Maelstrom Warders - War on the Horizon: Freed from their inglorious garrison duty, the Astral Claws intervened in the aftermath of the infamous Fourth Quadrant Rebellion, which had troubled the Imperium for many decades. Gathering in a mixed taskforce comprising of various companies from the Astral Claws, Fire Hawks, White Scars, and Celestian Guard Chapters, backed by Death Korps of Krieg and Kol-Sec Imperial Guard regiments and the Titans from Legio Venator, Lufgt Huron was elected battle leader by common consent. Under his inspired command, the taskforce ruthlessly eradicated the heavily fortified Lycanthos System of Traitor and Chaos forces in under a year. However, Stibor Lazaerek, Chapter Master of the Fire Hawks, continued to harbour a grudge over the fact that Huron was given overall command despite his seniority as a Chapter Master. This grudge would fester over the coming years until finally it would bear the fruit of bitterness.Seeking to capitalise on this glorious victory, in 869.M41 the Astral Claws, at the instigation of their Chapter Master, the Black Templars declared a Crusade of Wrath into the Maelstrom, assaulting it from the eastward approach. Meanwhile the Astral Claws, Lamenters and Mantis Warriors launched their own assaults from the southern and north-eastern approaches. Thanks in no small part to Huron's brilliant strategic planning as well as the mettle of the Maelstrom Warders and the Black Templars, they achieved a stunning victory against 23 alien or heretic stronghold worlds. Unfortunately, wider events intervened, once again putting a premature end to the Astral Claws plans, as the Black Templars were called away to aid the beleaguered realm of Ultramar in the wake of the Tyrannic War. Having already suffered substantial losses in the campaign, the Warder Chapters were forced to withdraw from the Maelstrom, much to Huron's fury.Matters worsened once again, not only within the Maelstrom Zone but the wider Imperium as well, as the threat of Hive Fleet Behemoth left the defences of the Segmentum Ultima in disarray, and wars and rumours of wars as far as the Eye of Terror and the Ghoul Stars threatened to erupt, as well as galaxy-wide revolts and other strange phenomena. Soon crisis followed crisis, and in the dying years of the 800s.M41, Lufgt Huron saw the Maelstrom Zone slipping from his grasp and all the victories the Warders had gained began to crumble, and so in an attempt to tighten his grip, he remained unaware that elsewhere events were moving against him. It would not be long before the brooding Tyrant of Badab would spark into violence, and the Imperium would once again, shed the blood of its own. In 901.M41, the Administratum dispatched a Imperial investigation fleet to Badab to demand the immediate delivery of the tardy Badab tithe, commandeered resources and the Astral Claws Chapter's gene-seed requirement. In circumstances that cannot be fully explained, the investigation fleet was fired on and destroyed in its entirety as it attempted to force its way through the Badab System's 'Ring of Steel'.The Karthan Sector Governor heavily censured the Astral Claws Chapter, along with calls for the arrest and trial of Huron for such treachery against the Imperium. With the weight of suffering and bloodshed elsewhere, the tangle of claim and counter claim fell on deaf ears. In addition, Lufgt Huron was the lawful master of a realm permanently on a war footing; a bulwark against the xenos and Chaos, and on the most basic level authorised to defend those domains. Without hard evidence, charge of willful and premeditated homicide against the Imperium's servants would be almost impossible to prove in this case. Over the next three years the Karthan Imperial commanders took it upon themselves to send two further punitive expeditions into the Maelstrom Zone but both fleets were lost in unconfirmed circumstances, supposedly never reaching the Badab System. The intervention of the Astral Claws and their allies was suspected.Unable to enforce their will decisively, the increasingly desperate Karthan lords, near bankrupted by this stage, attempted to circumvent Badab itself, taking the far longer and more perilous route in order to access the lost tithes directly to make up their shortfall. By 903.M41 the agents of the Karthan Imperial commanders began to spread propaganda in both the Segmentum Assizes and the Senatorium Imperialis to any that would listen. As the local Administratum continued to press the High Lords to intervene directly, the Maelstrom Warders continued to arm themselves for war and conducted sweeps of the Maelstrom Zone in force, while they simultaneously continued to augment their defences within the Badab Sector itself.