowned out by the screams of the terrified and the dying.The entire planet was on high alert within solar hours. Ancient vox protocols were triggered that saw the Empyrean echo with the mind-wails of the port's astropaths. In the cold depths of space, the scattered assets of the Imperium mobilised.But they were too slow, and too far away, to shield the planet's heartland. After the first night, a dozen of Port Demesnus' critical defence sites had been overrun by Aeldari, some clad in jet black, others in bloody crimson.Outraged, the sector's High Command responded to the attack in a predictably thuggish fashion. The Imperium's nose had been bloodied on their watch, and they reacted with an indignant show of strength, just as the Aeldari had known they would. Bulk landers emerged from the fog of war to land with earth-shaking booms in the midst of the fighting. Battalions of soldiers marched from their cavernous holds and regiments of rugged tanks churned the ground to mud.At first, the show of force was all but impotent, for the reinforcements were so slow to mobilise that they found the Aeldari had vanished from whichever theatre of war they hunted them in. As the war effort unfolded, and the endless stream of Imperial reinforcements began to cover the planet's surface, the Aeldari had no refuges left to them. Before long, three of the planet's four continents were burning with the fires of all-out war as the Imperial forces closed in.For all the doom and destruction meted out upon Port Demesnus, the truth behind the war was worse still. The invasion was only a ruse engineered by the most far-seeing of Aeldari strategists, and the true strike was falling elsewhere. The prize they sought was so vital, so pivotal in the wider destiny of their race, that they had sent tens of thousands of irreplaceable Aeldari lives into a full military campaign that was ultimately little more than a decoy.The war for Port Demesnus was immense. It had all the hallmarks of a critical engagement that would decide the fate of a capital world and the star system beyond; fire rained from the skies, sprawling cities burned to ash and rivers of blood ran in the streets. Yet to Eldrad Ulthran and the players of the Troupe of the Midnight Sorrow, it was a necessary evil, a sideshow to distract from the main event: the fate of Coheria, Port Demesnus' moon.Where the population of Port Demesnus numbered in the dozens of billions, the glittering white orb of Coheria was entirely abandoned by Mankind, thought cursed for many long generations. Those who had attempted to settle it in the past had all been driven to distraction by the constant, low susurration of whispers that haunted the cusp of hearing day and night.The white sands of the moon, glinting like snowdrifts in the stellar light, were formed of a mildly psychoactive crystal, shards of precious stone ground to powder by the erosion of the aeons. Though none alive knew it, Coheria had been on the edge of the ancient Aeldari Empire at the time of Slaanesh's birth, and was saturated in psychic residue.Though individually tiny, when held together, the numberless grains of crystal that rendered the moon's surface white had absorbed immense psychic potential. Though Coheria had long been lost to the collective consciousness of the Aeldari race, at the close of the 41st Millennium, it was rediscovered by Illic Nightspear and the star-stalking outcasts of Craftworld Alaitoc. The discovery, when revealed to the Seer Councils of the other Asuryani craftworlds, set in motion this series of galaxy-changing events.When Eldrad Ulthran of Craftworld Ulthwé learned of Coheria's strange sands, the seed of an idea germinated in his fathomless mind. He cast it mentally into a sea of potential and followed the path of its voyage to a skein of glittering futures. There was physical danger there, for the rune that represented the brutish Imperium of Man-- and worse still, their elite Space Marines -- orbited the crux of fate, splitting it into several possible futures.After consulting with Kysaduras the Anchorite, a visionary Farseer who had long ago locked himself in the wraithbone heart of Ulthwé, Eldrad resolved to investigate the moon in person, but he would need assistance and stealth. Hundreds of Terran years previously, Eldrad had found common cause with a Death Jester known as Inriam's Spectre, and the Farseer reached out with his psyche to contact his morbid ally.Though his masque had needed him to defend the Black Library against the sorcerer Ahriman, Inriam's Spectre answered the summons. Before the year was out, Eldrad was escorted through the Webway to Coheria by a maverick troupe of the Midnight Sorrow.The Death Jester had listened to Eldrad's plan, and since that day, the potential of it had burned like the rune of new hope within his mind. It was a ploy of such vaunting ambition, so redolent with the star-forging grandeur of the ancient Aeldari race, that the warrior-dancer and his kinsmen found its lure irresistible.Eldrad had long believed in the possibility of rousing a new Aeldari deity: Ynnead, the god of the dead. Many a doom-laden Seer believed Ynnead would awaken to destroy Slaanesh, that diabolical Chaos God who sought to devour every Aeldari soul, but legend had it that this would only after every Aeldari in the galaxy had already left the mortal coil.Eldrad dared to hope that he could awaken Ynnead before then, and in doing so save a fraction of the Aeldari race -- enough to slowly regrow their population without the leering hunger of Slaanesh forcing them into lives of asceticism or endless torment. |
Battle of Port Demesnus - The Path Divides: The Corvus Blackstar Lethal Intent soared through the thin atmosphere of Coheria. The planet had long been forsaken, the hab-blocks thrown up by ancient Demesnan settlers no more than jutting ruins upon the horizon.Despite the strange mist banks that swirled like a slow-motion tempest around part of the planet's surface, the Lethal Intent's scry-augurs registered the atmosphere as still breathable. Better yet, the drifts of crystal powder that passed for its surface were firm enough to land the Space Marines' aircraft on.Watch-Captain Artemis and his battle-brothers noted with focused interest the flicker of engagement sigils upon the periphery of the cogitator readout. They knew there must be more Aeldari upon Coheria when the scans registered as humanoid but not Imperial.Xenos presence was confirmed by the data lattice of the Stormraven that was deploying the Deathwatch Venerable Dreadnought Nihilus nearby. Artemis' decision to leave the Port Demesnus war zone against orders was one step closer to being vindicated. If the Aeldari were working some nefarious scheme, and Watch Force Artemis could slay them in time to prevent it, perhaps they could return to Talasa Prime in victory rather than disgrace.A split second after Artemis ordered the attack, his combat veterans took heavy fire. The thickening mists were no wider than an Aeldari's wrist, but the incoming projectiles were impossibly sharp. Where they scored telling hits, they sliced through ceramite to draw blood, slash fingers from hands or take limbs from torsos. A hollow laugh rang eerily in the mist as a shuriken slashed the eyes from a battle-brother's head in a spray of broken visorglass and murky liquids.The Deathwatch were already returning fire. Even those who were badly wounded shot from the hip without faltering. Kraken bolts hammered out into the gloom towards the long-limbed figures cavorting on the cusp of vision. Here and there, a satisfying boom rang out as bolt shells struck something solid and detonated hard.Artemis levelled shot after shot as he charged forward, struggling to see the tall-helmed Farseer through the mist. His vanguard elements boosted alongside him with a roar of Jump Pack engines. There was a sudden storm of multicoloured light, the mist flashing a hundred shades at once, and the tall Aeldari was gone.Actinic lightning blasted from the mist, a skein of electricity that left runic symbols behind Artemis' eyes as it hurled him skidding sidelong into a drift of crystal sands. A red-stockinged foot pressed his helmet down, seeking to trap him immobile for a coup de grace, but the Watch Captain jabbed his Power Sword high, impaling the Harlequin. He sprung up, gripping the falling body and breaking its spine even as he used it as a shield against the blinding laser beam that shot at him from the gloom. The corpse came apart in a puff of blood.Sleek-hulled attack craft swooped through the swirling, shimmering mist, adding to the confusion with crackling lasers and shuriken volleys. The Deathwatch, knowing that to remain stationary was to court disaster, had already spread out into pairs. What had started as a meeting of battle lines had devolved into a fast-paced hunt in the mists. Artemis growled in frustration; in a battle of agility, the Aeldari held all the cards.There was a sudden "whump" of ignition as a swathe of the battlefield was consumed in plasma fire, spindle-limbed xenos dancing spasmodically as they melted to nothing in the intense flames. The Dreadnought Nihilus stomped into the fray from the west, Storm Bolter barking as it tracked a passing Jetbike.A long-hafted Harlquin blade lashed out, deftly slicing through the weapon system's ammo feed, but Nihilus had fought Aeldari before and knew the tolerances of a Plasma Cannon well. A second explosion of eye-searing energies and the Jetbike -- brightly unformed riders and all -- was reduced to scattered ash.The tide of battle ebbed back and forth as each side attempted to encircle the other, only to find itself ambushed in turn. The mists swirled thick, the dull crump of explosions and the high shriek of dying xenos sounding strangely far away. Barking curt imperatives to fight on to the last man, Artemis plunged into the thickest part of the mist, seeking its source. He was determined to slay every last Aeldari upon Coheria, even if he died in the process.All around the Deathwatch, faces they could swear were familiar flashed in the flashed in the gloom; visages of the dead, of sisters and brothers, of the hated, of heroes long passed into legend. They blurred together, laughing, crying, a surreal kaleidoscope of imagery punctuated by intense flashes of gory violence.The distorting masks of the Harlequins, combined with the strangely reflective mist, left Watch Force Artemis with no option but to fight on using only their instincts, trusting their hearts instead of their heads.The vanguard of the Deathwatch force aimed their assault towards the highest concentration of Harlequins. They lashed out with Thunder Hammers and Power Mauls, but their targets simply vaulted and tumbled over the attacks as if in a long-practised performance.As their foes dodged, however, two of the veterans flicked Frag Grenades from the mag-lock points of their belts, and the sudden detonations sent three Harlequins reeling. It was all the opportunity the Space Marines needed. Heavy hammers arced overhead to smash dazed Harlequins into mangled heaps of broken bone and burst flesh, blood painting black ceramite red.Then, a cruelly laughing Death Jester was among them. A point-blank volley sliced an armoured torso into ragged meat, the shuriken's poison sending vital organs spattering with a bang. A blow from the scythe blade took a battle-brother's jaw, cutting his battle cry to a single gurgling words, "death," before Inriam's Spectre pushed a Plasma Grenade into his ruined mouth. Brother Galatael kicked out hard, sending the Death Jester rolling into the mist.Despite being blinded by a hundred stimuli, Watch Captain Artemis fought on with primal savagery. Once more, his mind told him he was surrounded by warriors hungry to devour him, similar to the same murderous kinsmen that had cut him down on his homeworld of Posul.The hungry faces of the Harlequins' masks loomed large in the mist. Artemis span and slashed, punched and stamped, crunched his helm into the face of one assailant and his elbow into the throat of another. He fought like a captured beast, proud and ferocious, but every return blow somehow connected, drawing blood from him with each strike.The Watch Captain felt a curved blade slide into his lower back. Another came in to sever his hand at the wrist, but glanced hard from the metal of Artemis' bionic arm. He spun, his mind flaring with pain as he ripped the sword lodged in his back from his attacker's hand. He shoved hard and primed his stasis bomb before flinging it towards the dancing shadows.A mind-numbing detonation and a shroud of stillness froze Artemis' assailants as if trapping them in a glacier. The mist, banished by the arcane explosion, parted to reveal grinning Aeldari trapped in the last act of a play that would never end. An arrowhead-shaped gunship swerved abruptly to avoid being being caught in the dislocation of time and space that rippled out from the stasis bomb's detonation.The machine's evasive manoeuvre put it right in the path of the Dreadnought Nihilus, who took some relish in backhanding it into scrap with a blow from his giant Dreadnought Power Fist. Artemis gave a shout of joy. With a single strike, the tide had turned. |
Battle of Port Demesnus - A Shattering Blow: Eldrad Ulthran had taken into account every eventuality he could foresee unfolding on Coheria -- with the exception of one. He had foreseen the Imperial attack, slowed its advance with a web of words and laid an ambush of blades to repel it, and yet there remained a future he had not factored into his plans.In his meditations, the High Farseer had glimpsed a fold in chronology, a ruction in the imprecise nature of the skein. It hid a divergent thread of destiny that led away from his carefully sculpted paths of cause and effect. Eldrad had examined the temporal anomaly, but dismissed it as a false vision, for he saw no way for a species as lowly and backward as Humanity to affect the passage of time itself.With the detonation of Artemis' stasis bomb, fate's path veered sharply away from that which Eldrad had intended. The Deathwatch fought clear of the mind-altering mist that was dissipating around them and brought their full might to bear.The Harlequins were revealed, at last, in all their splendour, and those not caught within a stasis field were attacked with renewed fervour. The High Farseer of Ulthwe fought only in his own defence, for he was consumed with the culmination of a far greater work.All around Eldrad, the crystal seers glowed brighter and brighter with a cold and colourless light, throwing the twilight of the battleground into a stark new dawn. The Harlequins evaded many kill shots and leapt high to escape the crushing blows of the Deathwatch vanguard, but they could not dodge forever the hurricane of fury brought to bear upon them. Pressing their attack, the Deathwatch surrounded the remaining Harlequins, gunning down one Troupe and sending the other scattering as Nihilus' plasma blasts seared in from the flank.Artemis ran to the crest of a sand drift, lashing out to decapitate the rider of a Skyweaver Jetbike as it shot past. The blow sent the vehicle careening into an outcrop of eroded Imperial ruins. The resultant explosion saw a skull-masked figure spring high from within the shelter of the rubble, flipping, somersaulting and landing in a stumbling crouch.Artemis was already running, taking advantage of his adversary's distraction to press his Bolt Pistol into the back of the figure's skull-masked head. The Watch Captain smiled grimly in anticipation of the kill. Unbeknownst to him, the masked Aeldari grinned too.Slowly, the Aeldari laid down his long-barrelled cannon. He made a sound reminiscent of a herald clearing his throat and held out a hand in a stylised gesture of declaration."If you slay me, Sir Knight," he said, his High Gothic perfectly enunciated, "the fates shall align to bless our mutual foes.""Trust not the Eldar," said Artemis, his words thick with hatred."We are the sons of Death, you and I," said the Aeldari. "We bring oblivion, in order to deny Chaos. We cannot afford to thwart one another when the greater enemy stands on the cusp of victory."The gilded finger bones lining the edge of the creature's cloak gleamed in the harsh light as crystal statues glowed bright all around. Artemis narrowed his eyes; a similar raiment was worn by the Chaplains of his own Mortifactors Chapter in their sepulchral celebrations. Strangely, he could not sense duplicity in this one."Walk away," said the Harlequin, "and a dire blow shall fall upon the Archenemy." Artemis recoiled at the term as the Aeldari spoke on. "Is your distrust so deep you would rather kill me now than spare the doom of a trillion human souls?" There was disbelief under his tone, and something else. Despair, perhaps."Yes," said Artemis, pulling the trigger to end the creature's life.Eldrad Ulthran screamed as the ritual reached its crescendo. All around, the crystal sands of Coheria glowed bright. A bow wave of spiritual power rippled across the moon as the soul of every dead Craftworlder since the Fall of the Aeldari lent a measure of its sentience. But a vital voice in the choir of his psychic melange had been silenced, and the blessings of the Laughing God were fading away.Wraithbone runes whirled around Eldrad, burning to smoking ash one by one as the High Farseer struggled to hold the ritual of awakening together. His mind was aflame, the skies above bursting into bright orange fire in sympathy. Psychic energies heated the planetoid to volcanic temperatures. The moon became a psychic sun, a signifier of a new dawn. Somewhere, in the bottomless soulscape of the void, Ynnead at last stirred to wakefulness.Another sun blossomed on the cusp of fate, far smaller, and filled with malevolence. Eldrad opened one eye to see a plasma sphere burning towards him. He directed a portion of his psychic focus into his Rune Armour to dissipate the blast. In that act, he failed. The ritual disturbed, the emergent consciousness of the new Aeldari god splintered, its full apotheosis and awakening denied.The crystal seers shattered with terrific force even as Space Marines sprinted for their assault craft as the crystalline moon exploded around them. Eldrad reeled, stumbling blindly through the Webway gate behind him as the planet ignited with white fire. The last thing he saw was a vast and solemn constellation losing cohesion, a single bright point from within it shooting away into the far reaches of the cosmos.Yet the god of the dead had stirred in his dreamless sleep. Even as his full consciousness remained quiescent, he reached out across the galaxy to find his herald, an Aeldari who had served with many of her species' different kindreds, and even then was battling in the arenas of Commorragh. She would be the prophet of the new age and complete the awakening Eldrad Ulthran had begun. Her name was Yvraine. |
Battle of Prospero - Battle of Prospero: The Battle of Prospero, also referred to as the First Battle of Prospero, the Scouring of Prospero, the Desolation of Prospero, the Burning of Prospero and the Fall of Prospero, was the name given by later Imperial scholars to the sanctioned Imperial military reprisal against the Thousand Sons Legion's homeworld of Prospero near the start of the Horus Heresy in 004.M31.The action was carried out by the Space Wolves Legion and elements of the Legio Custodes and the Sisters of Silence as a punishment for the Thousand Sons' flagrant violation of the Emperor of Mankind's edicts against the use of psychic powers and sorcery made at the Council of Nikaea. However, the Emperor had ordered the Thousand Sons' Primarch Magnus the Red to be captured and returned to Terra for judgement.The Warmaster Horus, already secretly in thrall to the Ruinous Powers and his own ambition to overthrow the Emperor, intervened and for reasons unknown convinced Leman Russ through a message brought by the Sons of Horus to Prospero to defy the Master of Mankind's orders and seek Magnus the Red's death rather than his capture. |
Battle of Prospero - Sorcerers of Prospero: Magnus the Red, primarch of the Thousand Sons Legion, was the most powerful psyker of all the primarchs, the genetically-engineered, superhuman gene-sons of the Emperor of Mankind who led the Legions of the Space Marines.After being transported as an infant by the Ruinous Powers through the Warp from the Emperor's gene-laboratories beneath the Himalazian (Himalayan) Mountains on Terra, Magnus' gestation-capsule came to rest far across the galaxy on the Civilised World of Prospero.This unusual Human world embraced the psychic mutations amongst its population rather than seeing psykers as dangerous witches and Renegades who had to be slain or exiled as was the norm on most Human worlds before the Imperium annexed them during the Great Crusade. Psykers born on Prospero were not outcast by their fellow Prosperines but were instead embraced as their world's natural leaders because of their abilities.When the newborn primarch was found in his gestation-capsule that had fallen from the heavens, he became a ward of the psychic scholars and leaders of Prospero, and soon displayed the same powers, though his psychic strength was beyond anything that had ever been seen by the sorcerers of Prospero.Magnus' abilities soon surpassed those of his primary tutor in the psychic arts and he was recognised as the world's preeminent sorcerer and the leader of the ruling Commune of Prospero. Elevated as the rightful leader of Prospero, he unified its sometimes squabbling cults of sorcerers and set towards transforming Prospero into a centre for knowledge and the arts of sorcery drawn from across the galaxy.When the Emperor of Mankind was finally reunited with His lost son after the Great Crusade reached Prospero and incorporated it and its people into the Imperium, he cautioned Magnus about the dangers inherent in the practice of psychic sorcery and the nature of the Warp.The Emperor knew that Magnus was a very powerful psyker and possessed an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. He believed that it was dangerous for His son to remain ignorant of the secrets of the Immaterium and the ancient, dark intelligences that resided there, and so the Emperor showed Magnus the truth of the Warp. Feigning shock and horror at the Emperor's revelations, Magnus agreed to renounce sorcery and to lead his people away from the study of the occult, but he secretly dismissed his father's warnings. For Magnus had already peered into the Warp and had become obsessed with the potential promise of psychic power. |
Battle of Prospero - Sorcery of the Thousand Sons: After the Emperor arrived on Prospero, Magnus was reunited with his genetic progeny amongst the XVth Legion of the Space Marines.The XVth had been formally named the "Thousand Sons" by the Emperor and given their own expeditionary fleet so that they might begin to make contributions to the Great Crusade the Emperor had unleashed upon the galaxy to reunify all of Mankind beneath the aegis of the Imperium of Man.Like their gene-father, the Thousand Sons had inherited powerful psychic talents, as their gene-seed organs possessed their primarch's own psychically-potent genes. However, the Legion's gene-seed was also genetically unstable, and often produced unwanted mutations known as the "Flesh-Change" by the Legionaries.The Flesh-Change was much feared amongst the Thousand Sons, as the spiral of degenerative mutation ultimately reduced a proud Thousand Sons Astartes into a mindless mutant abomination similar to a Chaos Spawn. The majority of those Thousand Sons afflicted by the Flesh-Change were put into stasis by the Legion in the hope that someday in the future a cure would be found that could reverse the onset of these crippling mutations.The number of active Astartes within the XVth Legion soon began to dwindle to dangerously low levels as a result of the ravages of constant mutation. Some within the Imperium called upon the Emperor to declare the Legion hopelessly corrupted and remove them from the Great Crusade's active order of battle.By the time the Thousand Sons were reunited with their Primarch Magnus, they numbered only one thousand active Astartes -- literally the "thousand sons" of Magnus. Through unknown means after his restoration to his Astartes, Magnus gained the knowledge required to cure his Legion's tendency towards rampant mutation.He even restored his sons who had been afflicted with the Flesh-Change and placed in stasis, making the XVth Legion whole once again. The Legion quickly adopted Prospero as its new homeworld and many of Magnus' followers from amongst the sorcerer cults on the planet were recruited into the Legion's ranks.Despite the Emperor's earlier warnings, the primarch continued to obsess over the acquisition of the forbidden knowledge of the Warp and never ceased to practice sorcery. Magnus secretly taught the Thousand Sons the ways of the sorcerers of Prospero, and to embrace their psychic talents as a gift rather than suffer them as a curse. Within a short period of time the Thousand Sons had become a secret cabal of powerful Warp sorcerers.Throughout the Great Crusade, the psychic talents of the Thousand Sons proved useful innumerable times as the XVth Legion fought bravely in multiple campaigns, leaving few in doubt of their achievements.However, there were those primarchs such as Leman Russ of the Space Wolves, Mortarion of the Death Guard and Corvus Corax of the Raven Guard who could never bring themselves to fully trust Magnus and his Thousand Sons because of their own strong feelings against the use of sorcery and psykers in general.Leman Russ, the product of a feral barbarian culture on the Death World of Fenris where all psykers were feared as fell witches, condemned the Thousand Sons as warlocks who employed fell magicks.Mortarion openly accused Magnus of dabbling in foul sorcery similar to that exercised by the hated Overlords of Barbarus, and Corax twice refused to field his Legion alongside the Thousand Sons. |
Battle of Prospero - Space Marine Librarians: Unlike his brother primarchs, Magnus the Red saw the potential in exploiting the powers of psychically talented Astartes and was instrumental in the development of the Space Marines' corps of Librarians.In some of the Astartes Legions the psychic mutation was relatively common, and it was felt by some of the primarchs that such individuals should be allowed to continue to use their innate psychic abilities for the benefit of the Legion.This would allow these gifted battle-brothers to be of use to their Legion without presenting any danger to their fellows or to the civilians of the Imperium. Magnus and a number of other primarchs created a program for the training and development of psyker Astartes that supplemented the traditional process for creating a new Space Marine.The Emperor was asked to approve of the recruitment of these psykers into the ranks of those Legions who wished to make use of them, and he sanctioned these first experiments as a means of controlling the spontaneous outbreaks of psychic mutation within the ranks of the Legions.The Librarians quickly proved to be loyal and effective warriors and soon gained the Emperor's and the Primarchs' acceptance of their presence on the battlefield, rapidly becoming a powerful addition to the ranks of the Space Marine Legions.However, there were those primarchs who raised their voices in dissent, arguing amongst themselves and with the Emperor that Librarians should not be permitted within the ranks of the Astartes.Some desired to expand their Legions' Librarius and recruit even more Librarians into their ranks, whilst other primarchs vehemently opposed the entire notion of Librarians and felt that they should be expunged from their ranks altogether.Primarchs such as Leman Russ felt that Librarians were no better than witches. Corvus Corax and Rogal Dorn also refused to commit their Legions to fight alongside other Legions that made use of Librarians. Mortarion in particular accused his brother Magnus of using the forbidden arts of sorcery.Dismayed at the accusations leveled against Magnus and the friction the issue was causing amongst his primarchs, the Emperor was also concerned about the Librarians and the dangers they presented to the Great Crusade when he was no longer fighting directly alongside his Space Marine Legions.Before departing for Terra to begin his secret Imperial Webway Project within the seclusion of the Imperial Palace's dungeons, he summoned the Primarchs and all the other major Imperial leaders to a War Council summit on the world of Nikaea to address the Librarian crisis. |
Battle of Prospero - Council of Nikaea: To end this growing dispute over the use of psychic abilities once and for all, the Emperor summoned the Imperial War Council to the newly terraformed Frontier World of Nikaea to resolve the issue over the use of psychic powers in the Imperium of Man and so that Magnus could rebut the charges of sorcery that had been laid against him.This great conclave, later known to Imperial historitors as the Council of Nikaea, consisted of the primarchs as well as Imperial officials drawn from all the various adepta of the Imperium. From His throne upon a high dais, the Emperor presided over the proceedings on Nikaea in an ancient amphitheatre as each side in the debate made their presentations to Him.The Primarch Mortarion repeated his charge that Magnus employed the use of sorcery whilst Magnus defended his actions and extolled the great deeds achieved by the Librarians and his own Legion's psykers.He also pointed out that the Imperium was already completely reliant on the use of psykers such as astropaths and Navigators for interstellar communication and transportation as evidence to help his cause.The Council of Nikaea was also the trial of Magnus the Red -- for he was accused of sorcery and of introducing sorcerous practices to the Space Marine Legions through the institution of the corps of Librarians.As the evidence of Magnus' continued practice of sorcery became apparent, the Emperor barely contained His wrath as he pronounced judgement on the primarch of the Thousand Sons, for He had entrusted His son years before to obey His bidding and foreswear the use of such occult practices because of the dangers inherent to the Warp.He had entrusted only Magnus with the true secrets of the Warp to which only they remained privy, but now it appeared that His son had disobeyed His edicts and at the very least dabbled in the occult and the forbidden black arts of psychic sorcery.The Emperor's judgement at the Council of Nikaea proved severe. With the exceptions of Navigators and astropaths who were properly trained, controlled and sanctioned by the Imperium and were necessary to its continued existence, the Space Marine Legions were no longer to employ psykers within their ranks.The Emperor commanded that the primarchs were to close their Librarius departments forthwith and not to indulge the undoubted psychic talents of those Astartes who possessed the gift. All existing Space Marine Librarians were likewise forbidden to make use of their abilities and were ordered to return to their Chapter's battleline.The council's rulings also created a new position amongst the Space Marine Legions, the Space Marine Chaplain, to uphold the Imperial Truth and help maintain the purity of an Astartes Legion's dedication and fidelity to the Emperor's commands.Furthermore, Magnus was ordered to return to Prospero to reorganise his Legion, disband the Legion's Librarius and redeploy its existing large corps of Librarians to the Legion's Battle Companies.The Emperor censured his use of psychics and dismissed Magnus with a final threat -- a fate that had also befallen the Lost Primarchs of the II and XI Legions: "If you treat with the Warp, Magnus, I shall visit destruction upon you. And your Legion's name will be struck from the Imperial records for all time." |
Battle of Prospero - Retreat to Prospero: Bitterly disappointed by the outcome of the Council of Nikaea, Magnus secretly raged against the Emperor and what he saw as his father's unjust ruling. The Emperor had made his feelings crystal clear: Magnus was to cease all use of sorcery and psychic powers on pain of death. The Emperor had censured Magnus publicly for such activity and had warned him in no uncertain terms that he would be destroyed if he were to disobey the Edicts of Nikaea. Yet Magnus had no intention of giving up the promised power and knowledge of the Warp and continued to study the Immaterium and its secrets. He met with his senior Librarians and persuaded them to collude with his plan to secretly continue their studies of the occult and sorcery.Following the Council of Nikaea, a recall order was astropathically transmitted to all of the Legion's far-flung Expeditionary Fleets, with the bulk of the Legion's number present on Prospero just before the Fall of Prospero. However, some of the Thousand Sons' Astartes had not arrived on Prospero when that world was assaulted. This would include those elements of the Thousand Sons such as Captain Menes Kalliston and his 4th Fellowship. The fate of these Thousand Sons Astartes untainted by their Legion's fall to Chaos remains unrecorded -- or deliberately excised -- from Imperial records. |
Battle of Prospero - A Vision of Betrayal: The Warmaster Horus was being treated for the mortal wound he had sustained fighting alongside his Luna Wolves Legion against the Renegade Imperial Planetary Governor Eugen Temba on the Feral World of Davin within the Temple of the Serpent Lodge. Unbeknownst to anyone else in his Legion, the Warmaster's healing had been prearranged by First Chaplain Erebus of the Word Bearers so that the Chaos Cultists of the Serpent Lodge could transport Horus' soul into the Warp where he was seduced by the Ruinous Powers into betraying and challenging the Emperor for control of the galaxy. Magnus, meditating on Prospero, peered into the Warp with his one good eye and foresaw the pact with Chaos that the dying Warmaster had made to save his life. He also foresaw the epic events that were yet to unfold in the galaxy and could prove dire to the survival of the Imperium -- Horus' betrayal, the deaths of some of his Primarch brothers and the actions of those who would betray their oaths to the Emperor. The only fate the vision did not reveal was Magnus' own.Burdened with the terrible information provided by this precognitive vision, Magnus gathered about him the secret cabal of his Legion's Sorcerer Librarians to discuss and interpret the meaning and implications of these dire portents. After much deliberation they resolved to break the proscriptions of the Edicts of Nikaea and psychically contact the Emperor on Terra to warn him of Horus' impending betrayal. Magnus used the power of his Legion's greatest sorcerers to convey the news of the impending civil war to the Emperor himself on Terra via a sorcerous spell, rather than use the legal but unreliable means of astrotelepathy. |
Battle of Prospero - Magnus' Warning: Troubled by the revelations of Horus' betrayal and the coming galactic civil war, Magnus risked further censure from his father by employing the use of a daemonic spell to warn the Emperor. Why Magnus chose to warn his father in this fashion is not clear, for surely he knew the Emperor would recognise the taint of Chaos on this forbidden sorcery. Nevertheless, the cabal of Thousand Sons Sorcerers joined their Primarch to cast this mighty spell, projecting the potent conjuration towards Terra through time and space. Magnus' spell breached the protective wards and hexes around the Imperial Palace and penetrated the subterranean levels of the Palace's dungeon deep within the earth. The spell lanced directly into the Emperor's brain, instantaneously filling him with the knowledge of the dark precognitive vision of Magnus and of the details of Horus' corruption by the Dark Gods. The spell also disrupted the wards surrounding the Emperor's secret construction of a new extension into the Webway from Terra and led to the deaths of hundreds of Adeptus Mechanicus Tech-priests and Servitors who were suddenly exposed to the perils of the Warp. |
Battle of Prospero - The Emperor's Wrath: Magnus' daemonic conjuration of unprecedented power had breached the psychic defences of the Imperial Palace on Terra. Magnus felt that this was to be his moment of triumph and vindication as only through the power of sorcery had Horus' betrayal been revealed. He believed that his father would at long last see the value of its use. But instead of vindication, Magnus received nothing but wrath. The Emperor was not pleased with his son's warnings or the disruption to his precious Webway Project, and flew into a terrible rage that Magnus should dare to so flagrantly disobey his orders to renounce sorcery and psychic power. He was further enraged by Magnus' obvious deception in pretending to lay down his psychic powers, which he saw as evidence of the worst sort of oath-breaking. Completely ignoring the contents of Magnus' dire warning, which he believed to have been fabricated by the Ruinous Powers, the Emperor called forth the Primarch Leman Russ of the Space Wolves Legion, and commanded him to move on the world of Prospero and prosecute the rebel Primarch and his Legion. For consorting with the powers of the Warp in direct contradiction of Imperial edicts, they were to be shown no mercy.The Wolf King brought the entire VI Legion to sanction Prospero -- an entire Astartes Legion to punish another entire Legion. The fleet's components assembled at the world of Thardia and then translated through the Warp to three further assembly points, gathering strength as they went. Amongst the Space Wolves' forces were a contingent of Legio Custodes, bequeathed by the Emperor himself to strengthen their cause. Accompanying Russ was also a fleet of Black Ships, with orders to carry back to Terra any psykers or sorcerers left on the planet after the Thousand Sons had been dealt with.The Space Wolves were also aided by the Silent Sisterhood. Untouchables who carried the Pariah Gene, the Silent Sisters were psychic blanks who were immune to psychic assaults and whose very presence was anathema to the likes of the Sorcerers of Prospero. The Space Wolves and the Custodians were tasked with defeating Magnus' Legion on the field of battle, and arresting the malcontent Primarch. The Sisters of Silence were to apprehend and detain any and all surviving psykers for transportation to Terra on the Black Ships accompanying the fleet where they were to be judged and have due sentence served upon them.The prospect of prosecuting the Emperor's decree was a difficult one, for the Space Wolves understood that even without their sorcery, the Thousand Sons were still Astartes. That fact alone put them in a different class from most opponents. Moreover, Prospero was their Legion homeworld. A Legion was always strongest at its base of operations. But the sanction of the Thousand Sons would be executed, regardless of the cost. |
Battle of Prospero - Magnus' Shame: Magnus had finally understood, after his forced psychic entry into the Hall of the Golden Throne and his direct mental communication with the Emperor, that he had been manipulated by Tzeentch, with whom he had apparently unknowingly consorted while desperately looking for a way to stop the emergence of the psychic mutations that were threatening to destroy his Legion. In an act of repentance and sacrifice, and to show his father that he and his Legion were loyal to the end, he did not warn the defenders of the planet or his Legion of the coming Imperial attack: on the contrary, he imposed a psychic veil on the planet so the Thousand Sons would have no clue of the impending assault. He also dispersed the Thousand Sons' Legion fleet far away from Prospero. He knew that Tzeentch wanted the Thousand Sons and Space Wolves to slaughter each other, and he wanted to stop these plans, even if it meant the sacrifice of his Legion and homeworld. Therefore, the Space Wolves' attack on the Thousand Sons' homeworld of Prospero came as a complete surprise to its people and the Astartes Legion who protected them.Recovered records of the XV Legion show that no information regarding the Imperial Censure Fleet, or even of the Emperor's displeasure, was ever disseminated to the Legion. As the combined armada of Leman Russ and Constantin Valdor drew ever closer to the world of Prospero, the Thousand Sons busied themselves with mundane maintenance and their own esoteric training, oblivious to any threat. No attempt was made by the XV Legion or the various regiments of the Prosperine Spireguard to fortify any of the key defensive positions within the city of Tizca, the only large-scale urban settlement on Prospero to survive the Age of Strife. In several cases, there were even reported disappearances of key Legion and civilian personnel who appeared to have stumbled across information related to the fleet's approach and then were silenced, with the evidence at hand suggesting the use of potent memory-altering telepathy to quell any unrest at the sudden disappearances, a feat few even a Legion such as the Thousand Sons were capable of. |
Battle of Prospero - Thunder from Fenris: As the Imperial sanction fleet translated from the Warp and burned in towards Prospero, it became evident that the planet had strangely not activated its planetary defences. The Prosperine defence grids were non-functional at every layer of security, from the outer orbital defence platforms to the close surface planetary defence cannons. Individual cities were still screened by active defensive measures, but that was standard Imperial operating procedure and not a response to an approaching threat. There were signs that civilian ships had fled or were fleeing the planet and the star system in considerable numbers. Some of the escaping vessels were overtaken and boarded by the Imperial fleet. Their crews and passengers were taken captive and interrogated by the Space Wolves' Rune Priests, so that every useful scrap of intelligence about the target could be gathered.With no response from the ground, the Imperial armada moved into high orbital anchor above Prospero and assumed a geostationary assault pattern. Thousands of weapons were trained on the planet below: energy weapons, mass-drivers and kinetic bombardment cannons. The starships drifted sedately like grand liners in a regatta among the stars. Leman Russ' flagship, the Battle Barge Hrafnkel, opened the orbital assault, its massive weapons systems etching lines of icy light into the surface of Prospero. Moments later, the rest of the Imperial fleet opened fire.The first bombs from the Space Wolves' fleet struck Prospero just before dawn. The Prosperine orbital defence platforms were caught completely unawares. One minute their Augurs had been silent, the next a vast fleet of ships had appeared, a buckshot spread of torpedoes already arcing towards the orbital batteries and missile defences. Most were knocked out before they were able to launch a single weapon or power up a single gun. The lucky few that managed to get off a quick snap shot were bracketed and obliterated moments later. Though Magnus had chosen to keep his Legion blind to the approach of the Emperor’s vengeance as he wished to display his own repentance for his actions, the telekinetic Sorcerers of the Legion's Raptora Cult maintained a constant psychic "Kine-Shield" over Prospero's capital city of Tizca. Not even Magnus the Red could undo that protection without someone noticing and wondering why.The first warning anyone in Tizca had of the imminent Imperial attack was a hot wind that seemed to come straight from the sky, pressing down on the city like the pressure before a storm. It tasted of metal and burnt oil. Static leapt from the Tizcan pyramids’ tops, sparking from silver tower to silver tower. The grey, pre-dawn sky erupted in light as the lowered clouds were lit with an inner radiance. This was swiftly followed by the tremendous crash of atmospheric discharge, like thunder without the lightning. Multiple sonic booms from incoming hypersonic projectiles shattered the silence of the sleeping city, and those citizens of Tizca who still dreamed were shaken from their beds by the echoes as percussive blasts rolled across the urban landscape. Like a stabbing finger of raw light, the first energy lance from the orbiting Imperial fleet struck Prospero a kilometre northeast of Tizca.The total saturation of the target area ensured that the Prosperine capital city was completely engulfed, enough to level a continent’s worth of metropolises. Yet Tizca endured. The telekinetic Kine-Shields of the Thousand Sons' Raptora Cult were the strongest defences any city in the Imperium could boast. Harder than the thickest Adamantium and more unyielding than layer upon layer of standard gravitic Void Shields, the invisible umbrella of telekinetic protection soaked up the violence of the bombardment, though at fearsome cost to the Astartes who maintained it.Magnus the Red watched as the lightstorm blistered and burst over his beautiful city. The sky was stained a bloody orange as airbursting incendiary rounds burned the clouds away, and a tear fell from his eye as he watched the beautiful land around Tizca die. The forests were burned to ash and the wild grasslands blazed with secondary fires, reducing the unspoiled countryside to a wasteland in a matter of minutes. The Desolation of Prospero was complete. Now the Primarch knew how his father felt about his psychic intrusion into the Imperial Palace and his continued use of sorcery. He accepted his just punishment for his arrogance in flagrantly disobeying the Emperor's wise edicts. |
Battle of Prospero - Ground Assault: Shortly after the orbital bombardment began, the Imperial invaders arrived by the thousands -- wave after wave of drop-ships, assault boats and gunships sped inbound to the planet's surface. Behind them came bulkier cargo transports bearing armoured vehicles and artillery pieces. The Kine-Shields of the Raptora Cult could not protect Tizca from the attack, but their cover was no longer needed. The bombardment from orbit had ceased, and squadrons of Stormbird gunships led the charge, skimming low over the water towards Tizca’s port. Hundreds of Imperial craft flew over the churning seas, leaving foaming breakers in their wake. The idea that any enemy could reach the surface of Prospero to launch an assault had been discounted, and as a consequence, there were no Prosperine antiaircraft batteries to meet the oncoming invaders. The route into Tizca was wide open.The first gunship to land, an enormous Stormbird with steel-grey sides and the image of twin wolves painted on its blunt prow smashed into the eastern quarter of the capital that was known as Old Tizca, blasting its way in with a salvo of missiles and a blast of cannon fire. Landing skids deployed at the last second, and the aircraft came down hard in the wreckage. No sooner had it set down than the assault ramps dropped and Leman Russ himself set foot on Prospero, the first invader ever to do so. He roared to the skies, and the devastation wrought by his fleet above was pleasing to him. Two enormous Fenrisian Wolves howled at his sides, and a score of his most powerful Astartes fought their way into the port.As the Space Wolves drew first blood, Prospero’s military responded. The citizen militias of Tizca rose in defence of their city, gathering what arms they could and taking up firing positions on rooftops and at windows. No one was fool enough to think they would be anything more than irritants to the Space Wolves, but to let the invaders simply walk into Tizca without a fight was as abhorrent as it was unthinkable.The Skyguard Air Command launched every squadron of their two-man skimmers from their hangars to the south. These disc-like anti-gravitic aircraft were armed with Heat Lances and Missile Pods, and the sky above the city became a frantic mess of gunfire, streaking missiles, explosions and dogfights as the two forces duelled for supremacy.The Imperial Army regiments of the Prosperine Spireguard attempted to bear the brunt of the Astartes' assault, meeting the barbarian warriors of the Space Wolves bravely but futilely on the field of battle. The Spireguard, already on high alert after the commencement of the orbital bombardment, moved out en masse under the guidance of the Thousand Sons’ Corvidae Cult. Ordered to defend Tizca, they did not falter from that order despite the overwhelming odds arrayed against them.Elements of the 15th Prosperine Assault Infantry, under Captain Sokhem Vithara, occupied the upper slopes of Old Tizca, anchoring their defence between the fire-wreathed pyramid of the Pyrae Cult, the Skelmis Tholus, which lay a kilometre to the west of their position and the Corvidae Cult's own pyramid. Vithara set up his command post in the vestibule of the Kretis Gallery, the oldest repository of artwork and sculpture on Prospero.In the southwest quadrant of the city, the Prospero Assault Pioneers rallied what little was left of their soldiers after the avalanches caused by the orbital shelling swallowed three of their barracks. The northern Palatine Guard deployed on the edges of the burning port, occupying high parapets that overlooked the libraries and art galleries of the Nephrate District. Their commander, Katon Aphea, was the heir apparent to one of Prospero’s oldest families, a young and gifted officer with great potential. He anchored his defence on the Caphiera Tholus and positioned his troops with a tactical acumen that would have been lauded at any of the Imperial Army's officer scholam.Leman Russ and his Space Wolves overran Aphea’s position in less than two minutes. Tizca burned as dawn's light crept over the horizon. Yet, though the Space Wolves had struck an overwhelming blow, they had yet to face the city’s true defenders. The Thousand Sons deployed, and suddenly the fight took on a very different character. |
Battle of Prospero - Brother Against Brother: Old Tizca was no more. The peaceful warren of antiquated streets was now ashes and burning rubble. Warriors picked careful paths through the smouldering ruins, firing from the hip or fighting with Chainaxes and Chainswords. The coastline was invisible, obscured by fog-banks of artillery fire. What had once been a wondrous beacon of illumination for all who cared to look upon it was now a maelstrom of battle. The northern spur of the city was a raging inferno, its palaces ablaze and its parklands ashen wastelands. Further south, the port was a giant black stain on the horizon, its structures demolished in the wake of the Space Wolves' attack.Though the majority of the Spireguard had been swept away in the opening moments of the battle, the Thousand Sons rallied magnificently and prevented the battle from becoming a rout. A thin line of Astartes in crimson Power Armour linked the six pyramids of Tizca, forming a circular perimeter with Occullum Square at its centre. The Pyramid of Photep was the southernmost of the pyramids, the glittering water surrounding it awash with sodden pages of ancient wisdom lost forever in the name of fear.The Thousand Sons were dying. Scores of them died in the opening minutes of the Wolf King’s attack, his fury unstoppable and his power immeasurable. Clad in the finest suit of Artificer Armour and armed with a Fenrisian Frostblade that clove warriors in two with single strokes, his fury was that of a pack hunter who knows his brothers are with him. His huscarls were grimly efficient butchers of men, their Terminator Armour proof against all but the luckiest shots and blade strikes.Though the Thousand Sons' Sorcerer Librarians could not see the Sisters of Silence, they were still there, for the Librarians' psychic powers were weakening. The warriors of the Legio Custodes slew with powerful strokes of their Guardian Spears, hewing ceramite and flesh alike with efficient killing strokes. The slaughter continued as the Space Wolves quickly thinned the ranks of the beleaguered Thousand Sons. The doom of the Thousand Sons would soon be upon them, for fewer than 1,500 Astartes of the Legion remained alive. Facing more than three times their number and the fury of a Primarch like Leman Russ, this was a battle that could only end one way.Unable to oppose the brutality of the Space Wolves, the Thousand Sons finally relented, and unleashed their maleficarum, their black sorcery, upon their foes, but by doing so, they had inadvertently justified the Imperial sanction against them -- for they were now truly no better than Renegade warlocks and witches. Using their vile magicks, the Thousand Sons pushed backed the Space Wolves' assaults and slew a great number of the maddened warriors of Fenris. It seemed that the tide of the battle had turned, and that the Thousand Sons might yet salvage the day. But soon a new enemy opposed the Sorcerers of Prospero. |
Battle of Prospero - The Tide Turns: The Silent Sisterhood finally made their presence fully known as the Null Maidens poured down from the black heaps of burning rubble into the fight. They uttered no war cry or challenge as the blankness of their lack of presence in the Warp washed across the Thousand Sons' line. The rank clouds of maleficarum burned away, or blew aside like fog in a night wind. The Thousand Sons choked on the words of their conjurations, gagging upon the utterances of their spells. They staggered back, clutching at their throats, pawing at the neck seals of their helms, blood spurting and leaking through visor slits. Arcane gestures and motions ceased as their hands transformed into arthritic claws. Seconds after they had stunned and disempowered the Sorcerers of the Thousand Sons with their insidious silence, the Sisters struck, surging through the recoiled mass of Space Wolves, and began to hack and slice with their Power Swords. The Space Wolves moved alongside the Null Maidens to take advantage as the Thousand Sons wavered in their attacks. But the Thousand Sons managed to rally and concentrate their efforts against the Untouchable warriors, thinning their ranks until they were able to once again make use of their psychic abilities.Some of the Captains of the Thousand Sons attempted to reform their lines and launch a counter-attack into the formidable lines of the Space Wolves. Using their psychic abilities the Thousand Sons managed to drive a wedge into their foes' line and firmly reestablish their defence. But this small victory was short-lived with the arrival of the Wolf King and his bodyguard of Terminators. Realising that their doom was finally upon them, the commanders of the Thousand Sons attempted to eliminate the Space Wolves' Primarch. Captain Auramagma of the Pyrae Cult attempted to slay the Wolf King by launching an attack of concentrated flame. This only momentarily staggered Russ and he somehow managed to nullify the Aetheric attack and reflect Auramagma's attack upon him, incinerating him with his own Warp-spawned fire.The Thousand Sons' line could not hold against the unbridled savagery of Leman Russ, as their final stand was made in the shadow of the Pyramid of Photep. Shards of crystalline glass floated on the waters surrounding Magnus the Red’s lair. The surviving populace of Tizca, who had escaped the initial wrath of the invaders, sheltered within.The Thousand Sons also faced the wrath of the bestial Wulfen, the mutant Astartes of the Space Wolves that suffered from the genetic curse of the Canis Helix contained within their gene-seed. Their razor-sharp fangs and talons tore into the ranks of the battered Thousand Sons. Only the most accurate shots would put them down, and they shrugged off wounds that would have killed even an Astartes. Their claws tore through Ceramite with ease, and their teeth were as vicious as any energised power blade. The Wulfen's single-minded savagery was unlike anything the Thousand Sons had fought before, and they fell back from these newly unleashed terrors, horrified that the Space Wolves would dare employ such degenerate, mutant abominations.The Wulfen punched a bloody hole in the Thousand Sons' line, tearing it wider with every second, and dozens of Astartes fell beneath the tearing blades of their claws. Howls of triumph filled the air as the gap the Wulfen had opened was filled with Custodes and Space Wolf warriors. Bands of Thousand Sons were surrounded and hacked down by frost-bladed axes and the glittering power fields of Guardian Spears.The Thousand Sons' First Captain, Ahzek Ahriman, backed along the great basalt causeway over the water towards the Pyramid of Photep, their last refuge on Tizca. The best and bravest of the Legion, all that survived to sell their lives in sight of their Primarch, went with him towards the bronze gates that led inside. The howling of the Wulfen built to a deafening crescendo. And high above, those howls were finally answered. |
Battle of Prospero - Magnus' Final Command: Magnus the Red finally answered the pleas of his dying sons as he made his presence known. He presented a glorious sight, clad in golden Artificer Armour, his wild red hair ablaze with psychic energy. His flesh burned with the touch of immense power, greater than anything it had ever contained before. His bladed staff threw off blinding arcs of lightning that destroyed armoured vehicles in thunderous explosions. Magnus swept his one good eye across the horrified Space Wolves, and all who met his gaze died in an instant as they were driven to madness by the stygian depths of infinite Chaos they saw there. Only Leman Russ and his Fenrisian Wolf companions stood unfazed by the sorcerous power of Magnus, a gleam of anticipation in the Wolf King’s eyes, as though he relished the idea of the coming conflict with his brother.Using his powerful sorcery, Magnus slowed time down in order to issue his final orders to his most favoured son and senior Captain, bidding Ahriman to lead the surviving Astartes of the Thousand Sons within the Pyramid of Photep. There, Magnus' Equerry Amon awaited him, bearing a priceless gift for Ahriman to bear away from Prospero. The Primarch reached down and touched the jade scarab in the centre of Ahriman’s breast-plate. The crystal shone with a pale light, and Ahriman felt the immense power resting within it. Magnus explained that this crystal had been cut from the Reflecting Caves of Prospero, and that every Astartes of the Thousand Sons Legion bore one set in his Power Armour. When the moment came, Ahriman would know what it was meant to do, and that he was to concentrate all of his psychic energies on the this crystal and those of his Battle-Brothers. Not fully comprehending his Primarch's cryptic words, Ahriman reluctantly withdrew within the pyramid as instructed, followed by the remaining Thousand Sons as Magnus once more restored the flow of time to its proper course.Masses of people filled the Pyramid of Photep, terrified civilians and exhausted soldiers of the Spireguard. The Thousand Sons poured inside, their armour black and dripping from the nightmarish deluge of ash drowning the world beyond. The horrifying scale of the loss staggered Ahzek Ahriman -- at a conservative estimate, he guessed that just over a thousand Astartes had escaped the attack of the Wulfen. Only a tenth of the Thousand Sons Legion had survived the Spaces Wolves' furious assault. Pushing down his grief, Ahriman searched for Amon. The Equerry held a chest up for Ahriman to open. Ahriman reached up and took hold of the lock, which snapped open at his touch. He opened the lid and drew in a breath as he saw the book within, its cover red and cracked with age, for it was none other than the legendary Book of Magnus, the complete summation of his Primarch's knowledge of sorcery and the Warp. Ahriman was now its guardian. Ahriman understood with sudden clarity that Magnus had no expectation of surviving his duel with Leman Russ.Ahriman soon found out that other senior members of the Thousand Sons had survived the Wolves' assault, including such Veterans as Amon, Hathor Maat and Sobek. But it soon became clear that a number of his fellow Thousand Sons had succumbed to the Flesh-Change during the height of the battle, including the Lore-Keeper of the Corvidae Cult. Dozens of Thousand Sons Battle-Brothers had to be put down due to the sudden return of rampant mutation. All told, only 1,242 Thousand Sons Astartes had survived the razing of Prospero. |
Battle of Prospero - Duel of the Crimson King and the Wolf King: The Crimson King and the Wolf King met in battle, with the fate of an entire world balanced on the outcome, and they fought like the gods of ancient Terran legends. Forking traceries of lightning shot upwards from the ground, isolating them from the host of the Space Wolves and the Custodes. Russ rained down blow after blow on Magnus, shattering his horned breastplate, and in return Magnus struck his brother with a searing blast of cold fire that cracked his armour and set light to his braided hair. The Wolf King’s Frostblade struck at Magnus, but his golden Power Axe turned the blow aside as they spun and twisted in an epic battle beneath the madness of a blazing storm of sheet lightning and pounding thunder. This was a battle fought on every level: physical, mental and spiritual, with each Primarch bending every ounce of their almost limitless power to the other’s destruction.Magnus used his powerful psychic magicks, battering Russ with fists of telekinetic force wreathed in fire and lightning. Yet, Russ was a Primarch and such powers had little effect on him save to drive him to greater fits of rage. Magnus drove his fist into Russ’ chest, the icy breastplate cracking open and shards of Ceramite stabbed into the Wolf King's heart. In return, Russ snapped Magnus’ arm back, shattering it into a thousand pieces. A blade of pure thought unsheathed from Magnus’ other arm, and he drove it deep into Russ’ chest through his shattered armour.The psychic blade burst from Russ’ back and the Wolf King let loose with a deafening bellow of pain. A chorus from his Fenrisian Wolves added their howls to that of their master. The two enormous lupine monsters that accompanied Russ leapt upon Magnus, fastening their jaws upon his legs. Magnus slammed his fist into the black wolf's head, driving it to the ground with a strangled yelp, its skull surely shattered. With a bellow of anger, Magnus tore the white wolf from his leg with a thought and hurled it away over the heads of the army at Russ' back.Magnus and Russ were locked in battle high above the causeway to the pyramid, the furious horror of their struggle obscured by ethereal fire and bursts of lightning. A flare of black light erupted and Russ cried out in agony. His blade lashed out blindly and struck a fateful blow against Magnus’s most dreaded weapon: his eye. Magnus reeled back from the Wolf King, one hand clutched to his eye as his shattered arm crackled with regenerative energies. As broken and bloodied as Leman Russ was, he was brawler enough to seize his opportunity. He barreled into Magnus and gripped him around the waist like a wrestler, roaring as he lifted his brother’s body high above his head. All eyes turned to Russ as he brought Magnus down across his knee, and the sound of the Crimson King’s back breaking tore through the heart of every Astartes of the Thousand Sons.The Wolf King howled his triumph to the blackened heavens. Russ dropped Magnus to the mud and brought the Frostblade Mjalnar around to take the head of his defeated brother. With the last of his strength, Magnus turned his head, and his ravaged eye found his favoured son, Ahriman, "This is my last gift to you."Leman Russ’ blade swept down, but before its lethal edge struck, Magnus whispered eldritch words of power as his body underwent an instantaneous dissolution, its entire structure unmade with a word, and Ahriman gasped as vast and depthless power surged into his body. As it swept through him, he knew what he had to do. Ahriman clasped his hands upon the jade scarab set in his breastplate. He knew everything about that gem, and pictured the identical artefact on the chest of each Astartes of the Thousand Sons. Even as he visualised them, the power in him spread to the entire Legion as Magnus gave the last of his strength to save his sons, teleporting his beloved and infamous City of Light, Tizca, from the surface of Prospero and through the Warp and into the Eye of Terror, to rematerialise upon the Daemon World known as Sortiarius, the Planet of the Sorcerers. This new world preserved all of their precious knowledge hidden within its libraries that the Thousand Sons had gathered from all across the galaxy during the Great Crusade, and the Thousand Sons were saved from their enemies -- at the cost of their souls. |
Battle of Prospero - Rubric of Ahriman: Magnus had willingly sacrificed the flesh that had contained his essence, and in so doing, had ascended to the more evolved form of a Daemon Prince, one free from the constraints of mortality and the limits of reality. He now appeared before his surviving sons as a large humanoid form wreathed in the light of stars and the power of infinite possibility, with brilliant wings of shimmering Warp fire. Magnus the Red had become the first of the Daemon Primarchs, and later he ascended further to become a Lord of Change, a Greater Daemon of Tzeentch.The Thousand Sons themselves succumbed to the "gift" of their patron and true saviour from the Fall of Prospero, the Chaos God Tzeentch -- the full return of their aberrant genetic mutations, which threatened to turn all of the surviving Thousand Sons into mindless, gibbering Chaos Spawn. Appalled by the return of the dreaded Flesh-Change, Ahriman led a secret cabal of the most powerful Thousand Sons Sorcerer Librarians who had survived the Fall of Prospero and guided them in the invocation of a powerful Daemonic spell later known as the Rubric of Ahriman.The spell was successful, but its success came at a high price: those battle-brothers of the Legion who lacked psychic abilities were transformed into living automatons known as Rubric Marines -- the Rubricae. Their bodies were reduced to dust, and their souls were forever sealed within their suits of power armour -- every joint magically sealed, forever trapping the souls within in a nightmare existence of living death.The minority of Thousand Sons Astartes who did possess psychic abilities and so did not succumb to the Rubric soon found their psychic abilities increased to a tremendous degree by the power of the spell. The ritual also accomplished its goal, halting the dreaded mutations, both in the surviving sorcerers and their undead brethren.Magnus was enraged by Ahriman's audacious spell and what it had done to his sons, but was secretly pleased with the level of sorcerous knowledge the Legion had attained through their metamorphosis. Confronting the cabal who had carried out the Rubric, Magnus nearly slew Ahriman in his rage, but Tzeentch intervened personally, sparing Ahriman's life, for he had proven to be a useful pawn and a living exemplar of the power of change.Magnus exiled Ahriman and his remaining collaborators from the Planet of the Sorcerers and ordered them to forever roam the galaxy in search of understanding and knowledge of the true meaning of Chaos, a quest that continues unto the present day. |
Battle of Prospero - Bloody Tally of Justice: All told well over thirty million lives were lost in the prosecution of the Emperor's justice on Prospero, the vast majority of these deaths being those citizens of the Imperium on the planet at the time of the Imperial Censure Fleet's arrival. Official records place the number of survivors from Prospero's civilian population at zero, and while in actuality there were certainly some thousands at large in the galaxy or who potentially escaped with one of the few bands of Thousand Sons to leave the planet alive, as a people the Prosperine branch of Mankind was now extinct.Of the Thousand Sons, official records before 014.M31 no longer listed the Legion, assuming it was completely destroyed until the Siege of Terra. Again, the actual truth is somewhat different, but still places the losses incurred for those Thousand Sons on Prospero at the time of the fleet's arrival at near-total, with the survivors scattered across the galaxy.Some of those Thousand Sons detachments fighting in the Great Crusade elsewhere in the Imperium were to be destroyed by their allies before news of Prospero's destruction reached them: 2,000 under Sentor Rahme of the 9th Fellowship were slaughtered in their encampments by the Ultramarines attached to the same force, and 300 Veterans of the 7th Fellowship were abandoned to their deaths during the assault on Maktor VIII by the Imperial Fists to name but two of the more prominent cases.Of all the main contingents of the Thousand Sons abroad in the galaxy, only two were known to have escaped Imperial justice, the majority of the 4th Fellowship, some 5,000 Legiones Astartes who abandoned their Great Crusade assignment after hearing of the attack on Prospero, and a force, perhaps of several thousand, of the 6th Fellowship present on Zhao-Arkhad, as part of the agreement between the Legion and that distant and enigmatic Forge World. Worse still for the Legion, the destruction of Prospero and their status as Renegades left them bereft of all support and succour within the borders of the Imperium, with no means to resupply or recruit, barring open piracy.The Censure Host fared only somewhat better, taking combined casualties of perhaps 49,000 in total and a far greater toll of munitions and machinery either destroyed or abandoned on Prospero. Driven by the cold rage of their Primarch Leman Russ to engage in some of the bloodiest fighting of the campaign, the Space Wolves suffered the heaviest casualties, with some 25,000 listed as killed in combat, and several thousand more besides, mostly of the Thirteenth Great Company simply listed as missing. The figure constituted a substantial amount of the Space Wolves' total strength and by the formal outbreak of the Horus Heresy, a mere handful of solar months later, they'd had little chance to replenish their numbers.Just as serious for the Space Wolves was the expenditure of munitions and equipment -- such was the zeal with which they prosecuted the war on Prospero that their reserves of such things were badly depleted and left them unable to engage in more than limited warfare during the early stages of the Heresy.The Imperial Army units attached to the Censure Host, although an auxiliary, also suffered badly in the fighting, with an estimated 23,000 dead. Indeed, several units were simply disbanded or merged with other formations on their return to Terra. The Legio Custodes and Silent Sisterhood suffered relatively light casualties by contrast, although considering the smaller relative size of those forces, they could still be considered severe.Perhaps more telling was the damage done to the Legio Custodes' mythical invincibility in the minds of some -- for during the fighting on Prospero, some of their number had been engaged and beaten by mere Space Marines, a lesson that would be remembered by certain of the Astartes in later years. However, the wiser minds among the Legiones Astartes noticed the ease with which the Custodians had despatched their kind in turn, and wondered uneasily if perhaps this had been the very task they had originally been made for. |
Battle of Prospero - Defenders of Prospero: Being a roster of those military formations and notable leaders to have stood in defence of Prospero during the assault of the Imperial Censure Host in 004.M31. All those here named are declared Traitoris Extremis for the base act of raising arms against the rightfully empowered agents of the Emperor of Mankind, and all rights of sanctuary or redress under Imperial law are forfeit. |
Battle of Prospero - Senior Officer Cadre: Magnus the Red, Primarch of the XV Legion, Warden of Prospero - Deemed to be in violation of the Conventions of Nikaea and the Emperor's Decree Absolute, for which he was to be captured and returned to Terra for judgement by the Emperor by the forces of the Censure Host.Lucretia Elunnirai, Seneschal Prime of the Prosperine Guard - Commander of the Planetary Defence Forces of Prospero.Magus Prime Tacitus Proctor, Forge-domini of the Prosperine Zhao-Arkhad enclave and Eminarii Order - Declared Heretek in absentia by the assembled conclave of the Martian Orders of the Mechanicum.Calvar Ibranum, Princeps-warden of the Legio Xestobiax Prospero Vigil |
Battle of Prospero - Main Contingent: Known to be on Prospero at the time of the Space Wolves' assault were representatives of all of the various fellowships of the the XV Legion, the Thousand Sons, as well as the commanders of all except the 4th Fellowship.In total, it is estimated that of the Thousand Sons' known total strength of perhaps 80,000-90,000 Astartes, there were approximately 62,000 present on Prospero by judgement of after-action reports (many of which are contradictory), either within the capital city of Tizca or one of the smaller outposts elsewhere on the planet. Those fellowships and orders known to have at least a portion of their number present for the battle are recorded below:1st Fellowship, commanded by Chief Librarian Ahzek Ahriman - 9,000 Space Marines, comprising the majority of the Thousand Sons Terminator units and recently returned to full strength.2nd Fellowship, commanded by Phosis T'Kar - 7,800 Space Marines. As with most of the fellowships, this comprised a mix of unit types divided along Cult and Order lines.3rd Fellowship, commanded by Hathor Maat - 8,200 Space Marines, reinforced from recent campaigns to near full strength.5th Fellowship, commanded by Baleq Uthizzar - 6,200 Space Marines, reduced in strength after recent campaigns and with some companies operating on campaign.6th Fellowship, commanded by Khalophis - 4,000 Space Marines. It is believed that a full half of the Sixth's active strength was deployed to the sectors around Zhao-Arkhad in the galactic south.7th Fellowship, commanded by Phael Toron - 7,200 Space Marines, reduced in strength after recent campaigns and with some companies operating on campaign.8th Fellowship, commanded by Auramagma - 8,400 Space Marines, reinforced from recent campaigns to near full strength.9th Fellowship, commanded by Magistus Amon, Equerry to the Crimson King, commander of the Hidden Ones - 7,900 Space Marines, reduced in strength after recent campaigns and with some companies still active that were beyond recall range.Order of Ruin - 1,900 Space Marines and 800 Battle-Automata. It is believed that approximately half of the Order of Ruin was attached to Thousand Sons detachments operating on campaign across the galaxy or despatched in the holds of the fleet.Order of the Blind - 888 Space Marines. It is believed the entire complement of the Order had heeded Magnus' recall, arriving on Prospero via mysterious means before most other units.Order of the Jackal - 604 Space Marines, divided into detachments attached to each fellowship and contingent on crusade.Prosperine Guard - Comprising three distinct bodies; the Spireguard, Airguard and Expeditionary regiments. The Prosperine Guard regiments were outfitted to various standards, but in all cases were considered well-trained and equipped. Estimates place some 85,000 soldiers within the various barracks and training facilities of Tizca and smaller outposts scattered across Prospero at the time of the invasion.Northern Palatine Guard - This Imperial Army regiment, under the command of Colonel Katon Aphea, was deployed on the edges of the burning port of Old Tizca, which occupied the high parapets of the overlooking libraries and galleries of the Nephrate District. The Northern Palatine Guard were overran by Leman Russ and his Space Wolves in less than two solar minutes.Prosperine Spireguard - The primary Imperial Army regiment tasked with the defence of Prospero. There were some survivors of the Spireguard who were present at the Pyramid of Photep at the conclusion of the battle. Their fates remain unknown.15th Prosperine Assault Infantry - The 15th Prosperine Assault Infantry was an Imperial Army regiment under the command of Captain Sokhem Vithara. They defended the old eastern quarter of the capital city, known as Old Tizca, from the initial ground attack of the Space Wolves Legion.Prospero Assault Pioneers - An Imperial Army regiment that rallied in defence of their homeworld after the majority of their regiment was wiped out when three of their four barracks were destroyed in the initial orbital bombardment. It is assumed that they were slain to a man during the battle.Skyguard Air Command - Prospero's primary air force. They launched every squadron of their two-man, anti-gravity skimmers from their hangars to the south of Tizca. Armed with Heat Lances and Missile Pods, their disc-like aircraft duelled for supremacy with the Loyalist forces above the skies of Tizca. It is assumed that they were annihilated in the ensuing conflict.Zhao-Arkhad Taghmata - The defence forces of the autonomous Zhao-Arkhad collective of Prospero were present within their enclave in the wilderness of Prospero as part of a treaty for the supply of the Legion. They consisted mainly of various combat-automata and other mechanised units, numbering perhaps 8,000 warriors and automata. Almost none of these were present within the city of Tizca and dwelt within the subterranean Geller Barrier-screened fane.Legio Xestobiax - A full vigil of the Legio Xestobiax was stationed within the Zhao-Arkhad enclave on Prospero, comprising some twelve Titans of varying marks. As with their Zhao-Arkhad overlords, the Prospero Vigil of the Legio Xestobiax was stationed outside the city of Tizca and ensconced in vast underground bunkers in their enclave.Citizen Militia Regiments - In theory, a large percentage of the adult population of Tizca could be marshalled for war and issued weapons form the reserve armouries scattered throughout the city, creating a force of men-at-arms numbering in the millions. However, in practice such a force was of negligible strategic value considering its lack of training and effective leadership.I Helikon Legion and the Magdan FreeKorps - Both of these regiments of the Imperial Army had been re-reouted some solar months prior to the attack on Prospero to resupply and layover at Tizca awaiting pick-up and redeployment after their completion of the Tigarth Pacification. The off-world regiments were stationed in general barrack blocks on the outer edge of the city designed for such transitioning forces, and were effectively cantoned there without access to the city. These two regiments, one of mechanised infantry and the other of lightly equipped skirmishers, shared little in common save that both originated from newly Compliant worlds whose governors bore little personal loyalty to the newly appointed Warmaster Horus. In both cases, the orders that saw them transferred to Prospero at such short notice came from officers assigned to the Warmaster. |
Battle of Prospero - Imperial Censure Host, Beta-Garmon Contingent: Being those units assembled on Beta-Garmon to prosecute the Writ of Censure issued by the Emperor's hand in 004.M31 decreeing that Magnus the Red, Lord of Prospero and the XV Legion of the Legiones Astartes, be brought in disgrace to Terra, there to face the judgement of his father for violation of the Edicts of Nikaea. |
Battle of Prospero - Senior Officer Cadre: Leman Russ, Primarch of the VI Legion, Lord Regent of Fenris, Commanding General of the Censure Fleet - Granted the Emperor's deferment over his brother Primarch Magnus, and the right to mete High Justice within His realms to meet this end.Overseer Boros Kurn, Commander of the 16th Independent Assault Battalion, XVI Legion, the Sons of Horus - Emissary of the Warmaster.Princeps Senioris Maldis Drane - Commanding Princeps of the Legio Mortis. |
Battle of Prospero - Main Contingent: The VI Legion, the Space Wolves -- comprising an approximate total of 73,200 Space Marines, including contingents previously on detached duties in proximity to Fenris or Beta-Garmon, and recalled for the Prospero campaign. (Companies are noted here using both the numerical designation used by the Divisio Militaris records and the more archaic titles used during available recitations of the Saga of Prospero -- additional notation of current observable operational factors from Beta-Garmon data included):Great Company Onn (One), "The Breakers of Rings", commanded by Jarl Gunnar Gunnhil (Lord Gunn). 3,000 Space Marines, primarily formed of Varagyr Huscarl units equipped with Terminator Armour and fighting as bodyguard, and also comprising additional Legion command elements.Great Company Twa (Two), "The Thread-cutters", commanded by unknown Jarl. 800 Space Marines, believed to comprise veteran infantry units relived from special duties with attached Dreadnought contingent (approximately 60 individual armours of varied patterns). Jarl unknown.Great Company Tra (Three), "The Eagle's Keepers", commanded by Jarl Ogvai Ogvai Helmschrot. 9,800 Space Marines, mostly close assault infantry and support armour (noted in extemporaneous data as being proportionally high in Initiate-status Legiones Astartes).Great Company For (Four), "The Blood-worm's Masters", commanded by Jarl Hvarl Red-Blade. 8,600 Space Marines, comprising heavy infantry and self-propelled artillery, including a large number of Breacher and Assault units (ref. "Bloodied Claw" tactical formation sub-type).Great Company Fyf (Five), "The Blood-ice Storm", commanded by Jarl Amlodhi Skarssen. 10,000 Space Marines, comprising a mixed infantry force with light support armour, assigned while on Fenris for resupply.Great Company Sepp (Seven), "The Wight-flame's Wielders", commanded by unknown Jarl. 5,200 Space Marines, comprised mostly of warriors of the "Black Cull" and destroyer and immolation units.Great Company For-twa (Eight), "The Slaughter-fire Heralds", commanded by unknown Jarl. 9,500 Space Marines, comprising principally reconnaissance and infiltration units (ref. "Pale Hunter" tactical formation sub-type).Great Company Tra-tra (Nine), "The Serpents of the Battle-moon", commanded by Jarl Sturgard Joriksson. 7,800 Space Marines, comprising infantry support units and notable heavy weapons units, including Rapier weapons platforms.Great Company Elleve (Eleven), "The Sea-flame's Bearers", commanded by Varald Helsdawn. 9,200 Space Marines, comprising veteran infantry, believed to include a large proportion of early-induction Terran recruits.Great Company Tolv (Twelve), "The Shield-gnawers", commanded by Jarl Oki (called Scarred; successor to Jaurmag (called Laughing Jaurmag, who was sent to Terra before Prospero campaign). 8,700 Space Marines, comprising close assault infantry with strong contingents of ground assault vehicles.Great Company Dekk-Tra (Thirteen), "The Corpse-renders", commanded by Jarl Jorin Bloodhowl. 600 Space Marines, comprising pursuit units and light assault infantry.Legio Mortis - Twelve Battle Titans of the "Death's Heads," forming two full maniples and one demi-maniple, including the Warlord-class Aeterna Virtus as its command element.19th Cthonian Headhunters Regiment - Slightly less than 9,000 assault infantry raised on Cthonia, infamous within the Imperialis Auxilia for their savage and belligerent temperament and tendency to mutilate the dead for trophies.3rd Ydranian Seekers Regiment - Light infantry from the Ydran Cluster, notably a sector of Human-occupied space devastated by rogue psykers prior to Imperial Compliance at the hands of the Death Guard. Organised into three cohorts of 4,000 soldiers each and believed equipped with a variety of non-standard psi-warding technologies -- the effectiveness of which was deemed dubious by the Mechanicum.73rd and 75th Echelons of the Hosts of Brass - Heavy infantry. Notably recruited from the sub-tech world of Brass, whose feudal lords long indoctrinated the population against the potential threat of "sorcerers" and other psychic phenomena. Numbering 8,000 per cohort and equipped with a variety of primitive but effective close assault weaponry and chemical slugthrowers. |
Battle of Prospero - Imperial Censure Host, Terran Contingent: Being those units that were assembled on the Throneworld of Terra to prosecute the Writ of Censure issued by the Emperor's hand in 004.M31 and decreeing that Magnus the Red, Lord of Prospero and the XV Legion of the Legio Astartes, be brought in disgrace to Terra, there to face the judgement of his father for violation of the Edicts of Nikaea. |
Battle of Prospero - Senior Officer Cadre: Constantin Valdor, Captain-General of the Legio Custodes - Granted the Emperor's Seal and the right to mete High Justice within His realms.High Marshal Markas Rhone, Commander of the 3rd Terranic Auxilia and senior officer of the Excertus Imperialis.Jenetia Krole, Senior Vigil-Commander of the Silent SisterhoodDominus-Xelatcus Thrane Esmark, Commanding Princeps of the Chamber Occidentalis of the Ordo Sinister |
Battle of Prospero - Main Contingent: Legio Custodes - 982 warriors constituting 91 separate Sodalities of the Legio Custodes.Silent Sisterhood - Estimated 3,000 sisters-militant, constituting three full vigils of the Silent Sisterhood.3rd Terranic Auxilia - 5,000 Terran troopers of the Terranic Auxilia, known informally as the "Ironside Brigade," recruited primarily from Old Albia.Tyrian Exo-guard, Cohorts Siris, Asag, Rabisu, Asakku, Kur, Edimmu, Siduri and Atra - Each cohort consisting of 600 void-armoured Exo-guard and 100 helot auxiliaries.9th Solar Auxilia Cohort - One of the renowned Saturnyne Rams regiments, 4,000 void hoplites and support vehicles.10th and 42nd Sarcosan Voltigeurs - Recent arrivals on Terra in the wake of the Dark Angels campaign to bring their homeworld to Imperial Compliance. Each regiment comprised approximately 3,000 light infantry with a small detachment of Terranic Overseers.Charonid Sentinels, Third Fane - A full detachment of the dour, heavily augmented watchmen of the outer Sol System, replete with their full panoply of otherwise proscribed weaponry. The Third Fane numbered slightly more than 2,000 men-under-arms.Sydonian Taghmata Elements Ekriss, Norne and Ifrem Taghma - A small force of Mechanicum warriors, attached to the Censure Host as observers and to affect the inspection and potential dismantling of any Mechanicum assets or prohibited technology present on Prospero. (Note that the inclusion of this force seems to have been in response to a late and direct request from the Fabricator-General of Mars.The Chamber Occidentalis of the Ordo Sinister - Five Psi-Titans of the Ordo Sinister, all Warlord-class Psi-Titan machines.Secutarii Sinister - Approximately 1,000 Secutarii of the Ordo Sinister, attached to the force as support troops for the Chamber Occidentalis. |
Battle of Prospero - Space Wolves: Othere Wyrdmake (KIA) - Rune Priest of the 5th Company killed by Chief Librarian Ahzek Ahriman of the Thousand SonsAun Helwintr - Rune Priest of the 3rd CompanyBjorn - Astartes, 3rd CompanyGodsmote - Astartes, 3rd CompanyJormungndr - Astartes, 3rd Company |
Battle of Prospero - Non-Astartes: Kasper Ansbach Hawser - Skjald of the Space Wolves Legion's 3rd Company and a secret, deep-cover member of the 'Hidden Ones' (the Scout Auxilia) of the Thousand Sons Legion.Lemuel Gaumon - A Neophyte under Azhek Ahriman. |
Battle of Shatter Ridge - Battle of Shatter Ridge: The Battle of Shatter Ridge was a savage confrontation that occurred during the later stages of the bitter war for the Apostate world of Vraks in 927.M41. The battle was joined when an Imperial advance towards the Citadel of Vraks, undertaken under the cover of a dawn twilight shrouded in chemical fog, was unexpectedly met in no man's land by a huge Renegade counterattack of hellish war engines and heavy tanks, which resulted in one of the largest Titan battles of the war.The Imperial forces in the field consisted of a powerful Legio Astorum Ventarri Titan Maniple supported by heavy armoured elements of the Death Korps of Krieg's 8th Assault Corps. The Chaos forces opposing them were composed of corrupted Titans from the much feared Legio Vulcanum I leading a counter-attacking spearhead of Renegade super-heavy armour, mobile ordnance and Armoured Fist squads, and for one of the first times in the long Siege of Vraks campaign, an infernal Brass Scorpion of Khorne.The battle was short but costly for both sides, with the Chaos forces using the cover of the poisonous fog to advance swiftly and engage at close quarters where their furious assault wreaked havoc on the Krieg armoured forces. The Imperial Titans however, swift and skilled enough to respond to the enemy's attacks, reopened the gap between them and their devastating Turbo-Laser fire quickly accounted for the destruction of a Chaos Reaver-class Titan, a Warhound-class Titan and numerous tanks, forcing the Traitors' withdrawal from the field.The Imperial victory proved pyrrhic, however, as they had lost a Warhound and sustained heavy damage to the rest of their Titan force, whilst the Krieg contingent had been all but wiped out. |
Battle of Shatter Ridge - Imperial Forces: Invigila Alpha – Reaver-class TitanPraetorian – Reaver-class TitanAvernus Maxima – Warhound-class TitanTriarii-Dexter – Warhound-class TitanCanis Secundus – Warhound-class TitanShadowsword Detachment – Three Shadowsword super-heavy tanksStormsword Detachment – Three Stormsword super-heavy tanksMaharius Detachment – Three Macharius Heavy Tanks and a single Macharius Vulcan heavy tankDemolisher Squadron – Four Leman Russ Demolisher battle tanksBombard Battery – Two Bombard mobile artillery vehiclesGrenadier Assault Force – Six Death Korps of Krieg grenadier squads in Centaur transports |
Battle of Shatter Ridge - Chaos Forces: Nightmaw – Reaver-class TitanWorld Burner – Reaver-class TitanSkathraus – Warhound-class TitanWoe of Malcus – Warhound-class TitanCarnophage – Warhound-class TitanStormblade Detachment – Three Stormblade super-heavy tanksMalcador Squadron – Four Malcador Assault TanksGorescuttle – Brass Scorpion of KhorneVanquisher Squadron – Four Leman Russ Vanquisher main battle tanksMedusa Battery – Four Medusa Siege TanksArmoured Fist Assault Force – Four Vraksian Traitor Militia squads in Chimera transports |
Battle of Skalathrax - Battle of Skalathrax: The Battle of Skalathrax was the final campaign the World Eaters Traitor Legion fought as a unified Space Marine Legion against their hated rivals the Emperor's Children Legion on the Daemon World of Skalathrax located deep within the Eye of Terror.Due to the actions of the former World Eaters Captain Khârn the Betrayer, the XII Legion all but consumed itself in a bitter internecine conflict that saw it fractured into countless smaller warbands. The World Eaters Legion would not reunite again except briefly for the First War for Armageddon in the 41st Millennium. |
Battle of Skalathrax - History: In the aftermath of the Horus Heresy, the World Eaters descended to new depths of bloodlust and destruction, reaving across the already shattered Imperium of Man before plunging into the twisted depths of the Eye of Terror. The story of the World Eaters' search for a homeworld is a defining point in their Legion's history.Khârn, the former Equerry of the Primarch Angron and a Khornate Berzerker, would earn the enmity of his Legion for his infamous actions upon the Daemon World of Skalathrax. The World Eaters and the Chaos Space Marines of the Emperor's Children Legion fought one another amidst the bone chilling cold of that frigid Daemon World within the Eye.After a full day of vicious fighting, the deeply frigid Skalathrax night began. Horrified by environmental conditions so cold that they affected even the superhuman metabolisms of Astartes, the Emperor's Children and the World Eaters agreed to a temporary ceasefire, and both sides took to their shelters.The freezing night brought conditions so severe that they could kill even a Chaos Space Marine in a matter of moments during the deepest portion of the long night. Khârn fell into a terrible rage over the idea of being delayed from his slaughter for even a single night.Maddened when he saw his fellow Legionaries creeping back to their shelters like cowards, he took up a Flamer and burned them to ash, slaying with his Chain Axe Gorechild any who tried to stand against him.During the ensuing chaos, Khârn was assaulted by three unknown assailants. Undeterred, the berserker leapt at his foes. A stray Bolter round struck Khârn in his breastplate, sending his leap wide, forcing him to dispatch the concealed warrior with an improvised backhand strike of his Chain Axe. He then whirled around and clove through the Bolter of the third assailant before slamming him insensible to the ground. He then hurled Gorechild to his left.The Chain Axe bit deep into the throat of the last Astartes, arterial blood spraying into the air. Standing over the prone warrior as he attempted to scrabble for his weapon, Khârn recognised the face of his assailant -- it was his old trainer from his first days with the XII Legion, Centurion Gruner. Backed into a corner amongst the bodies of his fallen brethren, Gruner spoke of madness and betrayal, cursing Khârn for daring to strike down the Battle-Brothers of his own Legion.Khârn would hear none of it, and cut down Gruner where he stood. As the foremost berserker champion of the XII Legion, Khârn had stood upon the walls of the Imperial Palace during the last hours of the World Eaters' great campaign in service to Khorne upon the sacred soil of Mankind's homeworld.He had been the last to be borne away from Terra after Horus' assault had failed, his body broken after he had slain one million of the False Emperor's lackeys through the breach of the Imperial Palace's defences at the Lion's Gate.None alive amongst the mortal servants of the Blood God would ever surpass this tally of kills. "The Contest" that Khârn had proclaimed for which Berzerker could claim the most skulls on behalf of the XII Legion's patron Chaos God was finally over, and he had been its victor.Khârn believed that it was the weakness of his fellow Traitor Space Marines that had led to their defeat during the Battle of Terra -- the weakness of the other Traitor Legions as well as the weakness found amongst his own brethren in the World Eaters.Filled with disgust for his fellow Astartes' weakness, the Chosen of Khorne continued to slay Emperor's Children and World Eaters alike, earning him the title of "the Betrayer" from the other World Eaters. His actions at Skalathrax shattered his Legion's unity and reduced it to scattered, individual war bands of Khornate Berzerkers that would reave through the Eye of Terror and beyond for the next 10,000 standard years.Yet the Blood God was ultimately pleased with the slaughter, even as the Daemon Primarch Angron's Legion ceased to exist as a coherent military entity. Though Angron would periodically gather the disparate World Eaters warbands into something resembling the glory of the old XII Legion, the World Eaters were condemned to roam the battlefields of the galaxy in search of never-ending war.Individual squads and warbands joined other forces simply for the opportunity to spill blood and take skulls. Many World Eaters to this day still bear a burning hatred of Khârn for his actions, while others, more devoted to the Eight-Fold Path of Khorne, grudgingly admire his single-minded devotion to blood and slaughter. |
Battle of the Alaxxes Nebula - Battle of the Alaxxes Nebula: The Battle of the Alaxxes Nebula was an engagement that took place between the bulk of the Space Wolves fleet and the bulk of the Traitor Alpha Legion fleet within the vast, highly corrosive dust and hydrogen ice cloud fields of the Alaxxes Nebula in 007.M31, during the early years of the Horus Heresy.As the Space Wolves were still licking their wounds following their heavy losses during the Burning of Prospero, they were ambushed by a sizable Alpha Legion strike force and were subsequently routed at Yarant.Primarch Leman Russ organised a tactical retreat and fled towards the Alaxxes Nebula to seek temporary sanctuary. The Alpha Legion gave chase and soon the VIth Legion found themselves in a precarious predicament, effectively cut-off and surrounded by the bulk of the Alpha Legion.After contacting the nearby White Scars fleet, who refused to assist the Space Wolves, Russ faced the prospect of imminent destruction. Yet, by dint of sheer luck, or perhaps providence, the Space Wolves received help from an unexpected quarter -- from a contingent of Dark Angels hidden deep within the core of the nearly impassable clouds of the Alaxxes Nebula. |
Battle of the Alaxxes Nebula - History: Following the Burning of Prospero, Leman Russ ordered his battered VIth Legion to muster within the Alaxxes Nebula. But unknown to the Wolf King, Horus had deployed the XXth Legion to launch a massive assault on Russ' battered and outnumbered Space Wolves.The Alpha Legion and its twin primarchs, Alpharius Omegon, had long harboured a deep grudge against the Space Wolves, and Russ in particular, for his criticism of their reliance upon trickery, manipulation and subterfuge to win battles rather than engaging in what the Space Wolves primarch saw as honourable, open combat.The Alpha Legion relished the chance to prove their superiority against the arrogant Wolves of Fenris by delaying them long enough to keep them from contributing to the Imperial defence of Terra. Russ sent a distress call to the nearby White Scars, requesting that his brother primarch Jaghatai Khan send his forces in order to assist the beleaguered VIth Legion against the traitorous Alpha Legion.Unsure as to which side the Space Wolves truly served, the Khagan sympathised with his brother primarch's predicament, but refused to get involved until he was able to sort out the conflicting and often contradictory astropathic messages he had received concerning the revolt against the Emperor. Until he knew, beyond a shadow of doubt, who was an ally and who was an enemy, he refused to choose sides. Wishing his brother the best of luck, Jaghatai sought to seek answers to his questions elsewhere.Realising that the VIth Legion faced a hopeless situation, Russ was demoralised and isolated himself within his personal chambers, forcing his First Captain Gunnar Gunnhilt, aboard the battleship Ragnorok, to assume command in his primarch's absence.Ruminating upon the role the Emperor had forced upon him, Russ received counsel from Bjorn 'The One-Handed', a young pack leader in Tra Company (3rd Great Company) who had risen in much esteem since the conflict on Prospero. He helped his primarch come to terms with his past as the "Emperor's Executioner," realising it had done nothing but brought ruin upon the Vlka Fenryka. Meanwhile, Gunnhilt led the Space Wolves fleet in a desperate breakout attempt.Harried at every turn, the Space Wolves' fleet faced imminent destruction by the larger Alpha Legion fleet. Reinvigorated by the reemergence of the Wolf King, First Captain Gunnhilt and his crew sold their lives dearly in order to help slow the Alpha Legion advance, but unfortunately the Alpha Legion fleet was still able to catch the limping Space Wolves ships.During the height of the ensuing void battle, a large contingent of elite Cataphractii-armoured Lernaean Terminators teleported aboard the bridge of Russ' flagship, Hrafnkel, where the Wolf King battled Alpharius seemingly disguised as one of his own Laernaean Terminators.As the Alpha Legion were on the verge of ultimate victory, help arrived from an unexpected quarter, in the form of a large Dark Angels fleet led by a mobile Ramilies-class Starfort, the Chimaera, which had heard the Space Wolves' distress signals and determined that the VIth Legion were in fact still loyal to the Emperor. With the assistance of their Ist Legion cousins, the Space Wolves were able to force the Alpha Legion to withdraw.In the battle's aftermath, the Wolf King and a contingent of his most trusted warriors sought audience with the Dark Angels' commander, Chapter Master Althalos, who was still ostensibly loyal to the Regent of Caliban, Luther. He informed the primarch that his fleet had been despatched 59 standard years earlier, in 948.M30, before the outbreak of the Horus Heresy, by Luther, in order to conquer worlds and establish outposts.The Dark Angels hidden within the Alaxxes Nebula had been completely unaware of the eruption of the galaxy-wide rebellion or Luther's corruption back home on Caliban. At some point they had received fragments of information -- the Space Marine Legions were now at war with each other, rumours of the Isstvan III Atrocity -- but they had no clear view of who was now a Loyalist or Traitor. Therefore, they chose to be cautious when approaching the Space Wolves before revealing themselves.During the battle, one of the Dark Angels' officers, Captain Ormand, had secretly infiltrated the Wolf King's flagship in order to determine if the Space Wolves were still loyal to the Emperor. His duplicity was discovered by Rune Priest Kva, who brought him before Russ. Seeing the Space Wolves valiantly battle the treacherous Alpha Legion, Ormand determined the VIth Legion were still loyal and informed his commander of their intent.The Dark Angels had then intervened on the Space Wolves' behalf and helped rout the Traitor fleet. In exchange for warriors and matériel from the Dark Angels, the Wolf King gave a full accounting of Warmaster Horus' treachery and the view of the wider events of the Horus Heresy that had, thus far, played out across the galaxy. Saddened by the news, Chapter Master Althalos decided to lead his forces back towards Caliban while Russ set course for Terra, and the inevitable showdown with his treacherous brother, Horus. |
Battle of Tyrok Fields - Battle of Tyrok Fields: The Battle of Tyrok Fields marked the beginning of Abaddon the Despoiler's 13th Black Crusade, at the Tyrok Fields on the Imperial Fortress World of Cadia in 999.M41. The battle was an attempt by Abaddon to begin his conquest of the Cadian Gate by killing the entire high command of Cadia in one fell swoop through treachery.His plan was foiled by Colonel Ursarkar E. Creed and the 8th Cadian Regiment of the Imperial Guard. Following the battle, Colonel Creed was raised as the new Lord Castellan of Cadia and proved to be an exceptional Imperial strategist in the terrible battles of the 13th Black Crusade that followed. |
Battle of Tyrok Fields - The Battle Begins: The battle began when the Volscani Cataphracts, a regiment of the Imperial Guard who had been thought to be loyal soldiers of the Imperium but had instead secretly thrown their lot in with Abaddon and the Forces of Chaos, broke ranks during a great military parade and began the wanton slaughter of several hundred nearby Imperial Guardsmen.The true extent of their treachery was discovered when they stormed the Lord Castellan (Planetary Governor) Marus Porelska of Cadia's Leviathan, and killed him and much of the Cadian military High Command. Porelska had been on-site to receive a massed salute from all the assembled Imperial Guard soldiers before they went off to defend the Cadian Gate from Abaddon's expected attack. |
Battle of Tyrok Fields - Ursarkar E. Creed and the Cadian 8th: Colonel Ursarkar E. Creed, present at Tyrok with his 8th Cadian Regiment of the Imperial Guard, rallied the forces under his command and immediately counter-attacked the Traitor Guardsmen. The 8th Cadian spearheaded an advance of several Imperial Guard regiments, with the 7th Cadian Regiment at its side the entire time. Jarran Kell, Colour Sergeant and Standard Bearer for the 8th Cadian, fought ferociously and never allowed the sacred standard of his beloved regiment to touch the ground. The 7th Cadian was not so lucky.Its Colour Sergeant was killed soon after the fighting began, with the flag passed to another soldier, who met his own end in turn not long afterwords. This trend continued throughout the day; when one standard bearer died, another man stepped forward to take the flag. The 7th Cadian's regimental history even goes so far as to say that its soldiers were so committed to their colours that the sacred ornament never touched the dirt. |
Battle of Tyrok Fields - The Titans: High above the battlefield, the gargantuan warmachines of the Adeptus Mechanicus assisted the Cadians with their counter-attack. The part that is most remembered today is when the Titans knocked out the Void Shields of the Volscani Leviathans, allowing the Loyalist Guardsmen to continue to charge right into the heart of the enemy's command ranks.If the Imperial Titans' attack had been unsuccessful, the Loyalist Guardsmen would have been slaughtered wholesale by the enormous cannons sported by the building-sized Volscani command vehicles. Instead, the Imperial soldiers were able to run right past the guns and board the Leviathans, effectively rending the proverbial head from the beast. |
Battle of Tyrok Fields - The Aftermath: Because of Colonel Creed's decisiveness in reacting so quickly, the potential for a horrendous defeat was averted and a victory was won for the Imperium that prevented the Imperial forces from being disorganised and decapitated at the very start of Abaddon's campaign to conquer Cadia and the Cadian Gate. Because of his quick-thinking and obvious command abilities, Colonel Ursarkar E. Creed was unanimously acclaimed as the new Lord Castellan of Cadia, through he also maintained his role as the Colonel and commanding officer of the 8th Cadian Regiment. |
Battle of Örgvayr - Battle of Örgvayr: The Battle of Örgvayr was a conflict that erupted between the Kin of the Leagues of Votann's Greater Thurian League and the forces of Chaos near Warp Storm Örgvayr. The fighting began after the opening of the Great Rift in the Era Indomitus provided the servants of Chaos with greater opportunities to enter Kin space in the galactic core than ever before.Despite assaults by warbands of the World Eaters and The Purge Heretic Astartes upon the Thurian Cthonian Mining Guild harvester fortresses present on the volcanic Kin World of Törg, the Oathbands of the Thurian Kindred of Vôrtun were able to rescue both the miners and much of their valuable harvested raw materials under the command of Kâhl Ûthar the Destined, as well as slay the World Eaters Chaos Lord Hakatar.However, the conflict remains an ongoing one, and the Heretic Astartes and their allies continue to reinforce their numbers through the Warp storm. The northeastern region of Thurian space has now become a warzone known as the "Stormward Front." |
Battle of Örgvayr - Origins: The emergence of the Great Rift shook the Leagues of Votann to their foundations. Holds vanished amidst the roiling energies of the new born Warp storm belt. Trade routes were severed. Many Kindreds were compelled to relocate their holdings, abandoning territories held for thousands of Terran years and venturing out from the galactic core to seek more stable regions to settle.Both within the core and beyond its fringes, the rift's advent has driven the Kin into new conflicts, as well as stirring up old foes and setting them on a collision course with the Leagues.The Kin do not recognise or name the Great Rift as a single manifest phenomena. They believe that to do so would lend further superstitious menace to a threat that is already menacing enough. They choose instead to name the greatest of the component Warp storms that have opened within the galactic core, treating each as a separate peril to be weathered and overcome.One such raging empyric maelstrom opened upon the north-eastern fringe of Greater Thurian League space, and was soon named "Örgvayr" -- roughly translating into High Gothic as "the Ogre." The Void Strider Kindred and Lâkhryr's Kindred were swallowed up in the instant of its opening. Their pan spectral arrays gave some small forewarning, and so ragged flotillas of Kin refugee ships limped from the fringes of Warp Storm Örgvayr solar days after its emergence, their passangers telling of holds dissolved into raw madness or overrun by howling Daemons.Close on their heels came ravening Chaos Warfleets. Sailing the void in baroque warships and monstrous space hulks, they fell upon the Greater Thurian star systems bordering the storm zone. As more Chaos worshippers poured out of Örgvayr by the solar day, it became clear to the Greater Thurian League that a terrible new threat had been unleashed upon their holds.Those Kindreds whose holds lay directly in the invaders' path now faced a difficult choice -- to hold their ground against the onslaught, or to fall back in the face of growing enemy strength. Exchanging messages as best they could via hardened las-com relays, the Hearthspakes of the Deeprock Kindred, the Kindred of Vôrtun, Khâld's Star Breaker Kindred and Kindred Crimson-Two all elected to hold fast.The Grimnyr interfaced in their Fanes with the Greater Thurian Votann, asking that it communicate their plight to the wider league and begging its advice. Swift merchant craft and scout ships plunged into the Warp, bearing the same messsages to neighbouring Kindreds. Those facing the invasion would stand firm until the will of the Votann and the rest of the league could be made known, or until their defiance was judged too costly to maintain.Meanwhile, the ravening hordes of Chaos blazed a trail of havoc toward the Thurian Hold Worlds that lay in their path. |
Battle of Örgvayr - Counteroffensive at Törg: By a stroke of good fortune the Greater Thurian League Kâhl Ûthar the Destined had recently returned to Obsyd Gate, the hold of his own Kindred of Vôrtun. Ever the dynamic hero of his people, Ûthar convinced the Kindred of Vôrtun Hearthspake that they could not afford to simply mass behind their defences and await the enemies' onslaught. To do so handed all strategic initiative and opportunity to the invaders and would abandon outlying facilities, resources and personnel to their murderous attentions.The voice of the Destined carried great weight amongst his Kindred, who were swiftly convinced by his arguments. Thus, their mustered Kinhost broke into a number of Oathbands; some would remain to garrison Obsyd Gate, while the rest would sally forth under the command of Ûthar and other prominent Thurian heroes, to launch counterattacks against the incoming Chaos invaders. Their role would be to slow the enemy wherever possible, to evacuate all strategic resources, Kin and Ironkin they could, and to destroy any facilities they could not rescue so as to deny their use to the foe.Ûthar the Destined's Oathband deployed to the outlying Kin World of Törg. Riven by standard years of deep-core tectonic mining, Törg was a hostile mass of jagged stone, exposed magma veins, convulsing super-volcanoes and Kin harvester fortresses, wreathed in toxic fumes. Several immense Renegade warships had already settled in the vulnerable world's orbit and disgorged warbands of Heretic Astartes to the surface. Mutated Chaos Space Marines of The Purge and ferocious Khorne-worshipping World Eaters had overrun Törg's void docks and cut bands of Cthonian Guild miners off within their harvester fortresses. Swiftly casting the Eye of the Ancestors over the dire strategic situation, Ûthar formulated his battle plan and set his forces into motion without delay. |
Battle of Örgvayr - Void Battle: In the void above Törg, the warships of Ûthar's Oathband engaged the craft of the Chaos worshippers under the command of Voidmaster Hêmmyk. Their mighty Conversion Beam batteries and salvoes of Drill Torpedoes mauled the Chaos grand cruiser Abomination, and forced other Chaos warships to break off orbital bombardment in order to respond to the Kin assault.Hêmmyk coordinated her small but potent fleet with consummate skill, fending off each assault by the Chaos worshippers and handing out far worse punishments than her own warships suffered. |
Battle of Örgvayr - Battle for Törg: Nôkh's Hernkyn Pioneer bands, supported by light gunships and rugged Sagitaur ATVs, swept through the high passes of the Fumarok Range to attack the World Eaters from the rear. They launched swift hit-and-run strikes, using their pan spectral scanners to maintain a fix on their enemies amidst the toxic murk of Törg's surface. Goaded to action, many wrath-crazed Khornate Berserkers broke off their assault on Harvester Fortress Five and pursued Nôkh's band into the hazardous mountain passes.Separating into several smaller Oathbands, Ûthar the Destined's forces launched a massive drop offensive into the world's Shatterfields. Ûthar himself led an armoured spearhead against the World Eaters commanded by the Chaos Lord Hakatar. Kâhl Svêkh Thûrkann and her Oathband met The Purge head-on. As orbital fire from both sides rained down onto the planet's surface, the two swirling battles erupted into a storm of close-range firefights and brutal offensives.While the foe were engaged to the north, Grimnyr Khôhn led an elite force of Einhyr and Hearthkyn to evacuate the Cthonians at Harvester Fortresses Two, Three and Four. Guildkin and great quantities of raw materials were loaded aboard Hekaton Land Fortresses and the armoured carriages they drew behind them.Sensing their prey escaping, the Chaos Lord Urthak Skullripper led a massed teleport of World Eaters Chaos Terminators that cut the Grimnyr and her bodyguards off, even as the Kin forces were pulling out. Though many Cthonian Beserks turned back to hurl themselves into the fight, the Living Ancestor could not be rescued. The surviving Cthonians and many of the Hearthkyn have since formed the Grudgeband of Khôhn -- they will be avenged upon Urthak Skullripper or die trying. |
Battle of Örgvayr - The Duel: Ûthar the Destined met the Chaos Lord Hakatar of the World Eaters upon the stone span bridging the Chasm of Embers. The two warlords battled back and forth along the crumbling expanse as their warriors fought and died around them and pillars of volcanic fire blasted up from below. Wounded but unbowed, Ûthar at last wrong-footed his foe, taking the World Eater's right leg off with a vicious sweep of the Blade of the Ancestors and pitching him, still howling with fury, into the flames below. |
Battle of Örgvayr - The Retreat: After several solar hours of rapid armoured warfare, and with the vast majority of Kin assets ferried successfully up to his waiting voidships, Kâhl Ûthar commanded a full retreat from Törg. Howled accusations of cowardice from the Khorne-worshippers followed the retreat. They meant nothing to the Kin; all that was worth extracting from the planet had been recovered and any remaining assets were deemed not worth the cost in lives to salvage.The Greater Thurian League Oathbands fell back in good order, Voidmaster Hêmmyk giving the enemy flotilla a last devastating volley to scatter their formations before commanding a plunge back into Warpspace. The tragic death of Grimnyr Khôhn aside, the Törg offensive had proved successful, but the wider war zone surrounding Warp Storm Örgvayr was becoming more fraught and violent by the solar hour.A great battle still lay before the Greater Thurian League and Ûthar the Destined would be needed elsewhere. |
Battlefleet Agripinaa - Battlefleet Agripinaa: Battlefleet Agripinaa is a small fleet of Imperial Navy vessels charged with the protection of the Agripinaa Sector. Battlefleet Agripinaa forms a component part of the Bastion Fleets which make up the massive Battlefleet Obscurus, as do its neighbours, Battlefleets Cadia, Corona, and Scarus, as well as the more distant Battlefleets Gothic, Tamahl and Odessa, among others. Located in the Segmentum Obscurus near the Eye of Terror, this Imperial Battlefleet must maintain constant vigilance against the Forces of Chaos and the dreaded Black Crusades led by the Warmaster Abaddon the Despoiler. In 139-160.M41, during the 12th Black Crusade, known also as the Gothic War, Battlefleet Agripinaa helped provide the Imperial bulwark against the encroaching Forces of Chaos, reinforcing Battlefleet Gothic. During the latest incursion of the 13th Black Crusade in 999.M41, the world of Agripinaa did not weather the attacks of the Forces of Chaos well and much of its industrial infrastructure was laid ruin. Battlefleet Agripinaa fared no better, sustaining heavy losses during the brutal conflict. |
Battlefleet Agripinaa - Segmentum Obscurus: The Segmentum Obscurus, also known as the Segmentum Obscura, is the region of Imperial space to the galactic north of Terra. This Segmentum of the Imperium of Man is the home of the vast Warp Storm and Warp Rift called the Eye of Terror, the primary home for the Forces of Chaos in the Milky Way Galaxy. The Imperial Navy's Segmentum fleet headquarters is located on the world of Cypra Mundi, which also serves as the central headquarters of the Imperial military's Segmentum Command. The Segmentum Obscurus is the area of the Imperium most often under deadly threat by attacks from the Eye of Terror and is also the point of origin for all of Abaddon the Despoiler's Black Crusades. As such, it currently is home to the majority of the Imperium's armed forces, which were most recently mobilised to a state of readiness not seen since the Horus Heresy as a result of the 13th Black Crusade in 999.M41 |
Battlefleet Agripinaa - Agripinaa Sector: The Agripinaa Sector is one of the closest sectors to the vitally important Fortress World of Cadia and the Cadian Gate, the only predictably stable Warp route that leads out of the Eye of Terror and into the realm of the Imperium. The Imperial Navy shipyards for the sector were located on the Forge World of Agripinaa. This world provided materials for the Cadian front, and its industrial heartland was solely engaged in the production of ammunition. As such, it was considered a valuable lynchpin in the defence of the Cadian Gate.In 999.M41, war came without warning to the Agripinaa Sector, and the opening moves by the Forces of Chaos saw large number of plague-ridden Space Hulks entering Imperial space. Though many were intercepted by the Space Marines and destroyed, some managed to escape the Astartes' attention. Some of these foul vessels of contagion found their way into the Agripinaa Sector, spreading their disease and pestilence amongst the masses throughout the sector. Along with the adjacent Belis Corona Sector, they were some of the first to bear witness to the rise of hordes of infectious, undead zombies that threatened billions of people on many of the Imperial worlds within the sector. This plague was later named the Plague of Unbelief.While the defence of the Cadian Gate from the Forces of Chaos continued to go badly upon the surface of many worlds in the Cadian System, in particular Saint Josmane's Hope and Solar Mariatus, the war in space was fought more on the Imperium's terms. The Cadian System had been the focus of Abaddon's primary fleet actions, and the Imperium's fortunes there changed from day to day. The situation was highly fluid and the Chaotic naval forces found themselves stretched to exploit the victories they had won.A fleet the size of which has not been seen since the end of the Gothic War eight standard centuries earlier had been dispatched from Cypra Mundi, and arrived at Belis Corona in preparation for a massive Imperial counter-offensive into the Cadian Gate. The arrival of this vast armada allowed those Imperial vessels that had been fighting continuously since the beginning of the invasion a brief respite. Severely depleted ship’s companies were bolstered through indiscriminate press-ganging, and hasty repairs and refits were undertaken on those vessels most in need of them.The Imperial reinforcements were split into battlegroups, each tasked with bolstering the defences in a specific sector of the Segmentum Obscurus. The regions around the Eye of Terror encompass many millions of cubic light years, and only by the concentrated application of resources in those areas in most desperate need could the Imperial Navy hope to make inroads and slow, stall, and eventually repel the Chaos warfleets plaguing the region. A small number of Imperial Navy ships won a decisive victory when they managed to hold back a larger Chaos Fleet at the Ilthirium Belt, buying time for Battlefleet Agripinaa to arrive and allow the remaining ships to retreat. This course of action however, left the Agripinaa Sector open to invasion and soon the worlds of this sector and the Belis Corona Sub-sector of the Belis Corona Sector were transformed into nightmarish realms of plague and pestilence.As the full force of Abaddon's invasion hit the sector, one man, Regu Hane, was hailed as a saviour -- he led a bold counter-attack that succeeded in banishing a horde of Khornate Daemons, and would later be raised to the status of sainthood. Later the mysterious Eldar Harlequins intervened in the fighting, but the defenders were stymied when the notorious Dark Apostle of the Word Bearers Traitor Legion, Lord Erebus, caused the raging tempest of Warp Storm Baphomael to surge forth and engulf the outlying star systems of the sector.It was only in the closing stages of the conflict that the Imperium was able to mount an effective defence against the raging hordes of the Ruinous Powers, when the combined forces of a number of Space Marine Chapters broke through the storms and fell upon the invaders with a righteous hatred born of 10,000 years of conflict. By the end of the war, the planets Albitern, Amistel, Lelithar, Malm's Reach, Ulthor and Yavor lay in ruins, and a number of other key systems of the Agripinaa Sector hung in the balance. Though Agripinaa itself still stands, without the Agri-Worlds of Yayor. Ulthor and Dentor. Its populace may yet starve to death, and without the vital materials provided by the Hive Worlds of Albitern, Amistel and Tabor, its mighty forges may yet fall silent. The so-called "Herald of Nurgle," Typhus of the Death Guard Traitor Legion, has claimed the now blasted world of Ulthor as his own realm, a stronghold beyond the Cadian Gate from which he can bring terror to the other worlds of the Imperium at his leisure. Nightmare visions of a thousand Astropaths tell of the birth of a new Daemon World within the domains of Man.Further, unconfirmed reports state that one of the Blackstone Fortresses were destroyed by raiders of the Necrontyr off the shoulder of the Lustitia Belt. Senior members of the Ordo Xenos are en route to the area, and Deathwatch Strike Cruisers are already engaged in ensuring no vessels other than their own enter the area. |
Battlefleet Agripinaa - Notable Vessels of Battlefleet Agripinaa: Warrior Knight (Exorcist-class Grand Cruiser) |
Battlefleet Armageddon - Battlefleet Armageddon: Battlefleet Armageddon is the colossal fleet of Imperial Navy vessels charged with the the protection of the strategic Armageddon Sector within the Segmentum Solar. The Imperial Navy shipyards for the Segmentum are located on Luna, and the Imperial Navy headquarters in the Segmentum is based within Mars' Ring of Iron. Battlefleet Armageddon is currently commanded by Admiral Parol, who fought alongside High Marshal Helbrecht of the Black Templars Space Marine Chapter's Crusade Fleet and other Imperial commanders in orbit above Armageddon during the defence of Armageddon from the Ork WAAAGH! Ghazghkull in the Third War for Armageddon of 998.M41. |
Battlefleet Armageddon - Segmentum Solar: Segmentum Solar is one of the five Segmentum Majoris, the great Imperial administrative divisions of the galaxy. The Segmentum Solar is the central hub of the Imperium of Man and the most ancient and densely settled region of human space. Centred on Terra, where the Emperor of Mankind sits upon His Golden Throne, the central Segmentum is protected on four sides by the other Segmentae Majoris. The Battlefleet Armageddon is based in the orbital fleet docks of the so-called Ring of Iron that surrounds the Adeptus Mechanicus' primary Forge World of Mars. The Ring of Iron is the name given to the massive complex of orbital shipyards, manufactoria, refineries and construction facilities that encircle the equator of the Red Planet in the Sol System. The exploratory and expeditionary fleets of the Emperor of Mankind's Great Crusade were constructed in the orbital shipyards of the Ring of Iron during the late 30th and early 31st Millennia.Segmentum Tempestus is mercifully free from proximity to a festering mass incursion from the Warp, such as the Eye of Terror or the Maelstrom. As such, an incursion is usually carried out by xenos raiders rather than the mass attack of a large Chaos Fleet of deranged Heretics. Each of the five Segmentum battlefleets serves within one of the Segmentae Majoris and is responsible for protecting Imperial merchant shipping within it. Most space battles take place around installations or planets, the majority of which can be defended efficiently by means of sub-stellar spacecraft and planet-based defences. Even so, it is impossible to provide total defence for every Imperial world. The warships of the Imperial Navy are highly mobile and extremely potent weapons, able to gather to meet large threats where necessary.Imperial space is so vast, with so many star systems and areas of Wilderness Space to be patrolled, that even the many thousands of starships in the battlefleets must be spread thin, with individual ships and squadrons set out on their own assignments. The Imperium cannot maintain permanent fleets ready to respond to invasion or rebellion. Nor would it make sense to do so -- it would take so long for a fleet to get from its base to the war zone that the enemy would surely have moved on by the time it arrived. Instead, temporary battlefleets are gathered together whenever they are needed. Battlefleet Armageddon was one such formation in the wake of the Second War for Armageddon, and is charged with protecting the vital Hive World of Armageddon and the Imperial planets within the surrounding star systems. |
Battlefleet Armageddon - Battlezones: Although the dark reaches of space vary far less than the battlefields of the worlds they contain, there are nonetheless local peculiarities, phenomenon and anomalies in almost every region of populated space. The Armageddon Sector is no exception, and coupled with the variety of unique defences, wrecks and astral bodies found, this makes the battlezones throughout the Armageddon System somewhat different to many others. Most inhabited star systems can be divided into six regions or zones from deep space through to the flare region close to the system's sun. |
Battlefleet Armageddon - Torpedo Salvoes: In preparing the Armageddon System for invasion, the Imperial Navy set many deadly traps for the marauding Orks of the region. One of the most common of these were salvos of torpedoes, hard-wired to hone in on any approaching starship. The friend or foe systems of these weapons were disabled when deployed, to avoid any danger of the Orks interfering with the mechanisms and turning the torpedoes to their own devious use. This is not the only way a deadfall occurs; many stray salvoes run low on fuel having missed their intended target. These stray torpedoes finally come to rest with only a small amount of fuel left, just enough to lurk in wait for a suitable, unsuspecting target to pass. These stray torpedoes then activate and use the remainder of their fuel to lock on to the unwary ship. |
Battlefleet Armageddon - Debris Fields: Whether it is the result of critical navigational errors or one of the many engagements between Ork fleets and the Imperial Navy within the Armageddon System, there are now many large wreckage fields slowly orbiting Armageddon's sun. The smashed wreckage often forms trails extending for many thousands of kilometres, gravely endangering navigation within the system. The previous space battles around Armageddon have left many warships broken and shattered, destined to orbit the sun for millennia. However, the burnt out hulks are still considered to be a valuable prize for both sides in the war and their capture was always rewarded by any Admiral's or Warboss' superior. Contrary to the beliefs of many of those who must remain planet-bound, every Imperial Captain knows that space is far from empty. Debris fields like those surrounding Armageddon can prove to be a serious risk to travel within a star system. Whether they are formed from past battles or naturally form from matter in the outer reaches, these fields can prove deadly to an unwary vessel. |
Battlefleet Armageddon - Third War for Armageddon: One of the most famous campaigns involving Battlefleet Armageddon was the Third War for Armageddon. Following his defeat during the Second War for Armageddon, the first of two massive conflicts between the Imperium of Man and the Ork Warboss Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka, that took place between 941.M41 and 943.M41 in the Armageddon System, the vile Greenskin Warboss was not idle. Retiring to his stronghold, a network of star systems controlled by his forces in the Golgotha Sector, he carried on with the plan that he believed had been revealed to him by the Ork Gods Gork and Mork years before. If the Imperium made one terrible mistake following the Second War for Armageddon it was to consider that Ghazghkull had been defeated. This was far from the truth. In the decades that followed that conflict, Ghazghkull carried on with his master plan. Having learned all he needed to know about Imperial strategy during his first campaign against the humans, he began practising the tactics that he felt would lead to his enemies' defeat. As he did not want to draw undue attention to himself, these experiments were carried out on a much smaller scale than the first Ork invasion of Armageddon. From 945-959.M41 the Imperium received numerous reports of small raids and attacks against Imperial bases and outposts that were led by Ghazghkull Thraka personally.In 962.M41, an Imperial military base on the world of Buca III was destroyed by missiles fired from an Ork base hidden within an asteroid. The asteroid entered the star system from deep space and bypassed all the Imperial sensors because of its seemingly inert nature before unleashing its potent missiles at the unsuspecting outpost. In 972.M41, the Imperial Agri-World of Chigon 17 was overrun by a huge force of Orks also allegedly under Warboss Ghazghkull's direct command. Just before the outbreak of the Third War for Armageddon, Ghazghkull allied with another Ork Warlord, Nazdreg Ug Urdgrub, to launch an assault on the Imperial world of Piscina IV. The Orks used a previously unknown form of teleportation technology that let them maneuver their troops directly onto the planet from a Space Hulk located a large distance away from the world. The Imperial garrison was taken completely by surprise and only the presence of Space Marines from the Dark Angels Chapter saved Piscina from being completely overrun by the Greenskins. However, this defeat proved to be of little consequence for Ghazghkull as the completion and testing of his new "tellyporta" by the Ork genius later dubbed "Orkimedes" by the Imperium meant that he was finally ready to unleash his full force against the Imperium once more. After more than fifty standard years, Ghazghkull and his Orks intended to take their revenge on the "humies."Following a lengthy investigation of the planet's readiness in the wake of the Second War for Armageddon, the Imperium ordered the construction of new defences for Armageddon in 948.M41. In light of the strategic value of Armageddon to the Imperium, extensive works were ordered by the Adeptus Terra to secure the Armageddon System against future xenos attacks. Sector Naval command was transferred to the Armageddon System and the Naval facility of St. Jowen's Dock was rebuilt and expanded to accommodate all classes of Imperial interstellar warship. Three permanently-manned monitoring stations were established in the outer reaches of the star system, named after three of the greatest heroes of the Second War for Armageddon: Mannheim, Dante and Yarrick. Ground-based and orbital defences were rebuilt and heavily reinforced, gravitic minefields were seeded throughout the star system and a substantial increase in the numbers of sublight system defence ships and Monitors was ordered.The first sign of the coming conflagration was a series of Ork attacks on the star systems surrounding Armageddon and other Imperial worlds nearby. First, the nearby world of Minerva suffered from the depredations of Ork pirates, then the Agri-World of Ruis was likewise assailed by Greenskins. Over a period of months, in spite of the heroic efforts of the Imperial Navy, the number of Imperial merchant starships reaching Armageddon was cut in half. Someone seemed to understand that the Imperial forces in the sector were bound by the need to guard the Armageddon System and were not free to patrol the rest of the sector as freely as they normally would. Almost immediately, the Ork pirate raids grew into assaults on Imperial outposts and then into attacks against lightly-held Imperial colonies. Soon, the first full-scale planetary invasions began. Two dozen Imperial worlds came under attack from Orks in as many hours and the Astropaths of Armageddon received constant reports of yet more Ork invasions and atrocities. Every consultation of the Emperor's Tarot prophesied enormous amounts of bloodshed to come and the sign of the Beast Resurgent. Rumours spread that Ghazghkull was returning to have his vengeance and soon even the most obstinate Administratum Adept could no longer deny that an Ork WAAAGH! of gargantuan proportions was engulfing the entire Armageddon Sector of the Segmentum Solar. After the Imperial Navy's Task Force Trajan was presumed lost battling the Orks in the Desdena System, General Kurov sent an astropathic call for assistance to nearby Imperial Guard regiments and Space Marine Chapters to come to the defence of Armageddon once more.On the day of the Feast of the Emperor's Ascension in 998.M41, 57 standard years to the day after the first Ork invasion of Armageddon, Augur psychic probes registered a massive disruption in the Warp as an Ork fleet emerged back into realspace and Ghazghkull's Greenskin horde descended on Armageddon once more. An alert from the Imperial monitor station Dante was cut off in mid-transmission as the Ork starships swept past in their hundreds upon ramshackle hundreds.The monitor station's final Vox reports indicated that an Ork fleet was moving into the Armageddon System, comprising 50 Ork Kill Kroozers and over 300 Escort vessels, accompanied by at least four Space Hulks. The Imperial forces of Armageddon were placed on full alert and seven Imperial Navy Cruiser squadrons, led by the Apocalypse-class Battleships His Will and Triumph, departed Saint Jowen's Dock in geostationary orbit of Armageddon within 24 hours of the first reports of the Ork invasion. The Imperial fleet, under the command of Admiral Parol, entered battle five standard days later, catching the lead elements of the Ork fleet in an ambush around the high-gravity world of Pelucidar.Sixty Ork attack ships were blasted out of the vacuum by Imperial fire in the initial engagement, without the loss of a single Imperial starship. Then Admiral Parol's vessels were engaged by heavy squadrons of Ork Kill Kroozers and swarms of Fighta-Bommerz racing ahead of the main body of the Ork fleet. The Imperial starships fought valiantly, their weapon batteries pounding the crude Ork vessels into scrap, ravening Lance beams incinerating wave after wave of the Fighta-Bommerz.Nevertheless, the Ork fleet outnumbered the Imperial Navy's defenders of Armageddon by six-to-one and the Imperial starships were gradually pushed back. The Orks made suicidal runs against the Imperial gunners with unbridled ferocity, losing a dozen of their ships in exchange for a single Imperial vessel. At the height of the engagement, Admiral Parol received comm-bursts from the Yarrick and Mannheim monitor stations warning that three more entire Ork fleets were entering the edges of the star system. At the exact same moment, the Triumph was hit by the combined firepower of five Ork Kill Kroozers and crippled by this heavy fire and massed Ork teleport boarding attacks. Realising that his duty lay in preserving the Imperial fleet for what would be a protracted conflict, Admiral Parol reluctantly gave the order for a general retreat.The doomed Imperial monitor stations were overwhelmed by the Orks a few hours later. By their last count, the combined Ork fleets entering the Armageddon System numbered in excess of 2,000 starships and at least twelve Space Hulks, the largest number of Space Hulks ever to assail a world of the Imperium in its 10,000 standard year history. Admiral Parol, his command reduced to just five squadrons of Cruisers and a single Battleship, could do little more than mount hit-and-run attacks against the massive Ork armadas as they moved in-system. Imperial reinforcements would later arrive and then Parol hoped that the Orks' command of space could be challenged with more of a chance for success.As they waited, Parol's Escorts and Light Cruisers harried the Orks as best they were able, distracting and drawing off their foes into traps and gravitic minefields. To their dismay, the Imperial Navy vessels encountered dozens of crude asteroid fortresses, or "Roks," in the normally vulnerable rear of the Ork fleets. These incredibly heavily armed weapon platforms proved difficult to assault directly, but the very presence of such large numbers of Roks seemed to indicate a complexity of strategic planning among the Orks that had not yet been seen by the Imperium's defenders.Surprisingly, the Orks did not turn aside to capture the orbital Saint Jowen's Dock. Instead they bombarded it for six days as the Ork fleets moved past, enlivened by repeated attacks from Imperial assault boat squadrons. Ork warriors succeeded in establishing themselves throughout the lower sections of the dock and though the facility remained under Imperial control, it was rendered virtually useless as a dock for warships by damage from the bombardment and constant Ork raids. Only the arrival of two Inquisitorial Ordo Xenos' Deathwatch Space Marine Kill-teams later in the campaign succeeded in driving the Orks back to the isotope storage pits at the base of the orbital station.Six weeks after entering the Armageddon System, the vast Ork armada went into battle with the Imperial space stations and weapons platforms in high orbit above the world. Those who had hoped that the powerful orbital defences of Armageddon would keep the Orks at bay were soon proved to be hopelessly in error. The orbital battle raged for three full days and two terrible nights, but by the dawn of the third day, the skies of Armageddon were filled with the trails of Ork landing pods and the incandescent streaks of their Attack Craft carving runnels through the clouds. Hive Hades, still a ruin following the previous conflict, was the first to fall. In an act of vengeance, Ghazghkull chose not to fight again at Hades. Instead, the entire hive city and its inhabitants were smashed asunder by the colossal impact of giant asteroids dropped from the Orks' orbiting Space Hulks. This act of wanton destruction was but a premonition of the monstrous bloodshed that was to come.As the battles of the Third War for Armageddon raged furiously on Armageddon's surface, Ghazghkull unleashed another of his surprises. Dozens of the great Ork Roks encountered by Admiral Parol's starships began to descend from orbit. Slowed by powerful gravitic force fields, retro boosters and modified Ork Traktor Kannons, the Ork Roks made landings in the planet's verdant Equatorial Jungles and across its two main continents of Armageddon Prime and Secundus. Many were lost to ground fire or "Orky accidents" but each one that survived became a new bastion for the Orks, a rallying-point and a new citadel. As well as their huge guns and missile batteries, the Roks contained giant teleport arrays created by Orkimedes that were similar to those Ghazghkull has used during the Piscina Campaign. These were employed to teleport down Ork reinforcements from their orbiting fleet, including Gargants and heavy artillery, in a seemingly endless stream of Greenskins. The campaign to come would rank as among the greatest conflicts ever fought by the Imperium of Man, though it would be won on the ground and the Imperial naval forces of Battlefleet Armageddon would henceforward play only a supporting role. |
Battlefleet Armageddon - Notable Vessels of Battlefleet Armageddon: His Will (Apocalypse-class Battleship)Triumph (Apocalypse-class Battleship)Inomine Veritas (Emperor-class Battleship)Gryphonne Probatii (Emperor-class Battleship)Green Lake (Oberon-class Battleship)Ex Cathedra (Armageddon-class Battlecruiser)Hammer of Light (Armageddon-class Battlecruiser)Thunderchild (Armageddon-class Battlecruiser)Renown (Lunar-class Cruiser)Sceptre of Haggia (Lunar-class Cruiser) |
Battlefleet Armageddon - Battlefleet Armageddon Squadron Dispositions: First-Line Cruiser Squadron (6)Second-Line Cruiser Squadrons (9)Light Cruiser Squadrons (17)Escort Squadrons (21) |
Battlefleet Armageddon - Aerial Strike Wings Assets: Bomber Strike Wings (54)Interceptor Strike Wings (81) |
Battlefleet Bakka - Battlefleet Bakka: Battlefleet Bakka is a colossal fleet of Imperial Navy vessels charged with the the protection of the strategic Bakka Sub-sector within the Segmentum Tempestus. Bakka is the Sector Naval base closest to the Ultramarines Chapter's homeworld of Macragge and as such, Battlefleet Bakka played a major role in defeating the Tyranids' Hive Fleet Behemoth during the First Tyrannic War at the climactic Battle of Macragge in 745.M41. |
Battlefleet Bakka - Segmentum Tempestus: Segmentum Tempestus is one of the five Segmentum Majoris, the great Imperial administrative divisions of the galaxy. It lies to the galactic south of the central Segmentum Solar, between Segmentum Pacificus to the galactic west and the Segmentum Ultima to the galactic east. Here, matter is scarce and the Segmentum is mostly a dark and empty void dimly lit by scattered stars. Segmentum Tempestus is organised into 200 light-year cubes called Sectors. The Imperial Navy's Segmentum headquarters is located in a 15 light-year cuboid known as Sub-sector Bakka, which is located on the main galactic star arm that passes through the east of the Segmentum.Segmentum Tempestus is mercifully free from proximity to a festering mass incursion from the Warp, such as the Eye of Terror or the Maelstrom. As such, a Chaos incursion is usually a problem of raiders rather than the mass attack of a large Chaos Fleet of deranged Heretics. However, Tempestus is notorious for infestations of Genestealers, as well as assaults from Ork and Eldar raiders. There has, therefore, been a tendency for Tempestus battlefleets to concentrate on small flotilla anti-piracy tactics rather than Grand Fleet strategy.In the 36th Millennium, a group of Tempestus tacticians, sometimes called the Gareox Prerogative because they were based at the Gareox Sector Base, came to prominence. This "Young School" proposed a complete change to fleets based on Attack Craft carriers as such tactics had proved highly effective against pirate squadrons. The arrogant Prerogative eventually gained enough political influctence to control Imperial warship design and were able to order the construction of Attack Carrier warships such as the ill-fated Despoiler-class Battleships.This action brought them into conflict with the "Big-Gun Lobby" at Bakka. Political rivalry eventually led to outright civil war, the so-called Gareox incident (Inquisita Classificationae Purgata Secrata, level sextus). A series of fleet actions demonstrated the superiority of Lance-armed warships over Attack Craft Carriers and the Prerogative was purged and Gareox cleansed. In their bitterness, many of their supporters in the fleet turned to blasphemy and fled into the Warp. Only three Despoilers were built out of the fifteen orginally ordered and all ultimately became Traitors. This incident left a suspicion of Attack Carriers in Tempestus battlefleets and even today there is a tendency for such fleets to favour big-gun ships. This is particularly true of Battlefleet Bakka where the Big-Gun Lobby had reigned supreme. |
Battlefleet Bakka - Forge World Bakka: A young world, Bakka was colonised during the Dark Age of Technology by the restless agents of Mankind who claimed it for their own, greedy for its abundant and available mineral wealth. The surface of the planet consists of black island rafts of basalt and granite that float on a glowing viscous sea of cooling lava. Every so often, turbulent flow or a meteorite strike causes fresh magma to burst through the thin skin on the surface of the orange seas and throw incandescent fountains of yellow fire into the sky. The atmosphere is hot, arid and very poisonous; oxides of nitrous, sulphur and sodium mix with ammonia in spirals of yellow, brown and red fog. Giant, tracked machines extract minerals when convective flow forces important ores near the surface of the seas. The loss rate among the lava workers is substantial and commonly penitents and Heretics are assigned to the hazardous duty. The punishment for a penitent and a Heretic is the same, for though the God-Emperor rejoices at the righteous remorse of a penitent the sin must still be cleansed by punishment.Permanent installations are built on the black rafts. In the reinforced adamantium walls of the fortress-like plants, ore is processed into usable materials. Heavy laser batteries are mounted on the strengthened roofs of the squat, dark structures to blast away meteors, and the Emperor's foes should they make an appearance in orbit. Most of the manufacturing facilities hang above the planet in geostationary orbit and there are also found the vast, sprawling dockyards of the Segmentum Tempestus Sector Naval Base. |
Battlefleet Bakka - First Tyrannic War: One of the most famous battles involving Battlefleet Bakka took place during the First Tyrannic War in 745.M41. When the Imperium of Man first encountered the dire threat of the insidious xenos known as the Tyranids and Hive Fleet Behemoth, the Imperial Navy's Segmentum Tempestus High Command ordered the entirety of the Bakka Battlefleet to help in the valiant defence of the Ultramarines Space Marine Chapter, who were being forced back, step-by-step, by the tide of alien horrors. Then, just when all appeared to be lost, the first squadrons of warships from Battlefleet Bakka began to arrive, to take part in the climactic Battle of Macragge. Its forces deployed on the planet's surface, the Hive Mind had chosen to withdraw its bio-ships from Macragge in order to lure the defending ships of the Ultramarines flotilla away and thus prevent them from coming to the polar fortresses' aid. Chapter Master Marneus Calgar took the Tyranids' bait, and pursued the Tyranid fleet toward the ringed world of Circe at the edge of the Macragge System. The timely arrival of the Imperial Navy's entire Battlefleet Tempestus from Bakka finally sealed the Tyranids' fate by catching them in a vice between the two fleets. Calgar watched in rapt attention as reality rippled before parting like a curtain to reveal the familiar shapes of Imperial warships. Over 200 Imperial Aquilas emblazoned the hologlobe representing Heavy Cruisers, Missile Destroyers, and Battleships, while a singular gold eagle represented the huge Emperor-class Battleship Dominus Astra. The sense of relief was a palpable force aboard the ships of the Realm of Ultramar.The Hive Fleet started to decelerate and turn back in-system, seeking to destroy the lesser Ultramar force behind them. The Ultramar fleet slowed and prepared to fight again as Calgar swiftly communicated with Lord Admiral Zaccarius Rath, commander of the Tempestus fleet, and exchanged plans. The Ultramar fleet clumped into a tight wedge to keep the Tyranids at bay with their massed batteries while the Tempestus vessels spread into a broad avellan cross. As the Tyranids engaged Calgar's ships, the arms of the cross formed by Lord Admiral Rath's fleet closed in around them like the jaws of a trap. The battle was short and brutal as the Tyranids were caught in the cross-fire of the two fleets. Though they were outnumbered by over three to one the Imperial warships blasted their way through the Hive Fleet and scattered the bio-ships into small groups. The Tyranids' piecemeal counter-attacks were beaten off by the awesome firepower of the heavily armored and shielded Imperial starships. Their Lances of fusion fire transfixed the organic hulls of the bio-ships and clouds of Imperial Navy fighters darted in to tear apart the crippled vessels. Within an hour the remnants of the Hive Fleet were dead and drifting, charred hulks spinning slowly through the void.The battle had taken its toll of the combined fleet. Calgar had lost half his remaining ships, and several Imperial ships had to be destroyed by the weapons of their compatriots because they had been boarded and overrun by the Tyranids. The tales of horror from these vessels mirrored those from the polar fortresses on Macragge all too closely. It was evident that the Tyranids were horrifying, almost unstoppable opponents at close quarters. With the fate of the beleaguered polar garrisons pressing on his mind, Calgar swiftly gathered up his fleet and turned back in-system, while Lord Admiral Rath's ships swung into triumphant procession behind him. Though it would be many hours before the fleet could arrive at Macragge, Calgar was determined to return in time to save his men. |
Battlefleet Bakka - Battle of Circe: Behind the two fleets the very fabric of space rippled before it was suddenly torn aside as another fleet emerged from Warpspace. The hologlobes were filled with ranks of red sparks as the second Tyranid Hive Fleet bore down on the warships of the combined Imperial fleet. This Hive Fleet was fresh and undamaged: hundreds of large bio-ships made up its vanguard with their smaller companions staying to the sides and rear. Calgar desperately sought an edge to exploit against this new foe. The other Hive Fleet had only been defeated because it was surprised and weakened; this new fleet was too strong to fight. The defences of Macragge were hours away, damaged by the ongoing Tyranid assault but still operational. The only other defensive point in the Macragge System was the ringed gas-giant Circe, which they could reach within the hour.Calgar headed back to Macragge. Lord Admiral Rath declared that too many of his warships would be caught before they reached that planet and turned away toward Circe. As the ponderous voidships of Battlefleet Tempestus swung their prows towards roiling Circe and its treacherous rings of rocks and dust, the Hive Fleet smoothly divided itself. The greater part of the alien bio-ships pursued the Imperial vessels towards the gas giant and its shining rings. The remainder dogged the Ultramar fleet with such numbers that to turn back would be suicidal. Amidst the rings of Circe the Imperial fleet turned at bay, their engines holding them at a dead halt above bands of planetary storm that reached about the giant's circumference. The Tyranid bio-ships swept forward in a wave which filled the monitors and gun sights with targets. Laser salvos and plasma beams struck down the bio-ships by tens and then hundreds but the Hive Fleet ground forward regardless of loss. Vessels of both sides fell towards Circe's hungry pull as they were hit, tumbling down to be smashed apart in the stony rings or to send flares of incandescent gas jetting into space as they burned amidst clouds below.One by one the Imperial vessels were grappled and overrun or torn apart by the hail of shots from a dozen foes. The rings flared with the bright flashes of Imperial ships dying in fiery wreaths of plasma. The skies above Circe were filled with the detritus of war, charred fragments of warships and bio-ships merging together to form new rings of steel, blood and bone. At the height of the battle only a fraction of the Imperial warships remained operational, amongst them the scarred bulk of the Battleship Dominus Astra. Giving his remaining ships a final order to scatter, Lord Admiral Rath swung the mighty capital ship about and thrust forward into the heart of the Hive Fleet. Roaring forward on its many tails of white fire, the Dominus Astra ripped through the bio-ships with its jagged ram, weapons blasting from every gun port and turret, the enemy so close that the shot and detonation of its Fusion Cannon were simultaneous. For a brief instant the Dominus Astra kept the horde back with the blaze of its weapons before the Tyranids swept in like a tide of bone and flesh to cover it with their numbers.A black globe crackled and flared into existence over the spot. Realspace rippled visibly and then shuddered back before the groaning warp drives of the Dominus Astra as it hurled itself into the Warp. Reality contorted under the strain: mass and Warp energy collided in a cataclysmic implosion of black light and impossible sound. All of the closest Tyranid bio-ships were dragged into the Astra's displacement and were lost with it. Those further away were smashed in the swirling storm of dust, rocks and other detritus swept into the ship's wake. Great flares of incandescent gas gouted up from Circe to incinerate the handful of surviving ships that remained in a holocaust of flame. The Dominus Astra disappeared into the Warp, never to be seen again. Only a dozen other ships of the proud Battlefeet Tempestus survived the Battle of Circe. These limped away towards Macragge, though the battle for the Ultramarines' homeworld would be long over by the time they arrived.The last stand of Battlefleet Ternpestus was visible on magnascope, the light from Circe's orbit taking seconds to catch up with the Ultramar fleet. Calgar could only helplessly watch the Imperial vessels wreathed in the flame of their weapon fire, the silent explosion of Tyranid bio-ships as they were struck, the glittering aurora of lights as laser salvos vaporised rings of dust. As the Dominus Astra dragged the heart of the Hive Fleet to oblivion, the bio-ships pursuing Calgar started to split up, the smaller vessels rushing after the Ultramar ships while their larger companions turned back and left the Macragge System. In space, the survivors of the Ultramar fleet easily destroyed the last wave of bio-ships. The Tyranids drove straight forward against the fleet and Macragge's defences, but each successive foe was destroyed before it came anywhere near the planet. Hive Fleet Behemoth had been defeated, but the cost was incalculable. |
Battlefleet Bakka - Special Weapons of Battlefleet Bakka: Fleet Defence Turret - Battlefleet Bakka warships need to be well equipped with turrets because of the relative lack of fighter defences. A particular Bakka innovation is the Fleet Defence Turret. This is a special long-rang turret fitted to special "flak" ships that can be used to protect other vessels in a near convoy from incoming enemy Attack Craft.Psychic Cannon - The ancient cruiser Daemon Slayer is equipped with a unique prow weapon described as a Psychic Cannon, which is rumoured to have been forged by the master magicians of the Dark Age of Technology. A hit from this weapon can banish any Daemon back to the Warp. Hive Ships fair no better, as a hit from this fell weapon can knock out the synaptic control of the bio-ship, disrupting its ability to receive psychic commands from the Hive Mind. |
Battlefleet Bakka - Notable Vessels of Battlefleet Bakka: Dominus Astra (Emperor-class Battleship) - Emperor-class Battleships are amongst the oldest vessels to serve in Imperial battlefleets and are commonly used as flagships. Only one member of this class, the venerable Dominus Astra, saw action against Hive Fleet Behemoth while serving as Lord Admiral Zaccarius Rath's flagship. The Dominus Astra was lost in combat at the Battle of Circe in the Macragge System when an Imperial fleet of 200 vessels, including elements of Battlefleet Bakka, was overwhelmed by Tyranids. In order to cover the disengagement of the surviving twelve Imperial capital ships, Lord Rath ordered the Battleship into the heart of the enemy fleet, ripping through their formations with all guns blazing. As the alien hordes closed around the doomed ship, the Dominus Astra engaged its Warp-Drives, tearing apart realspace, dragging large numbers of the unholy foe into the Immaterium and dashing many others onto the rings around the gas giant. The Dominus Astra was never officially seen again, although rumors abound of a mysterious ghost ship that appears from the Warp in time of greatest peril to hurl itself on humanity's most dangerous enemies.Argus (Victory-class Battleship) - One of four Victory-class Battleships that serves in Battlefleet Bakka, the Argus particularly distinguished itself, leading the fleet that cleansed the Stabulo Systems of the deviants that polluted various sectors along the border region between Segmentum Tempestus and Segmentum Ultima. The Argus served with its sister-ships against Hive Fleet Behemoth, and three returned from the pivotal Battle of Circe.Conqueror (Victory-class Battleship) - One of four Victory-class Battleships that serves in Battlefleet Bakka, the Conqueror served with its sister-ships against Hive Fleet Behemoth, and three returned from the pivotal Battle of Circe.Hammer of Scaro (Victory-class Battleship) - One of four Victory-class Battleships that serve in Battlefleet Bakka, the Hammer of Scaro was rebuilt with prow torpedoes instead of repairing its Nova Cannon after receiving severe damage ramming the Ork Hulk Gungedrinka at the Battle of Lexus. Served with its sister-ships against Hive Fleet Behemoth, and three returned from the pivotal Battle of Circe.Victory (Victory-class Battleship) - One of four Victory-class battleships that serve in Battlefleet Bakka, the Victory is by far the oldest. Served with its sister-ships against Hive Fleet Behemoth, and three returned from the pivotal Battle of Circe.Vae Victis (Vanquisher-class Battleship) - The Vae Victis has an extensive and storied history long pre-dating its joining Battlefleet Bakka. What records survive indicate it was constructed in the orbital shipyards of Hydraphur in the late 32nd Millennium, built at the request of High Lord Javor. Following its construction, the Battleship saw action during the Pacification of Magdellan and the Saint-Saen Crusade. Whilst on this extended Crusade the vessel was recorded "lost in Warp" with all hands. Believed thrown wildly off course by Warp Storms, the Vae Victis returned some 200 standard years later. Records do not detail the intervening years. The next verifiable records of this vessel come from its service in the Ultima Segmentum, where it served for a time as part of the Dominion Fleet of the Ultramarines Space Marine Chapter. Over the next millennium the warship underwent an extensive refit to repair widespread damage to its Lance batteries and propulsion system, but the circumstances surrounding when this damage was sustained are unknown. Aged and suffering continued problems with its engines, the Vae Victis was mothballed as part of the fleet reserve in the 38th Millennium and left in a stationary orbit around Drawkesd in Segmentum Tempestus along with three other vessels of this class. Weapon and shield systems where stripped for reuse. For long centuries the Battleship was left to decay in this forgotten backwater. Following the Battle of Circe, increased pressure on Imperial Navy Segmentum resources led to the Vae Victis being recommissioned into active service.Virtue of Helena (Vanquisher-class Battleship) - One of four known surviving examples of the Vanquisher-class Battleship in Battlefleet Bakka, the Virtue of Helena is currently undergoing re-armament and crew training before resuming active service to make up for the horrific losses from the Battle of Circe.Jovian (Jovian-class Battlecruiser) - The Jovian is viewed with misgivings by many authorities in Battlefleet Bakka, as history and tradition are hard to set aside in the Imperial Navy in general and by the fleetlords of Bakka in particular. With the history of the Garerox Prerogative required reading in the fleet academies, the very idea that the Imperial Navy should need a dedicated Attack Craft carrier is viewed as anathema. However, the horrors of the First Tyrannic War cast a negative light on Battlefleet Bakka's inherent distrust of Attack Craft, and while their tactics of relying on massed battery and Lance fire proved effective, it was only prudent that more Attack Craft should be made available to support the battlefleet. Though an Adeptus Mechanicus Forge World can see a new Cruiser put into space several times a year, the encroaching Tyranid fleet meant Bakka had no time for such an endeavor. Salvation came in the form of the Jovian, a venerable Mars-class Battlecruiser laid up after having its prow and forward battery decks smashed apart during the Stabulo Campaign. Languishing for centuries as resources were applied to more pressing matters, the process of converting its damaged battery decks into launch bays proved to be relatively straightforward. Completed with too little time even for proper space trials but with a full complement of Bakka's ablest Attack Craft crews, the Jovian acquitted itself well and was one of the twelve capital ships able to fight its way back to Bakka after the crucial Battle of Circe. Despite its success, the fleetlords of Bakka hold fast to their big-gun philosophy, and it is unlikely another ship of this class will be requisitioned by Segmentum Naval authority.Ascension (Dominion-class Battlecruiser) - The Ascension is a Dominion-class Battlecruiser that served with Battlefleet Bakka, unfortunately it disappeared together with the rest of Commodore Fyne's battlegroup during a protracted war in the Nemesis Sector.Light of Faith (Dominion-class Battlecruiser) - The Dominion-class Battlecruiser was envisioned as a more modern replacement to the Mars-class Battlecruiser, designed to serve as a capable fleet support vessel optimized for the role envisioned for Attack Craft carriers by the fleetlords of Bakka. While its launch bays and Lance batteries were well-suited to provide an adjunct to the fleet maneuvers favored by the "big-gun" lobby, the class fared poorly in smaller engagements and suffered from many of the shortcomings of the Gothic-class Cruiser in the kinds of raids more typically faced by the dispersed flotillas of Battlefleet Bakka. In particular, the Light of Faith had a rather inauspicious start to its career when it and its Escorts were driven out of an uncharted system by Necron raiders during its maiden deployment. One of two Dominion-class warships present at the Battle of Circe, the Light of Faith was one of the twelve capital ships of Battlefleet Bakka that returned, redeeming in hard-won victory the honour lost from its fateful maiden deployment centuries before.Loyalty (Dominion-class Battlecruiser) - One of two Dominion-class warships present at the Battle of Circe, the Loyalty was one of the twelve capital ships that returned, redeeming in hard-won victory the honour lost from its fateful maiden deployment centuries before.Perseverance (Dominion-class Battlecruiser) - The Perseverance is a Dominion-class Battlecruiser that served with Battlefleet Bakka, but was lost with all hands during the Stabulo Campaign.Righteous Endeavour (Dominion-class Battlecruiser) - The Righteous Endeavour is a Dominion-class Battlecruiser that serves with Battlefleet Bakka.Gorgon (Mercury-class Battlecruiser) - A notable Mercury-class Battlecruiser that serves in Battlefleet Bakka, the Gorgon claimed the Eldar Shadow-class Cruiser Swift Striker while protecting a vital supply convoy.Long Serpent (Mercury-class Battlecruiser) - A Mercury-class Battlecruiser that serves in Battlefleet Bakka.Medusa (Mercury-class Battlecruiser) - A Mercury-class Battlecruiser that served in Battlefleet Bakka, the Medusa met an inauspicious end when it suffered a plasma drive overload, shattering the Lunar-class Cruiser Lord Chalfont and leaving a convoy of transports to the tender mercies of an Ork raiding squadron.Nemesis (Mercury-class Battlecruiser) - A notable Mercury-class Battlecruiser that serves in Battlefleet Bakka, the Nemesis destroyed an Ork Terror Ship and three Ravagers single-handed.Scylla (Mercury-class Battlecruiser) - A Mercury-class Battlecruiser that served in Battlefleet Bakka, when hit by multiple salvos from Chaos raiders in 467.M41, the Scylla suffered a powerful Warp-Drive implosion, destroying her entire squadron of assigned escorts and heavily damaging the Battleship Mailed Fist.Sebastian Thor (Cardinal-class Heavy Cruiser)Silent Fire (Cardinal-class Heavy Cruiser)Daemon Slayer (Daemon Slayer-class Cruiser)Dux Cornovi (Endurance-class Light Cruiser) - One of two known Endurance-class Light Cruisers that serves in Battlefleet Bakka.Imperial Ghost (Endurance-class Light Cruiser) - One of two known Endurance-class Light Cruisers that serves in Battlefleet Bakka.Emperor's Shield (Endeavour-class Light Cruiser) - The Emperor's Shield is an Endeavour-class Light Cruiser that serves in Battlefleet Bakka. This ship served with great valour during the First Tyrannic War.King Horaxe (Endeavour-class Light Cruiser) - The King Horaxe is an Endeavour-class Light Cruiser that serves in Battlefleet Bakka. This warship served with great valour during the First Tyrannic War.Resolute (Endeavour-class Light Cruiser) - The Resolute is the most famous convoy leader in Battlefleet Bakka. This warship has accounted for more than 17 pirate ships and 204 Attack Craft in its 400-year career. It particularly distinguished itself at Heaven's Split where, with only two under-strength squadrons of Cobras, it fought off continuous waves of Ork Attack Craft for two days until the Escort squadron Silver Wolves drove off the Greenskins. This warship served with great valour during the First Tyrannic War.Starlight (Endeavour-class Light Cruiser) - The Starlight is an Endeavour-class Light Cruiser that serves in Battlefleet Bakka. This warship served with great valour during the First Tyrannic War.Thebes (Siluria-class Light Cruiser) - One of two known Siluria-class Light Cruisers in Battlefleet Bakka, during the Phillipa Campaign the Thebes served with particular renown.Vanguard (Siluria-class Light Cruiser) - One of two known Siluria-class Light Cruisers in Battlefleet Bakka, during the Phillipa Campaign the Vanguard served with particular renown.Truth Eternal (Falchion-class Frigate) - The Truth Eternal was initially commissioned as part of the Prion Subfleet of Battlefleet Bakka, before it was requisitioned by Inquisitor Goldoran Talicto for a secretive mission beyond the Veil Stars. Believed lost for more than a dozen standard years, the frigate returned as part of Battlegroup Caradryan at the great mustering above the Shrine World of Ero. There, with its master denounced as a Heretic by Inquisitor Covenant, the Truth Eternal was involved in the destruction of the famed Reliquary Tower harbouring the sacred bones of Saint Aspira of the Order of the Bloody Rose, leading to the death of several prominent members of the Inquisitorial Conclave that was being held there. Fleeing the system, the Truth Eternal vanished again, only to reappear in the Serpent System and destroy the hidden archive of Talicto while Inquisitor Covenant and Lord Inquisitor Vult were investigating it. Following the discovery that the Renegade Talicto had in fact died years before, Inquisitor Covenant has vowed to track down the Truth Eternal and the secretive masters it now serves. |
Battlefleet Bakka - Notable Squadrons of Battlefleet Bakka: 59th Squadron, "Rat Runners" (Viper-class Destroyers)76th Squadron, "Silver Spears" (Viper-class Destroyers)125th Squadron, "Ghost Wings" (Havoc-class Frigates)"Sons of Ogala" (Havoc-class Frigates) |
Battlefleet Cadia - Battlefleet Cadia: Battlefleet Cadia is a colossal fleet of Imperial Navy vessels charged with the protection of the vital and strategically important Cadian Sector within the Segmentum Obscurus. The Fortress World of Cadia stands at the center of the sector and its people serve as the unflinching sentinels of the Cadian Gate. Battlefleet Cadia aided Battlefleet Gothic during the 12th Black Crusade, known also as the Gothic War, which lasted from 139.M41 until 160.M41. More recently, Battlefleet Cadia suffered severe losses during the recent 13th Black Crusade which occurred in 999.M41. Portions of Cadia are currently occupied by the Forces of Chaos, following the indecisive outcome of this epic conflict. Now that the servants of the Dark Gods have finally established a foothold within Imperial space, Cadia is currently circled by several Imperial Navy battlefleets, including its own, and the maintenance of this space superiority is all that is keeping the Forces of Chaos from staging their first breakout into Imperial space en masse since the end of the Horus Heresy. |
Battlefleet Cadia - Segmentum Obscurus: The Segmentum Obscurus, also known as the Segmentum Obscura, is the region of Imperial space to the galactic north of Terra. This Segmentum of the Imperium of Man is the home of the vast Warp Storm and Warp Rift called the Eye of Terror, the primary home for the Forces of Chaos in the Milky Way Galaxy. The Imperial Navy's Segmentum fleet headquarters is located on Cypra Mundi, which also serves as the central headquarters of the Imperial military's Segmentum Command. The Segmentum Obscurus is the area of the Imperium most often under deadly threat by attacks from the Eye of Terror and is also the site for all of Abaddon the Despoiler's Black Crusades. As such, it currently is home to the majority of the Imperium's armed forces, which were most recently mobilised to a state of readiness not seen since the Horus Heresy as a result of the 13th Black Crusade in 999.M41.The constant turmoil surrounding the Cadian Gate requires Battlefleet Cadia to befar more active than many other battlefleets. The whole sector exists in an almostperpetual state of readiness, and as such the demands on manpower and resources arehuge. Vast numbers of new, inexperienced ratings frequently have to be drawn up toreplace those lost in the constant fighting (many of them drawn from worlds withinthe Cadian System itself such as Vigilatum and Macharia). However, those that survive the harsh first years of military service around the Cadian Gate rapidly mature to become some of the most capable leaders in the Imperium.As with all highly militarised zones, it is important for the Imperial Navy to maintain substantial reserves of vessels around theEye of Terror, ready to deploy as reinforcements should the need arise. Whilst it is possible to keep the vessels themselves ready in this manner, Battlefleet Obscura simply does not possess the manpower to keep reserve crews stationed aboard these vessels as well. Instead, whole orbital shipyards are filled with rows of silent, inactive vessels, often representing classes of warship now outdated or scarce.In times of great need, these ships will be brought into service and crewed with ratings from destroyed or crippled vessels or even with hastily mustered new recruits, meaning the crew is unlikely to have any familiarity with their new vessel. A posting to such a reserve fleet is thus considered an unnerving duty, forcing a rating to enter deep into an unfamiliar vessel which may have lain dormant for centuries. Much superstition surrounds such fleets and perhaps because of this, unusual behaviour of both crew and vessel is rather commonplace. Reserve fleets are used only reluctantly by the Imperial Navy, and only in the most desperate of circumstances, but an invasion the size of Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade without doubt qualifies as exactly that -- the most dire of circumstances, the most desperate of times.In a reserve fleet, all vessels are prone to certain unexpected events, such as mass panic or even mutiny amongst the crew, inexplicable noises, sensor readings and sightings or disconcerting setbacks and failure of machinery. Against Chaos fleets, where the followers of the Dark Gods are able to exert their influence to further unsettle their already nervous opponents, unforeseen events can be even more devastating. |
Battlefleet Cadia - Rising Storm: The beginning of Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade was marked by an escalation in the number of raids on isolated, seemingly insignificant worlds in the sectors outlying the Eye of Terror. Such raids, whilst certainly not unusual, hadpreviously always been the work of small groups of pirates, acting without common motive, and invariably dogged shipping lanes and the like, rather than directly attacking Imperial settlements. This new wave of attacks seemed too highly coordinated, based on far too detailed a plan to simply be the work of the wolf packs. Something terrible was clearly emerging.Rashes of Warp flares erupted all around the Eye of Terror, making travel impossible, disrupting communication and breaking supply lines. Around these Warp flares, small Chaos Warfleets emerged to prey upon those Imperial vessels stranded in small numbers by the inhospitable conditions, brutally massacring them all. Most horrifically, alongside these emergent Chaos fleets, there came reports of weird, ethereal daemon ships, seemingly creatures of the Warp carried into the material realm on the tides of Chaos. Battlefleet Cadia and other Imperial fleets engaged these vessels where they could, though many reported them intangible and elusive, translating to and from the Warp at will, making their ambushes and raids all the more deadly.Patrol groups from all local battlefleets dispersed across the Agripinaa Sector, the target of many of the fiercest and most brutal raids, hunting down and engaging the raiders where they could. The small raiding groups which Imperial command had anticipated invariably turned out to be drastically larger forces, andmany of the Imperial patrols were lost before even being able to give accurate reports of the opposition they faced. It quickly became apparent that a system of patrol and interception would do little more than plug the holes, not cut off the leak.Under such an atmosphere of uncertainty, the decision was made to withdraw fleet resources to dock, where larger, more effective battlegroups could be mustered and a common plan for defence determined. The captains of the returning vessels were grilled for what information they could provide on the growing threat, though so short and bloody had been their defeat that little of use could be gleaned. Confusing reports of Eldar vessels completely ignoring, or even aiding Imperial fleets, baffled many of those present, but the wisest amongst them realised instantly that such unexpected unity could only stem from a common enemy. A foe to trouble even the Eldar was about to descend upon the galaxy, it seemed. |
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