vizn3r/warhammer40k-lore huggingface dataset:
Battle of Calth - Legiones Astartes XVIIth Legion "Word Bearers": Of those who arrived under the banner of the Word Bearers, exact information is more difficult to discern, as many units arrived under false colours and forged identification signals. Based on the pict-recordings of surviving Ultramarines units and other sources, the following Word Bearers chapters are known to have been presnet, at least in part, during the Calth atrocity:The Exalted Gate ChapterThe Unspeaking ChapterThe Twisting Rune ChapterThe Third Hand ChapterThe Black Comet ChapterThe Osseus Throne ChapterThe Graven Star ChapterThe Asps of the Sacred Sands ChapterThe Flayed Hand ChapterThe Inscribed ChapterThe Trifold Crown ChapterIn total, it is believed that the Word Bearers deployed no less than 50,000 Space Marines to the surface of Calth, few of which were evacuated. There appears no tactical basis for the chapters selected by Lorgar to participate in the Calth attack. Evidence acquired long after the events of the Battle of Calth suggests that these units were instead chosen for lack of devotion to Lorgar's new path or because of dangerous instability. In this, Calth served as the Word Bearers' crucible, burning away those elements of the Legion which had failed to prove themselves adequately to their fickle master.
Battle of Calth - Word Bearers Fleet: Crown of Colchis Destiny’s Hand – Battle-Barge, flagship of Dark Apostle ErebusFlame of PurityInfidus Imperator – Grand Cruiser, flagship of First Captain Kor PhaeronLiber ColchisSpear of Sedros
Battle of Calth - Traitor Titan Legions: Legio Suturvora (Infernus) - "The Fire Masters" - Secret agents of the Warmaster, the powerful Legio Suturvora was deployed at full strength to the Calth muster with the goal of destroying the Loyalist Titan force. The Legio, comprising at least 130 Titans, was further reinforced by a demi-Legio of the Legio Mortis.
Battle of Calth - Traitor Axuilia Units: In addition to Legiones Astartes assets, a great mass of cultic auxiliary units that accompanied the Word Bearers which may have numbered in excess of half a million men-under-arms, though the proficiency and sanity of most was questionable:The Ushmetar Kaul, "The Brotherhood of the Knife" - Largest and most effective of the warp cults deployed by the Word Bearers to Calth. The cult force was, it appears, organised into between 10-20 sub-sects, each at least 10,000 strong. Recorded as engaging in the most violent rites before, after and even during battle.The Tzenvar Kaul, "The Recursive Kin" - Observed to number many thousands of Abhumans and Mutants in their ranks, ranking them as third-line troops suitable only for hazardous environment labour, forlorn hope operations and Zone Mortalis "clearance" duties. Largely wiped out by counterattacks when the Ultramarines regained control of Calth's defence grid and initiated a heavy bombardment of Traitor units from orbit.The Jeharwanate, "The Ring" - Largely wiped out by counterattacks when the Ultramarines regained control of Calth's defence grid and initiated a heavy bombardment of Traitor units from orbit.The Kaul Mandari, "The Gene-kin" - Very little is known other than that this unusual cultic sect was bound by some aberrant combination of technology and genetics to the service of the Warp in such a way that they believed utterly they would be re-born immediately after their deaths into a new and glorious form. Accounts submitted by Ultramarines units following the Battle of Calth and the subsequent Underworld War describe incidents of spontaneous mutation as well as the bodily re-vivification of the dead. These baleful creatures were impervious to pain and trauma. Killing the returned Mandari took bravery, discipline and concentrated fire.
Battle of Calth - Traitor Auxilia Peronnel: Criol Fowst, Confided LieutenantVil Teth, Gene-named
Battle of Calth - Canon Conflict: According to the novel Know No Fear, the Battle of Calth concluded just short of twenty-four hours after the Word Bearers launched their assault, a moment the Ultramarines later called Mark Zero, while the ground forces were evacuating the surface to escape the poisoned sun's radiation; however, according to the audio book Garro: Oath of Moment, the Ultramarines' 21st Company has been dug in "for days" following the initial Word Bearers attack.
Battle of Carrion Deep - Battle of Carrion Deep: The Battle of Carrion Deep was a campaign fought by the Executioners Space Marine Chapter against the then-unidentified, ancient xenos menace known as the Necrons. Responding to a series of frantic distress calls from Imperial deep-range outposts, the forces of the Executioners' 2nd Company found themselves in desperate struggle against an awakened threat stirring in the Dead Worlds near the Veiled Region on the edge of the Segmentum Tempestus. Discovering nothing but a trail of shattered ruins and empty bastions where Imperial watchposts should be, the Executioners were ambushed in the wreckage of the Imperial frontier base on the Dead World of Carrion Deep. Their attackers were terrifying metallic spectres whose weapons made a mockery of the strongest armour and who re-assembled and reanimated themselves even when blown apart. Surrounded and outnumbered by foes that would not die, it was only through the dauntless leadership and wise cunning of the Executioners' Reclusiarch Thulsa Kane that they were able to survive.Drawing upon the ancient chronicles of the Chapter for guidance, Thulsa Kane led the trapped Executioners in a furious counter-assaultagainst a single point on the enemy line. The Executioners grappled at close quarters with their monstrous metal foes where the Space Marines' speed and ferocity could be brought into play. Thulsa Kane himself sought out and confronted the enemy leader, a towering personification of death clad in blighted gold and tattered cloth. After a titanic clash of arms which left Kane's Crozius Arcanum broken and his right eye withered in his skull, he managed to strike the monster down, enabling his brethren to escape, and as much as many wanted to fight on to the bitter end, Kane's will prevailed. Less than a third of the Astartes force succeeded in breaking out of the trap their undying foes had set for them and retreated off-planet. This victory alone is counted as nearly miraculous, and brought back to the Imperium one of the first confirmed and detailed battle reports by a surviving force against the awakening ancient menace later identified as the Necrons. Carrion Deep remains under quarantine by Imperial edict.
Battle of Diamat - Battle of Diamat: The Battle of Diamat was a minor engagement of the Horus Heresy fought in 005.M31, shortly after the events of the Istvaan III Atrocity where the Warmaster Horus revealed his perfidy and openly declared war against the Emperor of Mankind. To ensure that the Traitors would be denied vital war materiel, the Dark Angels Legion deployed a small strike force to the Mechanicum Forge World of Diamat.They were to secure heavy Ordinatii siege engines that were held by the Traitor forces. Though the Dark Angels would eventually emerge victorious and secure these powerful weapons of mass of destruction, they would unwittingly hand them over to a supposed "ally" -- the Iron Warriors of Perturabo, whose secret allegiance to the Warmaster was unknown at the time to the Dark Angels Primarch Lion El'Jonson.
Battle of Diamat - History: When word reached the Dark Angels of the Istvaan III Atrocity, Lion El'Jonson and the I Legion were bogged down fighting a campaign against the Gordian League. Therefore, the Lion led a small war fleet of 16 vessels against the Forge World of Diamat, in order to seize Ordinatii heavy siege engines present there and deny them to the Traitors. He encountered some resistance from vessels in orbit of the world led by several Grand Cruisers loyal to the Warmaster's cause. After a fierce naval battle, the outnumbered Dark Angels prevailed with minimal losses thanks to the tactical abilities of their Primarch.The Dark Angels then landed at Diamat's principle forge-city, sweeping aside what little resistance they encountered from Traitor Imperial Army forces and a Sons of Horus company stationed on the planet's surface. This battle was made more difficult by the betrayal of the Diamat's ruling Magos Archoi and his Skitarii Legions, who sided with the Traitors. In the wake of his victory, The Lion ordered the destruction of the planet's primary forges, which annihilated the remaining Traitor forces present on the world in a great conflagration and denied to Horus Diamat's manufacturing capabilities.In the battle's aftermath, El'Jonson encountered the Legion fleet of the Iron Warriors, led by the Primarch Perturabo, who were on their way to Istvaan V to "pacify" the treacherous Warmaster. Unaware of their secret loyalty to Horus and his ambitions, the Lion unwittingly handed over the captured Ordinatii engines to be used against Horus, as he believed they would be more useful on Istvaan V than with the Dark Angels. This proved prescient, but not in the way The Lion had intended.
Battle of Faith's Anchorage - Battle of Faith's Anchorage: The Battle of Faith's Anchorage was fought between the forces of Chaos and the Imperium in the Agripinaa System in the days immediately after the 13th Black Crusade and the Fall of Cadia in ca. 999.M41.The Heretic Astartes of multiple warbands and Traitor Legions and their mortal allies sought to destroy the fleeing remnants of Cadia's defenders among Battlefleet Cadia and the regiments of the Cadian Shock Troops commanded by Admiral d'Armitage and General Maximus Octavian Grüber III, respectively, but were ultimately driven from the system in the wake of this pivotal battle by the combined forces of the Imperial Navy, the Cadian Shock Troops of the Astra Militarum and the Space Wolves Chapter.
Battle of Fordris - Battle of Fordris: The Battle of Fordris was a military action fought between the Orks of a WAAAGH! led by the Warboss Skullkrak and the Necrons of the recently reawakened desert Tomb World of Fordris at some time in the late 41st Millennium. Skullkrak and his Orks were easily defeated by the Necron forces on the planet, who used the campaign as a test of their growing capabilities to combat and conquer the "lesser races" which inhabited the region of space around Fordris.
Battle of Gyros-Thravian - Battle of Gyros-Thravian: Battle of Gyros-ThravianGreat CrusadeOrkWarlordGharkul BlackfangSpace Marine LegionsLuna WolvesDeath GuardImperial FistsGreenskinImperialIt was then that the Emperor Himself, aboard His orbiting flagship Bucephelus, came to the aid of His Primarch sons and their Astartes. He personally led a force composed of 1,000 Legio Custodes into the heart of the mighty Ork horde. Blackfang was confronted by the Emperor and killed atop his Gargant while the Custodians proceeded to lay waste to the rest of the Greenskin horde.The Custodians accounted for the slaughter of the Orks, slaying over 100,000 of the savage xenos, with the loss of only three Custodians. Following their momentous victory, the Emperor commemorated their sacrifice by engraving the names of the three fallen Custodians into His personal Power Armour.
Battle of Helsreach - Battle of Helsreach: The Battle of Helsreach was an Imperial effort to defend the vital industrial port hive city of Helsreach on the Hive World of Armageddon from a massive Ork assault that was a part of the great Ork WAAAGH! of the Warlord Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka during the Third War for Armageddon in 999.M41.Hive Helsreach was one of the largest and most populous hive cities on the sub-continent of Armageddon Secundus and an important strategic and industrial asset to the forces of the Imperium of Man.Hive Helsreach was the only notable port facility and refinery complex on the shores of the Tempest Ocean. Helsreach specialised in processing raw materials and crude petroleum brought in by ship and pipeline from the drilling platforms located off the coast of the subcontinent of Armageddon Secundus and the frigid Deadlands in the south.Helsreach also produced promethium fuel for half of the hive cities on Armageddon Secundus -- without it, the planet's capacity to provide fuel for its own defence would be severely hindered.The Orks unleashed a great assault on Helsreach at the very beginning of the war. Although the Greenskins' attack left the hive city virtually demolished, they did not succeed in dislodging the Imperial defenders before the dawn of the planet's Season of Fire, which forced both sides to abandon combat operations.
Battle of Helsreach - End Game: Although the Orks made enormous progress against the Imperial defenders at Hive Helsreach and had the city at their mercy, ultimately they did not succeed in conquering it. Two solar months after the battle had begun, the fighting was interrupted by the dawning of Armageddon's Season of Fire -- a climactic phenomenon during which the planet witnesses the fury of its many volcanoes and the surface is showered with noxious ash.These conditions made virtually all combat operations impossible to carry out, and forced both sides to seek shelter.The Orks remained in portions of the hive city, but the rest retreated to their footholds or scurried away into underground openings. This allowed the Imperium to regain control around the vital areas of the hive city that they held.Several people survived the collapse of the Temple of the Emperor Ascendant, notably amongst them Reclusiarch Grimaldus -- the only surviving Black Templar -- who thanks to his power armour, and apparently sheer willpower, raised himself from the rubble carrying the Imperial relics housed within the destroyed temple.He was taken aboard the Eternal Crusader, the Black Templars flagship, to be examined by the Chapter's Apothecaries, and gifted with the relics he recovered to carry Helsreach's memory and honour in the Eternal Crusade.Shortly thereafter, Grimaldus came back to the hive city and returned the relics to its surviving citizens. For his service to the people of the city, he was declared the "Hero of Helsreach."
Battle of Helsreach - Aftermath: Imperial commanders hailed the Battle of Helsreach as a victory, but in point of fact it was far from it. Although the Imperium retains control of the hive city for the time being, large areas of the city still bear the stain of Ork presence.Armour units have been despatched to destroy Ork Roks to the northeast of the city, but the Orks within the hive remain a constant threat, in particular those who have scurried into the "Maze" -- a system of tunnels and pipelines located underneath Hel's Highway.Entrances to the Maze were opened by the falling xenos spacecraft in the beginning of the war, and the Orks took advantage of these rents in the ground to find shelter for the season. The majority of the Maze's workforce is dead, and Imperial authorities do not know if the xenos are capable of using the underground tunnels to relocate throughout the city.In order to diminish the threat of Ork attacks, the Imperium has begun utilising a new chemical agent, a neurotoxin crafted to be used as a weapon against the Greenskins -- to some effect. Entire groups of Orks have been found dead after the release of this weapon.How stable the compound is has yet to ascertained. Tests on the recovered Ork carcasses reveal a 7% range of genetic mutation in the DNA structure of afflicted Greenskin cells -- which translates into an acceptable 1% chance of the toxin mutating to Human-lethal levels.In addition to its still-contested status, the hive city took staggering damage. As it is now, its population, in particular qualified worker cadres, is decimated, its industry is essentially non-existent -- currently Hive Helsreach possesses an estimated 5% of its original industrial capacity -- and with both the docks and Hel's Highway inoperable, the only reliable connection the hive city has with the rest of the world is through air transport.Helsreach was an important hive city of Armageddon, due its production of promethium fuel and due to it being the only major port on the coast of the Tempest Ocean. As an industrial production centre it is now utterly worthless.Cirmustances are similar in the other hive cities of the planet, which is a bad omen for the world. Armageddon is regarded as one of the most important worlds of the Imperium, due to its large industrial production and vast manpower to feed the Armageddon Steel Legion regiments.Armageddon gives much to the Imperium, and as such enjoys a privileged position. If it can no longer offer much, the Imperium may turn away, and the planet will remain a blasted ruin fought over by the remaining Imperial and Ork forces.
Battle of Macragge - Battle of Macragge: The Battle of Macragge was the greatest test ever faced by the Ultramarines Chapter of Space Marines when they confronted and defeated the first invasion of the Milky Way Galaxy by the Tyranids of Hive Fleet Behemoth in 745.M41, bringing an end to the First Tyrannic War.The victory would lead to several changes in the Chapter's tactical organisation and doctrine to fight this new threat, including the introduction of the Tyrannic War Veterans.
Battle of Macragge - The Siege of Macragge: The survivors of the Ultramarines 1st Company were still believed to be fighting amongst the defence laser silos of the northern citadel, but all contact with them had been lost after the Tyranids overran the surface outposts. Of the southern garrison, nothing was known. Calgar, feeling that the situation was becoming critical, sent the 3rd and 7th Ultramarines Companies ahead in their fast Strike Cruisers while his remaining damaged ships limped back to Macragge. The Space Marines of the 3rd and 7th Companies deployed onto the poles by Drop Pod, their supporting units following up in Thunderhawk gunships. Scenes of unbelievable carnage awaited them below.Piles of mangled Tyranid corpses and shattered wargear lay strewn across the ice. Vast, steaming craters pocked the snows where Titan plasma reactors had gone critical. The stench of death lay everywhere. The 7th Company landed unopposed at the southern fortress and quickly linked up with the survivors of the garrison above ground. Together they pushed on to clear the subterranean passages that the Tyranids had overrun.In the north of Macragge, the 3rd Company came under attack as soon as it landed. Hundreds of creatures emerged from dark tunnel mouths and shattered Imperial bunkers to assail the Space Marines. Only staunch fire laid down by the company's Devastator Squads kept the alien swarm at bay until Thunderhawk gunships arrived to blast the Tyranids back into the darkness. Captain Fabian of the 3rd Company prudently awaited the arrival of the company's 3 Dreadnoughts before proceeding into the fortress itself to search for survivors.The dark, dank corridors beneath the northern fortress were already altered by the alien presence. Mucous dripped from the walls and ceilings and a pervasive musky stench filled the air. Alien screams and roars echoed and reverberated along the tunnels. The Space Marines pushed onward into corridors littered with Tyranid and Ultramarines dead, the darkness reluctantly receding before their suit lights. Chameleoid Lictors lay in ambush amongst the corpses, slashing into the advance squads in an orgy of destruction. Eventually the forward squads used flamers to burn their way along the passages and flush out their enemy. Even as fire consumed them, the creatures still leapt forward with claws outstretched to rend and slay.
Battle of Macragge - The War in Space: The battle on the ground had fared poorly, but the war in space was nothing less than disastrous. The first assault wave of the Tyranid fleet had claimed the mighty Battle Barge Caesar. The third wave saw the destruction of the better part of Ultramar's merchant fleet as a swarm of Void Fiends slipped through the perimeter breach caused by the Caesar's destruction. By the ninth wave, Macragge's Starnova stations had become bloody charnel houses, rendered into mere hunks of debris left spinning in the cold void of space. When the twelfth assault wave occurred, the orbital defences of Macragge were all but obliterated. Macragge now lay undefended, and the Tyranid invasion intensified.The Hive Ships capitalised on their victory, releasing thousands upon thousands of Mycetic Spores directly onto Macragge's polar fortresses. However, the war in space was not yet concluded. Refusing all but the most vital medical aid, Calgar took command of the surviving vessels and began to harry the Hive Fleet as it spread out to surround Macragge. Its forces deployed on the planet's surface, the Hive Mind chose to withdraw its bio-ships from Macragge in order to lure the defending ships away and thus preventing them from coming to the polar fortresses' aid. Calgar took the Tyranids' bait, and pursued the Tyranid fleet toward the ringed world of Circe at the edge of the Macragge System, but not without a plan of his own.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. Even now, the Imperial fleet was overmatched, for the Tyranids were too many. However, the Hive Mind's victory was short-lived. The battle would have been lost save for the heroic sacrifice of the great Battleship Dominus Astra.Charging into the heart of the Hive Fleet, the huge Emperor-class Battleship detonated its Warp-Drives, creating a Warp vortex that dragged both it and the entire Tyranid fleet to oblivion. Caught between the guns of two Imperial fleets, nearly all of Hive Fleet Behemoth’s bio-ships were destroyed. A scant few, scarred and battered, slipped away into the depths of space. Though it had suffered a grievous defeat, the galaxy had not heard the last of Behemoth. With the Hive Fleet destroyed, Calgar's surviving starships came about and roared back to Macragge to try to save the beleaguered polar garrisons.
Battle of Macragge - Last Stand of the 1st Company: In truth, the war was won at Circe. The only question that remained was whether Macragge would be lost in the process. Whilst battle raged in space, the valour of the Ultramarines was being tested as never before on the surface. Through darkness and terrors unimaginable, the 3rd Company finally reached the lower Penitorium where the Astartes defenders had made their last stand. Tyranid bodies were piled six deep around the doors, and within the room a circle of Terminators lay where they had fought back to back. Each had given his life for his brothers. The Ultramarines' 1st Company had been wiped out to the last man.The Battle of Macragge remains a great source of both sorrow and pride for the Ultramarines. The names of its fallen are commemorated each year at the Feast of Days, their sacrifice remembered throughout Ultramar with honour and gratitude. But the cost had been great. The Ultramarines 1st Company was gone and the 3rd and 7th sorely diminished. It would be many long years before the Chapter could properly replace its losses, but replace them it would. The Ultramarines would endure.
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 - 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.