Third War for Armageddon - Total War: As the battles 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 verdant Equatorial Jungles and across 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. Commissar Yarrick personally led assaults by the Imperial Guard's Cadian Storm Troopers supported by the Titans of Legio Metallica and Legio Ignatum which destroyed several of the Ork fortresses, but bloody battles around many of the others consumed whole regiments in only hours. For the rest of the war, the Space Marines bore the brunt of eliminating the Ork fortresses where they could, with the Salamanders Chapter winning particular honour for their successes against the Roks along the Hemlock River.Mysteriously, the Orks also made landings in the Fire Wastes and the Dead Lands to the north and south of the main settled continent of Armageddon. Even Yarrick was surprised as these grim lands had always been believed to be uninhabitable and without value. Their value to the Ork Warboss became apparent when weeks later hundreds of tanker-sized Ork submersibles designed by Orkimedes rose from the polluted waters and made landings at Hives Tempestora and Helsreach. The surprise was total and Tempestora fell within days and the dockyards of Helsreach were soon in Greenskin hands. Only a bitter defiance by Hive Helsreach's ganger militias, with supporting companies of Imperial Guard Storm Troopers and Space Marines that had been rushed to the region, prevented the Orks from overrunning the hive city during what became known as the Battle of Helsreach. It was at Hive Helsreach that the Black Templars Chaplain Grimaldus led the defence of the Temple of the Emperor Ascendant, which had stood since Armageddon's colonization (see below).Fourteen days after the initial Ork landings on the planet, the first major confrontation between Ork and Imperial war engines occurred. A ten-day battle raged over the Diabolus factory complex as the Gargant mobs of Warlord Burzuruk and Warlord Skarfang clashed with the Titans of Legio Crucius. Six Titans and eight Gargants were utterly destroyed in the fighting and others needed many months of repair before they were ready to enter combat again. The Diabolus complex was wrecked by the battle, its great foundries and machine shops blasted apart or crushed underfoot by the giant robotic war machines. In the aftermath of the battle Ork Speed Kults swiftly encircled Hive Infernus, cutting it off from all external aid. Mechanised Imperial counterattacks into the ash wastes met with initial success, but when an entire Imperial Guard regiment of Savlar Chem Dogs was surrounded and wiped out by the Speed Freeks, further attempts by the Imperial defenders of Infernus to break out from Ork encirclement were abandoned.As the defenders pondered how to lift the greenskin siege, reports came in of a vast Ork horde rounding the Pallidus Mountains from the northeast. Soon the horde was visible from the hive's spires, a great sea of greenskin warriors which seemed to fill the empty expanse of the ash wastes to overflowing. Towering Ork Gargants strode through the tide, like dreadnoughts rolling on a sea of green doom. The war chants of the Orks could be heard from over 20 miles away, the ground shaking with the horde's progress. Even worse, the sea of war banners swaying over the Orks bore the personal glyph of Ghazghkull himself.As the skies darkened beneath the shadow of Ork Space Hulks high above the hive city and the first orbital bombardments began, the citizens of Infernus knew that doom was upon them. They tried to take inspiration from the legends of Commissar Yarrick during the previous Ork invasion and how he had made the greenskins pay for every inch of ground they took at Hive Hades. Not all were courageous enough to face their fates and thousands fled into the ash wastes to be killed or captured as slaves by Speed Kults which circled the hive city like buzzards.The Adeptus Arbites Arbitrators within the city soon moved to secure the hive, turning back or outright executing any who failed in their duty to the Emperor. As Ghazghkull's Ork army came within range of the city, the great siege guns that had survived the orbital bombardment pounded them, lobbing thousand pound shells into the mass of greenskins until return fire from the orbiting Space Hulks smashed them apart. In the brief lull that followed, Ghazghkull delivered to the defenders of Infernus a messenger. It was Colonel Gortar of the Chem Dogs, horribly mutilated and missing both his eyes and hands. The message the blind and crippled Colonel bore was a simple one that would be heard many times in the months to come across Armageddon as the war only escalated:Surrender or Die!