Idolater Crusades

Void Paladins armorial.

The **Idolater Crusades** was a series of Imperial castigation actions carried out alongside several other newly founded chapters as a part of a larger campaign by the Void Paladins Space Marine Chapter to eradicate the threat of the Forces of Chaos in the Eastern Fringe.

## Background

In a campaign that lasted just under a century, a series of Imperial castigation actions were launched by the Imperium of man against several Chaos Space Marine Warbands lead by the Battleforged that had been rampaging their way through dozens of worlds within the Eastern Fringe. Half a dozen loyalist chapters fought with their full strength alongside millions of guardsmen and a fleet of naval warships to combat this sub sector sized bastion of Chaos.

### Conclusion & Aftermath

Even with the Forces of Chaos using daemons and other warpcraft, they were killed or pushed out of the sector after 98 years of intense fighting. The Void Paladins lost over 85% of its number in this crusade and didn't return to full strength for almost a millennium. In this time of recovery the first Rorarii regiments were created to fill the gap left by the lack of Astartes.

## Involved Military Forces

### Loyalists

Mentored by the already established Hussars Sanguine, the newly founded Angels of the Blade, Iron Myrmidons, Palatine Vindicators, the Hussars' own successor the Praetorians of Blood, & the Void Paladins were the primary assault forces for the crusade. Each brought their own specialties to the fight, and were quick to see the merits of each other's strengths. Both the Angels of the Blade and the Void Paladins were fleet based chapters and excelled in the void warfare that raged across the crusade. The firepower and vehicle prowess of the Iron Myrmidons as well as their ability to survive in Zone Mortalis combat mixed well with the point blank fury of the Praetorians of Blood, who became more defensive minded than most of the sons of Sanguinius following their exposure to the cybernetic sons of Dorn. The Palatine Vindicators held a jack of trades approach that, coupled with their massive armoury of older and more rare patterns of equipment, allowed them to fit in with any battle plan and performed beyond expectations across the board. Each of these chapters had a full Clan from the Hussars Sanguine mixed with their forces to inspire as much as reinforce the newer marines, with the Count-Primus himself moving around from each Clan to personally oversee each chapter at some point. The Imperial Guard supplied several dozen regiments while the Imperial Navy brought forth a large fleet of warships including 15 Capital ships and dozens of Cruisers, both were used to help hold the territory taken from the astartes advances as well as press their own assaults when possible.

### Heretics

The Battleforged fought the Imperial forces with the entirety of their warhost, thousands of Khornate warriors backed by a massive amount of firepower. Under the command of the Battleforged was a millions strong host of cultists and guardsmen pulled from the occupied systems as much as Imperial traitors, as well as several small warbands of chaos astartes that joined for the slaughter. The chaos fleet that was assembled was smaller than the loyalist fleet but contained more Capital ships and Cruisers as well as orbital defense stations to position around. The rest of the fleet was made up of a large mix of smaller vessel classes, most being converted pirate ships or turncoat Corvettes.