vizn3r/warhammer40k-lore huggingface dataset:
Badab War - Badab Schism (748.M41-900.M41): After further requests to redistribute resources from the Maelstrom Zone were denied and met with increased quota demands from the Administratum, in protest, Huron withheld Badab Primaris' planetary tithe to the Administratum and further blocked the passage of trade through his realms in protest over the adepta's failure to provide him and his allies sufficient resources to police the Maelstrom. Refusing the Astral Claws' role as defenders of the Maelstrom Zone, the Tyrant of Badab soon diverted the industrial resources and manpower to directly supplement the Badab Sector's defences as well as augmenting the Maelstrom fleet detachment and fortification of key worlds under his command.These space-based defences encircling the outer and inner spheres of the Badab Sector came to be known as the "Ring of Steel." On Badab Primaris, the Tyrant ordered the demolition of the ancient citadel of the ruling dominars and instead erected the legendary, hugely fortified "Palace of Thorns" to his own specifications and design.The clashing entitlement of the Administratum's Imperial tithe and the ancient rights of Adeptus Astartes commanders to defend the Imperium by any means necessary swiftly came to be known as the "Badab Schism" and would last for more than a standard century and a half, during which the Astral Claws and the Maelstrom Warders would continue to carry on military operations as usual, against a volatile backdrop of worsening tensions with the Administratum and segmentum authorities.The sudden loss of the lifeblood of industry and commerce was keenly felt by the Karthago Sector. For more than eleven standard centuries the Karthan Lords and planetary governors had held the charter to distribute the industrial output of the Maelstrom Zone and guard its passage from the Administratum-controlled supply fortress on Sagan III, and then to the western Segmentum Ultima and beyond. Isolated by vast distances, the Karthan had long grown fat and decadent, protected by the blood and toil of the more strife-torn realms.
Badab War - Destruction of the Tithe Fleet (901.M41): With preliminary judgements into the Badab System in the Segmentum Courts Temporal weighing in the Administratum's favour, an Imperial investigation fleet, including representatives of the Adeptus Mechanicus Biologis Inviglia and the Administratum lords of the Karthago Sector, was sent to Badab to demand the delivery of the Badab tithe and the Chapter's gene-seed requirements.In circumstances that cannot be fully confirmed or explained, the investigation fleet was fired upon and destroyed in its entirety as it attempted to force its way through the Badab System's so-called "Ring of Steel" in order to press its demands. No ship survived and more than 20,000 servants of the Imperium were lost.Soon claim and counter-claim ensued in the aftermath as to how this tragedy occurred, and Lufgt Huron, delivering his own dominion's report on the Badab matter to the segmentum authorities, adamantly insisted that the fleet was fired upon only after refusing to give away to the just authority of the system's masters. Within the Karthago Sector, outrage at the incident quickly became widespread, and soon such trade links that had remained between the Maelstrom Zone and the Karthago Sector were abruptly severed or subject to the harshest scrutiny.The Karthan Sector Governor Tanit Koenig moved to heavily censure 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, a charge of willful and premeditated homicide against the Imperium's servants would be almost impossible to prove in this case. Over the next three standard 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 sector Administratum continued to press the High Lords of Terra to intervene directly, the Maelstrom Warders proceeded 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.
Badab War - Maelstrom Secession (903.M41): To answer the continuing threats to the control of his domain, Lufgt Huron issued the infamous "Articles of Just Secession," which were also signed and ratified by the masters of the Lamenters and Mantis Warriors Chapters. These documents were designed to formally sever the Maelstrom Zone's direct tithes to its neighbouring sectors. In support of their cause, the document cited both the Imperial edict that founded the Maelstrom Warders and the ancient rights and titles of the Adeptus Astartes' prerogative in their defence, precedents that both weighed heavily in their favour.These articles also called for a full investigation into the Karthago Sector, asserted the historic and lawful sovereignty of the Space Marine Chapters involved from outside interference by the lower adepta and stated again their willingness to defend the Maelstrom Zone from any who would threaten it.As the situation devolved further the Karthans threatened all-out war, but lacked the means to do so alone. Instead they petitioned aid to mount an attack from the Departmento Munitorum and the segmentum naval sub-command at Ryza, but were flatly refused and informed that the matter was an "internal dispute."Met with denials, the Karthago Sector itself drafted increasingly large numbers of troops into its Planetary Defence Forces' regiments. To further their goals, the Karthan satrap sent several direct and open appeals to several Space Marine Chapters with whom they had past dealings with. The satrap had quickly realised that only other Space Marines could truly hope to contest their fellow transhuman Astartes in open battle. The Fire Hawks Chapter was the first to respond to their cause.
Badab War - Eye of the High Lords (905.M41): With five different Chapters of Space Marines now embroiled in open warfare, with a sixth en route, along with various naval detachments, local defence armies and the sectarian forces of various adepta now involved in what was rapidly accelerating to become the greatest conflict of its kind since the infamous Fourth Quadrant Rebellion, the Imperium's high authorities finally acted.A triumvirate of Imperial legates were despatched under the Seal of the High Lords of Terra to pronounce judgment over the ongoing strife in the Maelstrom Zone under orders to leave no stone unturned. Inquisition investigation swiftly uncovered a damning chain of evidence concerning Lufgt Huron's activities and those of the Astral Claws. Multiple charges were laid against the Tyrant of Badab, ranging from their scarcity of returned gene-seed tithes, to "Legion-building," to damning evidence of the Astral Claws' direct involvement in attacks on Imperial shipping.The Terran legates quickly pronounced that the Badab Secession to be a matter of the Imperium's security rather than a civil conflict. They issued an immediate demand for the unconditional ceasefire of all parties and the surrender of the Secessionists.Lufgt Huron immediately rejected their demands. As a result, the Terran legates issued orders for the immediate arrest pending trial of all the Chapter Masters of the Secessionist Chapters and the seizure pending judgment of their homeworlds, goods, records and chattels by whatever force was deemed necessary. The Imperium was now officially turned against the Tyrant of Badab and all who stood with him.As for the Karthans, their own role in contributing to and worsening the unfolding events of the Secession smacked at best of gross arrogance, but more likely wanton ambition and misrule. Legatine investigations carried out at Sidon Ultra, capital of the Karthago Sector, confirmed these suspicions. They found the Imperial Commander and Karthan Sector Governor, Satrap Tanit Koenig, culpable for provoking the war, and she and the worlds she commanded were brutally punished.Tanit Koenig and her ruling clique were subsequently executed, and the Karthans were made to pay for their transgressions, with the entire 14 billion strong population of Sidon Ultra committed to indentured servitude for six generations in payment of their outstanding debt.Full-scale Administratum rectification audits and Adeptus Arbites Moral Enforcement pogroms soon began moving outwards across the Karthago Sector as tithe costs and reparations to the Adeptus Terra were extracted forcibly from the Karthan worlds, a process that is still ongoing to the present day. The armed cross-sector conflict and its causes however remain unresolved and the war continued unabated.
Badab War - Loyalists Gather (905.M41): A major deployment of Space Marine forces was brought into the war at the Inquisitor-Legate Jarndyce Frain's request to enforce their authority. The Red Scorpions Chapter formed the greatest part of the Loyalist Space Marine force, backed by Battle Companies drawn from the Salamanders, Raptors, Fire Angels and the surviving members of the Fire Hawks and Marines Errant Chapters.These latter Chapters were ordered to stand down from independent operations and submit to the High Lords of Terra's authority. Though Inquisitor Frain had theoretical command of the forces prosecuting the Legatine Mission's orders on behalf of the High Lords, the overall tactical command of the unified Loyalist Space Marine forces fell to Lord High-Commander Verant Ortys of the Red Scorpions as magister militum; a "first amongst equals" with the commanders of the other Space Marine contingents.Given the inherent dangers in dealing with conflicts between Space Marine Chapters and their relative autonomy from direct Imperial control, Inquisitor-Legate Frain had little choice but to go along with the decision of the gathered Space Marine commanders. Yet he obviously would have preferred a commander from a more "tractable" Chapter, as the Red Scorpions were famously independent-minded and an occasionally fractious Chapter in their own right.Lord Commander Ortys' first command was to deploy his own Red Scorpions along with the bulk of the Battlefleet Solar warships to conduct a series of offensive strikes and feints into the Secessionist-controlled regions to gauge their resistance. This resulted in the heaviest naval engagement of the war to date, at the indecisive Battle of Silent Reach in early 906.M41, when cruiser squadrons of the Maelstrom and Lamenters fleets clashed with Segmentum Solar and Red Scorpions warships in the barren void between the Galen and Grief star systems.This engagement proved inconclusive with both sides suffering damage but few losses of any major warships by both sides. The only serious loss sustained was by the Maelstrom Fleet's flagship, the Overlord-class Battlecruiser Gauntlet of Wrath. The Secessionist fleet broke off from the engagement into the Warp soon afterwards, leaving the Loyalists to claim a tentative victory. A dozen such engagements occurred in a short space of time during this period.The Loyalists quickly succeeded in checking and containing the Secessionist advance in the early part of 906.M41, especially with the addition of the remaining Marines Errant and Fire Hawks forces after they were cleared of heretical or seditious intent.In pursuing this strategy across a broad front, hoping to reveal a weakness in the Secessionist defences, the Loyalists soon discovered, quite remarkably, that no such weaknesses were apparent. Thus, the Loyalists were forced to change their strategy.
Badab War - Firebombing of Sacristan (905.M41): Before they submitted to the legate's will, the Fire Hawks had one last act of bloody vengeance to carry out, which has since been entered into the Imperial history of the war as the infamous "Firebombing of Sacristan."In what is widely regarded as a strategically wasteful and vainglorious assault, the bitter Lazaerek used his surviving Chapter fleet led by the Raptorus Rex to conduct a retaliatory orbital assault on the frontier planet of Sacristan, a sovereign world on the edge of the Endymion Cluster.Over a period of several solar days and nights the Fire Hawks Chapter fleet systematically laid waste to the planet's few cities, slaughtering their inhabitants before they finally withdrew from the system leaving the planet aflame, wiping out more than 90% of its population.
Badab War - Vyaniah Raids (906.M41): Lord Commander Ortys' next viable target of opportunity presented itself in the form of the Vyaniah System. Vyaniah was an important world and served as the gatehouse along one of the secondary Warp routes around the rim of the Maelstrom. Furthermore, its defences and garrison were weaker than the heavily reinforced Sagan System.There were further intelligence reports indicating that the Secessionist-occupied world was awash in civil unrest which might be stirred up into open revolt by a Loyalist attack. While the Fire Hawks and the newly arrived Raptors Chapter conducted patrol and escort operations, the Red Scorpions, Marines Errant and Novamarines conducted a three-pronged raid on the Vyaniah System, with the target of damaging its production capacity and orbital transshipping platforms. This would effectively weaken the Secessionists' grip on the system.Confronting the reformed and reorganized Badab Sector Human auxilia of the Tyrant's Legion in open warfare for the first time, the Loyalist Space Marines had greatly underestimated them, and as a result their strike groups were largely prevented from achieving many of their goals in the first raid. Only four orbital platforms were taken out of action and though they managed to damage Vyaniah's manufactory complexes, production was not significantly affected.Data intercepted from the Vyaniah command vox-network however revealed the price of the Tyrant's Legion's resistance, with the Loyalists inflicting a greater than 178:1 kill ratio. In 906.M41, the Red Scorpion forces conducted the last of the Vyaniah raids which proved particularly bloody for the Tyrant's Legion. The Red Scorpions invaded the Caelian industrial hive city with the specific goal of inflicting mass casualties on the Human defenders and picking off their Astral Claws masters when they were found within their ranks.Despite the attacks the Secessionists maintained control of Vyaniah, and shortly afterwards further ill-news came to the Loyalists, informing them that several military convoys from the rear supply lines from the Karthago Sector had been attacked and scattered by an unknown warship that later proved to be the Night Hag of the Executioners Chapter. They also received more disturbing news in regards to the fate of the Fortress World of Surngraad, deep within the Maelstrom Zone.Refusing to bend their knee to the Tyrant of Badab, this fiercely independent world had held out against the Secessionist fleet, but Surngraad had partly succumbed due to treachery from within, and Huron's forces now controlled the northern citadels. Remaining too deep within enemy territory to mount an effective relief operation, the prospects for the ancient Fortress World falling to Secessionist control proved to be a grim prospect for the Loyalists for a future siege.
Badab War - Loyalist Redeployment (906.M41): By the close of 906.M41, dozens of separate void actions had already been fought by Red Scorpions detachments, ranging from defending convoys to raiding outposts and intercepting Secessionist shipping alongside the Raptors, turning the tide against Lufgt Huron's raiders for the first time.At the same time the Loyalists were bolstered by fresh forces from the Novamarines and Sons of Medusa Chapters, who immediately carried out probing attacks into the region of the Endymion Cluster and against the edges of the Sagan System, maintaining pressure on the Secessionists and keeping their forces pinned down.During this new campaign the Loyalists garrisoned the barren Khymara System and established several outposts and listening stations in order to conduct sustained operations in the contested Gargathea System.
Badab War - Gargathea III (906.M41): Gargathea III was a Feral World of poisonous fens and corrosive jungles. This heavily contested world soon turned into a savage battleground as the Raptors, Salamanders and Fire Angels Chapters clashed against the Astral Claws and Mantis Warriors amid the tangled and often lethal vegetation.The war on Gargathea swiftly developed into a series of hit-and-run engagements of ambush and counterattack. The battle lines on Gargathea remained non-linear, save for a few scattered landmarks of half-overrun Explorator bases and old smugglers' outposts.The outcome of such vicious fighting was uncertain and a high amount of casualties were sustained on both sides. Gargathea remained a contested world of vital strategic importance due to the planet being one of the few life-sustaining worlds in the region. The Secessionist forces were finally displaced from the planet at the end of 907.M41 and the system reclaimed for the Loyalists.
Badab War - Loyalist Reinforcement (907.M41): With the arrival of fresh reinforcements to replace them in the order of battle, the Marines Errant first took up reserve duty for the remainder of 906.M41 before they finally withdrew entirely from the Badab War early in 907.M41 with some acrimony attached to their departure.The Fire Hawks Chapter, who grew increasingly embittered, were forcibly retired to the rearguard for a time by the newly appointed magister millitum -- Lord High Commander Carab Culln -- in order to avoid further trouble in the ranks of the Loyalist forces. This redeployment of the Fire Hawks was proved particularly effective as the presence of the mighty Raptorus Rex at Hallows Point ensured the security of the Loyalists' facility while under construction.The presence of the mobile star-fortress soon proved vital when Hallows Point was raided in late 906.M41 by Secessionist vessels led by a trio of Lamenters Chapter strike cruisers. The attack was repulsed without major damage to the half-finished base and anchorage as the concentrated firepower of both the Raptorus Rex and the Red Scorpions battle barge Sword of Ordon proved a decisive factor.The scales began to tip in the Loyalists' favour as further reinforcements arrived almost solar month by solar month, with missives from the Adeptus Terra informing them that other Space Marine Chapters were en route. Lord High Commander Culln knew that he must press his advantage soon or risk the war devolving into a slow battle of attrition that would bleed his forces dry. The first move forwards would be the relief of the Fortress World of Surngraad that stubbornly held out against the Secessionist aggression by their heroic self-sacrifice and single bloody-minded faith in the God-Emperor.The Raptors and Salamanders Chapters were assigned the task of intervention by sending a select strike force dispatched on a long-range incursion mission behind the Secessionists' lines. The Raptors covertly landed a strong force of battle-brothers in field-modified armour over three hundred kilometres away from their chosen target. Shunning heavy gear and vehicles in favour of reduced visibility to auspex and thermal detectors, the Raptors war party launched a lightning assault under the cover of a blinding gale and succeeded in breaching the fortress walls of the main orbital defence complex with Melta Bombs, gaining entrance.They then successfully sabotaged the base's weapon silos despite taking heavy casualties from a bitterly contested counter-attack by the Astral Claws. With the way open, the two Chapters' battle barges bombarded the planet from the upper atmosphere, smashing the Secessionist-held positions into surrender, and liberating Surngraad.The liberation of Surngraad marked a turning point in the war, as the Loyalists began to drive a potential wedge down the middle of the Secessionist worlds. But before they could take advantage of this new gain, dire news came from the Howling Griffons stationed at Khymara of a deadly new threat.
Badab War - The Axe Falls at Khymara (907.M41): A disastrous defeat for the Loyalist forces in early 907.M41 would mark the bloodiest year of the conflict, for the bulk of the Executioners Chapter had arrived in force in the Maelstrom Zone, and immediately conducted an immediate surprise attack at Khymara.They succeeded in destroying the Loyalist outposts, listening stations and the vital astropathic relay complex on the night moons of the Khymara System in one stroke. The Howling Griffons Chapter's forces garrisoning the Khymara System were outnumbered and overwhelmed, suffering greatly as their bastions and stations fell one after the other despite their tenacious defence.The Howling Griffons were systematically destroyed by the relentless onslaught of the Executioners from an unseen quarter. As the Howling Griffons' positions were being overrun and decimated on the airless dust moon, it fell to Dreadnought Confessor Armand Titus to rally the beleaguered forces of his Chapter. Unafraid of the firestorm around him, with implacable zeal the venerable Chaplain Dreadnought led the desperate counterattack which bought his Chapter the chance to regroup and mount an effective fighting defence at the cost of his long life.After the Executioners had finally withdrawn from the battlefield, the surviving Howling Griffons found that their foe had honoured Titus' glorious sacrifice by laying out the wreck of his sarcophagus within a ring of broken weapons, placing one of their own shattered standards in the lifeless grasp of the fallen war machine. The death of the revered Dreadnought Confessor Titus struck a hammer-blow to the Howling Griffons' morale.With the Khymara System's defence platforms and listening stations destroyed, the Executioners had achieved their primary objective. They could have pressed their advantage and utterly destroyed the Howling Griffons' outpost but instead withdrew suddenly from the system, leaving the Howling Griffons garrison with more than 70 percent casualties.This development provoked much consternation from Lufgt Huron, but mindful of the dangerous temperament of the Executioners' commander, the High Chaplain Thulsa Kane, he was known to have stopped short of issuing any formal reprimand to them, and instead welcomed them into the battle for the Secessionist cause.Despite the grievous losses dealt to them, the remainder of the Howling Griffons taskforce continued to doggedly fight on, refusing to shirk away from their responsibilities to the Loyalist cause until formally relieved from the war in 909.M41.
Badab War - Enemies Unlooked For (Mid-907.M41): Taking advantage of the anarchy that reigned within the Maelstrom Zone, it was unsurprising that attacks from unaligned raiding forces and xenos species based within the turbulence expanse of the Maelstrom dramatically increased, reaching a new height during 907.M41. The Secessionists suffered the worst at the hands of these non-aligned forces during the Badab War. A large Ork corsair fleet spilled forth from the Calah System, assaulting Secessionist supply convoys between the Endymion Cluster and the Badab Sector, and ultimately assaulted the Mantis Warriors at Endymion itself.A large force of over 20,000 Greenskin Boyz proceeded to slaughter the planet's meager garrison, forcing the Mantis Warriors forces to pull back to defend Endymion and meet the Orks in a rapid moving land battle on the dust plains of Oarella, less they lose the world.As serious as the Ork attack against the cluster was, there was far worse implications of the growing threat of the Daemon-tainted corsair-cults based on the blighted world of Magog. Their increase in power had actually driven forth the recently defeated Orks. This forced the Secessionists to launch a direct assault on the hellish world, which despite a prior Exterminatus campaign had long remained a thorn in the Maelstrom Warders' side.Corien Sumatris, one of Lufgt Huron's most seasoned battle-captains, commanded an Astral Claws battle barge and conducted the attack on Magog. A force of two companies of the Chapter and a strong force of hand-picked Astral Claws and Lamenters Terminators successfully cut off the threat while it was still forming.The Tyrant of Badab knew well they could ill-afford the risk of fighting a war on two fronts if they continued to allow the dire threat on Magog to continue to grow. Though a costly diversion that caused a high number of fatalities, the Secessionists were able to reinforce their flank just as a new enemy entered the conflict.
Badab War - Scouring of Cygnax (908.M41-910.M41): In early 908.M41, Inquisitorial agents had acquired evidence of a plot between the Astral Claws and Renegade Heretek scavengers from the Golgothan Wastes. They had devised a plan to acquire recovered buried weapons stores on the Dead World of Cygnax. The Sons of Medusa taskforce, backed by a newly arrived company from the Exorcists Chapter, were given this task.Given the chief role in this task, the Sons of Medusa led the determined and brutal campaign to scour out the Tyrant of Badab's forces, the conduct of which caused some discord between the two Chapters, with accusations that the Sons of Medusa were more interested in pursuing their own mysterious agenda instead of hunting down the enemy as expeditiously as possible.The Exorcists soon withdrew and redeployed their forces for the forthcoming assault on the Sagan System, leaving the Sons of Medusa to eliminate the Cynax threat as they saw fit.
Badab War - Destruction of the Lamenters (908.M41): Inquisitor-Legate Jarndyce Frain provided the Loyalists with a mass of data about the Lamenters' movements and deployments which was used to identify a pattern. By 908.M41, the Lamenters Chapter had already suffered significant losses through attrition, but they were still a formidable force to be reckoned with, and a plan was put into action to isolate them from the Tyrant's cause and take them out of the war.Using the intelligence acquired by Frain's insidious spy network, the Loyalists quickly discerned that the Lamenters were being used as an ablative shield by the Tyrant of Badab to guard his southern flank and contest the Loyalist domination of the Pale Stars, while he kept the bulk of the Astral Claws in reserve near Badab itself.The losses incurred by the fleet-based Chapter had been due to their continuous deployment defending the southern Badab Sector as well as serving escort duty to many Secessionist supply convoys. The Minotaurs Chapter gathered in strength awaiting the opportunity to strike where they would be most effective, until finally the opportunity came, when the location of the Lamenters' Chapter barque Mater Lacrimarum was discovered in orbit over the Feral World of Optera taking on supplies.The Minotaurs immediately dispatched a rapid strike force to attack the vessel and succeeded in catching it and crippling its main drives, preventing it from fleeing the system. The Lamenters were forced to defend their Chapter barque at all costs, as it contained both their recovering battle casualties as well as their precious resource of gene-seed. With the continued attacks upon the barque, the majority of the Lamenters' fleet was drawn back to the Optera System.Once there, the Minotaurs laid bloody siege for 17 solar hours of brutal ship-to-ship fighting. Though the Minotaurs suffered heavy casualties, they eventually overpowered the Lamenters by virtue of their brutality and sheer weight of numbers. Their forces shattered, the few remaining Lamenters were forced to surrender rather than risk the annihilation of their precious barque. The majority of their fleet was left ruined or drifting in the void.The Minotaurs claimed salvage rights to the crippled Lamenters fleet and the wargear of the fallen to replace their own serious losses. The surviving Lamenters were incarcerated on a prison hulk orbiting the nightside of Sagan II amid rumours of their growing insanity in confinement.Only 311 Lamenters battle-brothers survived to be interned on the prison hulk orbiting Sagan II for the rest of the war. Less than 100 (estimated) Lamenters were deployed elsewhere during the fighting that still remained. The Chapter's severe losses effectively removed them from the Secessionist order of battle. The loss of the Lamenters from the Secessionist cause was a great strength they could ill afford to lose.
Badab War - Angstrom Incident (908.M41): The Loyalists intervened in matters unfolding on the world of Angstrom in 908.M41, in what would become one of the most remarkable operations of the Badab War. The sovereign and autonomous Adeptus Mechanicus domain of Angstrom in the eastern Maelstrom Zone had remained neutral throughout the conflict, rejecting diplomatic missions and threats from both sides to join them in their cause. The world's magi felt that there was no cause for them to interfere in what they perceived as an "internal dispute" between rival Imperial factions.Angstrom continued their operations as usual, which included a long-standing agreement to render up a "bounty" of advanced weapons and refined ores to be collected by the Imperium's representatives on a 3-yearly cycle from the edge of their planetary system. The magi pointedly didn't care from which of the Imperium's servants retrieved the bounty, only that they carried out their part of the arrangement without fault. In the past this arrangement had provided the Maelstrom Warders with a vital resource and the Tyrant of Badab's servants continued to be in the perfect position to collect it.The Red Scorpions and Salamanders jointly conducted a secret plan of attack, deploying a small elite force to sabotage and prevent the Secessionists from claiming the "bounty" of the independent Forge World of Angstrom. In the confusion and destruction that followed, the Angstrom Mechanicus, incensed by the outbreak of hostilities within their domain, assaulted both sides and drove them away from the system, granting the Loyalists a major strategic victory, but did however stir the notoriously bellicose Mechanicus of Angstrom into taking a greater interest in the war.They sent their warships and ground forces in retaliatory raids against Galen and Ibis, until the Terran legates intervened and brokered a peace, guaranteeing the fickle Angstrom Mechanicus restitutions. Remaining cautious, Lord High Commander Carab Culln took precautionary measures and dispatched the Fire Hawks Chapter and the Raptorous Rex alongside a pursuit force, composed of a mixture of Loyalist Chapters, to conduct a blockade of the outer system's approaches for the duration of the war.
Badab War - Blood in the Dark Waters (910.M41): Arriving without warning in 910.M41 an unidentified, fire-blackened Space Marine strike cruiser identified itself with ancient, though still valid, Imperial authorisation protocols. It was the Levitus Vex, and its coming heralded the arrival of a force whose name was to become synonymous with bloodshed and the darkest acts of the Badab War.The unidentified Space Marine force had come to offer its aid to the Loyalist cause against the Secessionists, claiming to have come in answer to a summons from Terra itself. They identified their Chapter as the Carcharodons Astra, using the ancient High Gothic form of their name, also known as the Carcharodons (or the "Space Sharks" in Low Gothic), and formally requested the Loyalists' acceptance and permission to enter the war zone and draw blood.Upon their arrival, the Carcharodons' Force Commander Tyberos presented the Inquisitor Legate in charge of prosecuting the Badab conflict with Notices Patent provided to the Chapter affirming the rights and titles issued to it by several High Lords of Terra and Inquisitors now long dead. Tyberos even submitted himself for psychic probing and gene-sampling.The Inquisitor Legate vouched for the Carcharodons. Lord High Commander Carab Culln of the Red Scorpions, the magister militant or supreme commander of all the Loyalist forces, accepted the Carcharodons into his line of battle, although he was still wary of their loyalties and their deviations from the Codex Astartes during their long voyage beyond Imperial space.The Carcharodons' reappearance, as if predators drawn by blood, when the Badab War was to enter its most deadly stage seemed to many a suspect one at best.
Badab War - Corcyran Massacre (910.M41): This is considered by some as a "lost tale" of the Badab War whose true facts will never be known. The event that became known in Imperial records as the Corcyran Massacre was discovered by an Imperial Navy patrol in 910.M41. The wreckage of a smugglers' base was discovered in the dust wastes of the forlorn world of Corcyra II. Within the base was a nightmarish scene of carnage and destruction rarely witnessed before by men.A bloody battle had been fought between two sub-company-sized forces of Space Marines from the Executioners and the Carcharodons Chapters. These two Chapters, both infamous for their savagery and unyielding stances towards their foes, had fought each other to mutual annihilation. The base around them was ripped apart, its former inhabitants now mouldering into dust.Many of the bodies of both sides showed signs of having fought on despite suffering horrendous wounds, severed limbs and massive trauma that should have felled even an Astartes, and several were found locked in deathly, gore-splattered embraces, striking at their foes with their last ebbing strength. It is not known which Chapter's last warrior survived to the end to claim a bitter victory. Neither Chapter has acknowledged any survivors of the massacre living to tell of what happened at Corcyra II.
Badab War - An Order for Death (911.M41): Following what he regarded as the treachery of his former allies, Lufgt Huron announced in a recorded message that was relayed throughout the warzone that the Astral Claws and their subjects no longer were part of the Imperium of Man. Up until this point, although the Badab Secessionists had been declared Heretic by the Imperium, within the worlds they had controlled the pattern of established life had gone on much as it had for many centuries, and the worship of the God-Emperor had been maintained.Those Adeptus Ministorum prelates that had overtly disagreed with the secession had been removed and replaced with those more amenable to the Tyrant of Badab's cause and millions still followed their faith unimpeded, while the Badab Sector's native defenders believed naturally enough that they fought and died in a battle against heresy, rather than in its name. But now the truth was no longer concealed from the pitiable masses of the sector.Within Huron's remaining domains, all signs and symbols of Imperial authority, culture and religious creed were cast down in a firestorm of iconoclasm, and the mass executions on Badab Primaris of Ecclesiarchy clerics and functionaries (most of whom remained largely ignorant of the true cause and nature of the conflict), was said to last for solar weeks without pause. Reports from Inquisitorial agents that had infiltrated the Badab Sector reported at this time that conditions on its principal worlds grew ever harsher, famine and want commonplace, and despair's shadow fell over all.As for the Astral Claws themselves, although the practise was by no means universal, many of the battle-brothers began to deface any semblance of Imperial heraldry and insignia from their armour and wargear, scouring it to bare metal or daubing it in reds and crimsons in representation of their blood oath of vengeance, until only the symbols of the Tyrant of Badab remained.Whereas before the population of the Badab Sector had been controlled with inflexible and savage discipline but were still viewed as a war resource to be maintained and managed, now the Astral Claws' wrath grew ever more arbitrary and brutal as their increasing paranoia and the murderous rages to which Lufgt Huron was becoming prone took their toll on those unfortunates caught within the Tyrant's domains.On Badab Primaris, for non-Astartes to dare to look directly upon the face of one of the Astral Claws was now punishable by blinding, and after an assassin tried to take the life of Huron within his own command chamber (the assailant being slain by the Tyrant himself), non-Space Marines were banned entirely from the precincts of the Palace of Thorns on pain of death. Thousands of civilians were killed in groundless reprisals by the Astral Claws Retaliators.By this point the mind set of the Astral Claws themselves had succumbed to a siege mentality, for they expected death as now inevitable but were spurred on by a bleak desire for vengeance against those they believed had wronged them, spite and rage consuming what little remained of their honour.
Badab War - Star Phantoms' Prize (913.M41): In recognition for their efforts in the war's brutal final assault, the badly mauled Star Phantoms Chapter was given the somewhat pyrrhic reward of dominion over the once proud Badab Sector, along with the task of policing its survivors by edict of the Inquisitor-Legate.Though the Star Phantoms were now reduced to less than a third of their former strength, ruling over a kingdom of ashes, they had long been a fleet-based Chapter after having lost their former homeworld centuries before.They eagerly grasped this laurel of victory as their just and long-laboured reward. With the pick of the sector's worlds for their choosing, the Star Phantoms brought their severely damaged battle barge Memento Mori down to the surface of the Ice World of Jahga in the Archaea System to serve as their core for a new fortress-monastery and slowly began the process of rebuilding their Chapter.
Badab War - Sorrow of Tranquility (913.M41): With the arrival of a fresh Imperial Navy task force redeployed to be based at Vyaniah, and Administratum auditors emplaced on Sagan, the other Loyalist Space Marine forces, having completed their operations in the Maelstrom Zone, began to depart for their Chapter worlds and wars afresh.The care of the Maelstrom Zone was now in other hands and the province of new masters. It was only when the Red Scorpions' Sword of Ordon, the last of the Loyalist battle barges, was taking leave to depart Vyaniah on the long voyage back to Zaebus Minoris, that news reached the system of a dark fate that had befallen the Tranquility System.Before departing the Maelstrom Zone, the Carcharodons Chapter fleet returned to the Endymion Cluster. There, with the agreement of the Fire Hawks, they struck at the Tranquility System, whose worlds were once the primary recruiting and training grounds of the Mantis Warriors Chapter.From these worlds they harvested an entire generation to renew their own losses, forcing those selected to fight to the death to prove their worth in order to survive in the Carcharodons brethren. Thus paid in blood, the Carcharodons fleet departed, the last known sighting of them made by an Explorator augery-beacon, which marked them taking course through the Warp, ascending the galactic plane into the blackness of the outer void once more.
Badab War - Expurgation (915.M41): On returning to Holy Terra, and with his last act before he discharged his legatine authority, Inquisitor Jarndyce Frain ordered an Edict of Obliteration to be carried out under the auspices of the Adeptus Terra in regards to the Astral Claws, the Tiger Claws and their master Lufgt Huron.The task therefore began of wiping their accursed name and their sins from the pages of Imperial history. Sanitised and altered versions of the events of the war began to enter the official record, distorting nomenclature and reference as the first stage of eventual total purgation, while an Inquisition-enforced data-pogrom to unmake extraneous or morally unworthy facts concerning the Badab War was conducted.The eye of the Imperium then moved on to the next crisis in a galaxy consumed by conflict.
Badab War - Rise of Huron Blackheart (927.M41): Though badly maimed by a Multi-Melta blast, the Tyrant of Badab yet lived, though one side of his body was entirely reconstructed with bionics, the Techmarines and Apothecaries of his former Chapter standing long vigil over him.On the eighth solar day, the Tyrant could speak again and ordered his fleet to seek a new to world to conquer within the Maelstrom. By the twelfth day Huron could stand and don his power armour once more. His fanatical followers hailed his recovery as a miracle, but if it was any kind of miracle, it was a dark one.Huron's limited forces easily overwhelmed the first pirate stronghold they found, slaughtering all the Human corsairs within. The survivors swore allegiance to the Tyrant and became his slaves, soon learning to fear his fury.Lufgt Huron was reborn as as the Chaos Lord Huron Blackheart -- Master of the Red Corsairs, Lord of the Maelstrom, the Blood Reaver. Now that he had acquired more ships and men, the Blackheart embarked upon building an empire worthy of his rule.His dreaded Astral Claws followers then became the Red Corsairs, after the blood-red colour they used to obliterate their old Imperial iconography and symbols, becoming a piratical Renegade warband of Chaos Space Marines that established a potent Chaos empire within the Warp rift of the Maelstrom to rival that of the Eye of Terror.To this day, many of those few Space Marines who have tragically fallen to the lure of Chaos are inevitably found within the ranks of the Red Corsairs, embittered and twisted by the evil power of Chaos that reigns supreme within this hellish realm. The crimson artifice chosen by his followers as their warband colours and iconography pleased Huron greatly and all of the Renegade Space Marines who have since joined him have taken these colours as their own to show their new allegiance.By early 927.M41, the first reports reached Imperial authorities of attacks from corsair forces operating in and around the Maelstrom which had worsened considerably, although other than the Pale Stars region, the rest of the Maelstrom Zone largely (and it appeared deliberately) remained unaffected.Vessels and agents sent into the region began to uncover rumours of a powerful new corsair lord operating within the Maelstrom, leading a warband of crimson-daubed Heretic Astartes seeming to owe no allegiance to any prior known faction and operating with extraordinary ferocity and tactical discipline. The corsair lord was said to style himself "Huron Blackheart."And so the Tyrant of Badab lived on to torment the servants of the Emperor in the dark days to come.
Badab War - Senior Commanders: Jarndyce Frain - Inquisitor-Legate and Chief Prosecutor of the Badabian Tyranicide (Badab War)Carab Culln - Lord High Commander (Chapter Master), Red Scorpions Space Marine Chapter. After the Red Scorpions' former Lord High Commander Ortys was slain upon the world of Grief, Culln was almost unanimously elected to replace him as the Loyalist forces' Magister Militum, the overall commander of the Loyalist forces.Verant Ortys - Former Lord High Commander (Chapter Master) of the Red Scorpions and Magister Millitum and overall commander of the Loyalist forces during the Badab War. Ortys was slain when the Red Scorpions were betrayed by the deceitful Lufgt Huron and his Renegade Astral Claws Chapter on the world of Grief. While both sides were under a flag of truce, the Astral Claws launched a surprise attack against the Red Scorpions and Ortys was slain in the melee.Stibor Lazaerek - Knight-Commander Lazaerek was Grand Master (Chapter Master) Fire Hawks Space Marine ChapterLias Issodon, "The Grim" - Chapter Master of the Raptors Space Marine ChapterAsterion Moloc - "Master of the Minotaurs" - Chapter Master of the Minotaurs Space Marine ChapterOmadon Tiresias - Chapter Master of the Star Phantoms Space Marine ChapterTyberos "The Red Wake" - Chapter Master of the Carcharodons Space Marine ChapterUriaens - Consul-Master (Chapter Master) of the Fire Angels Space Marine ChapterSilas Alberec "Wielder of the Hellslayer" - Captain of the 3rd Company, Exorcists Space Marine ChapterMordacai Blaylock "The Stormbreaker" - Captain of the 1st Company, Novamarines Space Marine ChapterVaylund Cal - Iron Thane of the Atropos War Clan, High Artificer of the Sons of Medusa Space Marine ChapterPellas Mir'san - Captain of the 2nd Company, Salamanders Space Marine ChapterAnton Narvaez - Lieutenant Commander Narvaez is the Commander (Captain) of the 4th Company, Marines Errant Space Marine ChapterArmand Titus - Dreadnought Confessor, Howling Griffons Space Marine Chapter
Badab War - Loyalist Adeptus Astartes Chapters: Carcharodons, entire Chapter deployedExorcists, entire Chapter deployedFire Angels, 7 CompaniesFire Hawks, entire Chapter deployedHowling Griffons, entire Chapter deployedMarines Errant, entire Chapter deployedMinotaurs, entire Chapter deployedNovamarines, entire Chapter deployedRaptors, 4 companiesRed Scorpions, 8 companiesSalamanders, 1 companySons of Medusa, 5-6 companiesStar Phantoms, entire Chapter deployed
Badab War - Imperial Guard Regiments: Karthan Regiment (Regiment tithed to the Inquisition)
Badab War - Adeptus Mechanicus Forces: Legio Crucius, 3 Maniples
Badab War - Senior Commanders: Lufgt Huron, "The Tyrant of Badab" - Chapter Master Astral Claws Space Marine ChapterYarvan Sartaq - Former Chapter Master of the Mantis Warriors Space Marine Chapter who was slain in 906.M41 during the opening stages of the Badab War.Khoisan Neotera - Former Chapter Master of the Mantis Warriors Space Marine Chapter during the Badab War who replaced Yarvan Sartaq after his death in 906.M41 until the end of the conflict; he was permanently imprisoned by the Inquisition for his role in the Chapter's rebellion in the Imperial prison Penitentiacon in isolation for the rest of his life.Ahazra Redth, "Dust Prophet" - Chief Librarian Mantis Warriors Space Marine Chapter. He became the de facto Chapter Master of the Mantis Warriors during the final days of the Badab War.Thulsa Kane - Reclusiarch (High Chaplain) of the Executioners Space Marine Chapter. Commanded Executioners contingent deployed in the Badab War.Malakim Phoros "Lord of Ruin" - Chapter Master Lamenters Space Marine Chapter
Badab War - Secessionist Adeptus Astartes Chapters: Astral ClawsExecutionersLamentersMantis Warriors
Badab War - Auxiliaries: Tyrant's Legion
Badab War - Sources: Apocalypse (Rulebook), pg. 171Apocalypse Reload (Rulebook), pg. 56Codex: Chaos (2nd Edition), pg. 23Codex: Chaos Space Marines (4th Edition), pp. 56-57Cities of Death (4th Edition), "The Palace of Thorns", pp. 58-59Imperial Armour Volume Nine - The Badab War - Part One, pp. 1-208Imperial Armour Volume Ten - The Badab War - Part Two, pp. 1-208Warhammer 40,000: Compendium (1st Edition), "The Badab War" by Rick Priestley, pp. 33-35White Dwarf 303 (UK) "Index Astartes: Rogue Sons" by Andy HoareWhite Dwarf 101 (UK) "Index Astartes: The Badab Uprising" by Rick Priestley, pp. 71-73Blood Reaver (Novel), by Aaron Demski-Bowden, pp. 64, 120Heroes of the Space Marines (Anthology), "The Skull Harvest" (Story) by Graham McNeill, pp. 9-21Into The Maelstrom (Anthology), "Into The Maelstrom" (Story) by Chris PramasThe Gildar Rift (Novel), by Sarah Cawkwell, pg. 199