Howling Griffons - Notable Campaigns: Commorragh Raid (Unknown Date.M35) - The Howling Griffons were one of the three Space Marine Chapters, including the Salamaders and the Silver Skulls, who took part in the Space Marine raid on the Drukhari Dark City of Commorragh to rescue the Salamanders' strike cruiser Forgehammer from the Drukhari's sadistic clutches.Arios Point Massacre (220.M38) - For much of their history, the Howling Griffons have regarded the traitorous Word Bearers Legion as their greatest enemies. The precise origin of their specific conflict with these Heretics is unclear. Throughout the Chapter's early history, there were countless incidents of assaults against the Traitor Legion. Both forces suffered grievous losses in these battles, as the full fury of their Astartes were unleashed in these savage battles. It was the massacre at Arios Point in 220.M38 that finally pushed the Howling Griffons far beyond the tipping point in their lust for vengeance against the Word Bearers. The Chapter Master at that time was Orlando Furioso. He was travelling aboard one of the Chapter's Battle Barges, along with the 8th Company and much of the Veteran 1st Company. They were en route to the Chapter's homeworld of Mancora, to celebrate the 5,000th anniversary of the Chapter's Founding. When the Battle Barge stopped in the Arios Point System to resupply, the Chaos Lord Periclitor the Foresworn led a combined force of Word Bearers and Night Lords Chaos Space Marines in ambush against the Loyalists. The Howling Griffons were caught tragically unprepared for battle against so overwhelming an enemy force. In short order, their ancient vessel was destroyed after a brutal boarding action. The surviving Space Marines made landfall aboard their Thunderhawks on the surface of the nearby world of Arios Quintus. The barren world offered little protection for the outnumbered members of the Howling Griffons. Soon, those who survived the destruction of their Battle Barge were overwhelmed by the coordinated assault of the Traitor Legionaries. None were left alive, and the Chaotic forces seized much of the Chapter's wargear, including precious and virtually irreplaceable gear that had been the province of the 1st Company and the Chapter Master's Honour Guard. The bodies of those slain were desecrated and their gene-seed either destroyed or stolen. The only body recovered by the Chapter was that of Chapter Master Furioso. The Traitors mounted it upon his Thunderhawk and left it in orbit of Arios Quintus, as a sign to any who might see it. Months later, other members of the Howling Griffons tracked down the missing starship and company, and recovered the Chapter Master's body and gene-seed. After this tragedy, all members of the Howling Griffons Chapter swore oaths of vengeance against Periclitor, who eventually ascended to become a Daemon Prince, and the Word Bearers. As each new member is recruited, the oath is recited once more. The two forces have engaged in countless skirmishes and even several major conflicts since the massacre.Dennar IV Suppression (109.M40) - The Dennar IV Suppression was an Imperial military campaign carried out by the Howling Griffons against Chaos Cultists on the Agri-World of Dennar IV in 109.M40. During their long search for the Word Bearers Chaos Space Marine warband of Deklamus the Vaunted, the Howling Griffons 3rd Company under Captain Penvath Joachim responded to a planetary distress call from the world of Dennar IV in the Sangramentia Sector. This important supply world for the sector had succumbed to rot from within as the worship of the Ruinous Powers took root amid its flenser-cults and cult-clans. As the Howling Griffons descended on Dennar IV, they found only a handful of its city-states holding out against the horde of Chaos Cultists and daemon-possessed madmen, their walls packed with refugees fleeing the tide of mass-murder that had engulfed the planet. Vastly outnumbered, the Howling Griffons deployed to the savannah, and wielding their superiority in armour and air power to stay mobile and spearhead assaults against the Heretics, smashed the cult forces in great scything sweeps before driving onwards to relieve the city sieges. The Loyalist inhabitants of Dennar greeted the Howling Griffons as divinely-sent saviours, and gladly rallied to aid them in liberating their world from the dark forces that assailed it, selling their lives alongside the Space Marines. The remaining campaign was bloody and ruthless, ever-afterward casting a nightmarish pall over the memory of Dennar's people. Since this victory, the Howling Griffons have maintained a lasting oath to protect the planet and the memory of the many martyred there for their loyalty to the Emperor, while the people of Dennar IV have kept faith with their saviours in providing them with victuals and the pick of their youth as Chapter recruits.Valerian Purges (Unknown Date.M41) - The Howling Griffons, with the Imperial Guard's 108th Cadian Regiment, the "Wyverns", saw action in the Valerian Purges.Jorun Retaliation (143.M41) - The Jorun Retaliation was an Imperial military campaign prosecuted by the Howling Griffons against the treachery of General Jorun of the 15th Heraklon Ironclads Imperial Guard Battlegroup in 143.M41. This entire Imperial battle group should have been on its way to reinforce the lines of the Gothic War but instead turned Traitor in 109.M41 and slaughtered their Commissariat representatives. The Imperium moved to act with decisive force as the foul taint of the xenos known as the Drukhari was found to be the root cause of this perfidy, with Jorun and his personal cadre laid low and corrupted by addiction to the aliens' foul psychotropics and depraved practices, thanks to the dark arts of the Kabal of the Crimson Libation. The Humans were no more than disposable tools used by the Drukhari to enslave planetary populations by treachery and brute force, with little risk to the aliens themselves. This could not remain unpunished, and the retaliation force the Imperium launched in 143.M41 was fully intended to smash the Heraklons and their dark allies with brutal and overwhelming power, annihilating them without regard or mercy. The combined taskforce was comprised of the Howling Griffons Chapter (then about eight companies in effective strength) who were given overall command of the campaign, and reinforced with supporting companies from the Ultramarines and the Sons of Orar Chapters. The Traitor Guardsmen were intercepted as they made planetfall on the Feral World of Asturia. Caught unprepared for such a fierce counter-assault, over 5,000 Renegade Guardsmen died in the first hour of the ferocious Space Marine attack, torn apart on their landing zones with much of their heavy armour yet to be unlimbered. As the battle was joined in full, the task of destroying the Traitors' command fell to Chaplain Armand Titus and the Howling Griffons 4th Battle Company, who executed a Drop Pod assault into the heart of the disoriented enemy. Confronting not only the elite of General Jorun's Ogryn cadre, but also the inhumanly lithe and cruel forms of the Drukhari that rose around him, the Howling Griffons despatched them with Bolter fire and unshakeable resolve. It was Titus who fought his way to the Traitor general and delivered the Emperor's judgement despite suffering grievous wounds tainted with vile Drukhari poisons, cleaving Jorun's skull in half with his Crozius Arcanum. He would later be enshrined with all due reverence within a Dreadnought sarcophagus, in order to continue his service to his Chapter. The Traitors' morale collapsed with the death of their leader and the swift desertion of their foul xenos allies. The disordered and panicking Heraklons were ruthlessly hunted down and slain in the aftermath. The Renegade forces were utterly wiped out within only six hours of the battle's opening salvos.Badab War (901-912.M41) - The Howling Griffons were assigned to convoy duties during the Badab War, allowing the Red Scorpions and Fire Hawks to return to their normal duties.Caradryad Sector (905-906.M41) - Shortly before the Badab War, the Howling Griffons 4th Company as well as parts of their 6th, 10th and 1st Companies, carried out a lengthy search-and-destroy campaign within the Caradryad Sector. It can be safely assumed that a large number of planetary assaults were carried out during this action as the Howling Griffons were severely lacking in Thunderhawks and Drop Pods when answering the call for aid in the Badab War as they did not have the chance to return to Mancora and resupply their stocks of materiel.Amar Persecution (951.M41) - Rapid strikes by the Howling Griffon brought the Amar Secession to a swift and bloody end.Liberation of Vanqualis (Unknown Date.M41) - The world of Vanqualis was under attack by Orks when the Howling Griffons and the Astra Militarum's 901st Penal Legion defeated the Greenskin tide. Shortly after landing, the Howling Griffons turned on the Renegade Soul Drinkers Chapter, believing them to be the bearers of a Chaos artefact called the Black Chalice.Siege of the Fenris System (999.M41) - The Howling Griffons were one of the twelve Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes to accompany the Dark Angels during the Siege of the Fenris System by the Thousand Sons Traitor Legion of Magnus the Red.13th Black Crusade (ca. 999.M41) - During the 13th Black Crusade the Howling Griffons sent 8 companies to aid the Imperial defence. The 1st Company of the Howling Griffons, including Chapter Master Alvaro, were based on the Chapter battle barge Force of Destiny, and were engaged in the persecution of a particularly vicious company of Night Lords Chaos Space Marines known as the "Chosen", commanded by the infamous Daemon Prince Periclitor. It was widely known that the Howling Griffons harboured a particularly deep hatred of this Daemon Prince. While that hatred served the greater needs of the Imperium's defence against the forces of Chaos, no other authority sought to question Alvaro's actions. The howling Griffons discovered the Throne Temple of Periclitor on a nameless Daemon World in the Eye of Terror, carved into a mountain range rising from a sea of Daemons that stretched to every horizon. To their horror, one of the dozens of eyes in Periclitor's hideous Daemonic face was that of  Orlando Furioso himself, the Chapter Master of the Howling Griffons Periclitor had slain on Arios Quintus, forever rolling in pain. Many of the Chapter fell to the assault of the Daemon Prince, including the captain of the Howling Griffons' 4th Company, before Chief Librarian Mercaeno was able to slay Periclitor and banish him back to the Warp after battling for a solar night and a day atop the mountain peak. In the wake of their victory, the Howling Griffons do not allow Periclitor's name to even be spoken in their presence by outsiders.Assault on Amistel Majoris - Seven of the eight companies dispatched by the Howling Griffons to serve in the Imperial defence during the 13th Black Crusade became engaged in a gruelling trench-war on Amistel Majoris. Having broken through the Death Guard Plague Fleet blockading the world, the 2nd to 8th Companies arrived in time to bolster the Imperial Guard forces of the Drookian Fenguard, who were suffering horrific losses to the hell-spawned epidemics unleashed by the Traitor forces arrayed against them. Within days, the Howling Griffons and the Legio Astorum Titans were the only force able to man the extensive defences constructed by the Drookians. Any warrior caught in the open and not protected by power armour when the plague winds hit were ensured an excruciating death, and an eternity of servitude as a Plague Zombie in Nurgle's legions of the undead. The Iron Knights sent their elite 1st Company to help bolster the flagging defences of the Howling Griffons, as they fought a gruelling trench war against the unremitting assaults of the Plague Marines of the Death Guard Traitor Legion. The warzone soon became a plague-ridden quagmire, the decomposing bodies of the Plague God's victims forming putrid, sucking swamps through which the defenders were forced to wade in order to bring battle to their foes.Indomitus Crusade (ca. 999.M41) - Led by their Chapter Master Alvaro, the Howling Griffons participated in the Indomitus Crusade of their resurrected Primarch Roboute Guilliman that marked the first century of the 42nd Millennium and helped to stablise the Imperium in the wake of the birth of the Great Rift.War of Beasts (ca. 001-025.M42) -  The Howling Griffons deployed three companies to the world of Vigilus to defend that all important terminus of the Nachmund Gauntlet connecting the Imperium Sanctus and Imperium Nihilus through the Great Rift.Plague Wars (ca. 012.M42) - The Howling Griffons provided 6 companies to aid the Ultramarines in the defence of the Realm of Ultramar from the assault by the servants of the Plague God Nurgle during the Plague Wars.Battle of Malak (Arks of Omen Campaign) (Unknown Date.M42) - The Howling Griffons participated in the battle for the Malak System. In the 37th Millennium, the planetary governor of Malakhvar, Saint Gedwael "The Builder," built a great many shrines to the Emperor upon Malakbael. These machinations led him to oversee the construction of a series of formidable fortresses, orbital defence stations, Defense Lasers, and intra-system communications/detection networks across the Malak System. However until the Era Indomitus, the system was considered a wholly unremarkable place within the Imperium. Yet, after the discovery of the mysterious artefact called the Choral Engine on Malakbael by Inquisitor Glori Emagna, Malakbael became a vital strategic world for the Imperium. The Glori Emagna was a relic of the Age of Technology which had the ability to act as a localised psychic beacon similar to the Astronomican -- a prospect which could greatly improve the ability to navigate within the Imperium Nihilus. As such, it became the mustering point for the Indomitus Crusade Fleet Quartus under the command of Fleetmaster Trincus Abconcis, who assembled a great host there, including contingents of the Howling Griffons, in preparation to defend the system from an expected Chaos attack after a warning was delivered by the Grey Knights. In the subsequent Battle of Malak, Malakbael was assailed by the forces of the World Eaters Traitor Legion led by the Daemon Primarch Angron himself, who was attracted by the Choral Engine. In the final stages of the battle, Angron was empowered by Khorne to destroy the Choral Engine, causing a catastrophic chain reaction which saw the entire world of Malakbael blown apart. Left in its wake is a large Warp rift from which Daemons of Khorne routinely erupt. The other worlds of the Malak System were battered with debris and badly damaged following Malakbael's destruction.