Third War for Armageddon - Fall of a Champion: The Black Templars' success in blunting the Ork invasion was shattered when Helbrecht's Crusade returned to the Space Hulk Malevolent Dread. Earlier in the orbital engagements this Hulk had been heavily bombarded by the Black Templars battle barge Light of Purity, and damaged by charges planted by Black Templars boarding parties. Finally. Helbrecht decided to put an end to the Hulk once and for all and gathered his Crusade and all of his Sword Brethren Terminators to launch a massive boarding assault. An assault of this kind had never before been attempted on such a scale, but Helbrecht was determined to put an end to the gargantuan spaceborne monstrosity.The first stage of the assault was a teleport attack led by the Black Templars Terminators. The Terminators established a perimeter to allow the rest of the Templars' forces to board the Hulk. The Ork response was immediate and the Terminators came under heavy assault. Casualties mounted but Helbrecht was determined to make room for the reinforcements. Thunderhawks and boarding torpedoes made it to the Hulk and joined the fighting at the perimeter. The Terminators held the Orks at bay but it was a tenuous achievement at best.The second phase of the mission began as the Crusade organized into strike teams to lay the heavy thermal charges that would tear the Malevolent Dread in two. Helbrecht himself would lead the most important team, despite having been wounded several times already, Helbrecht was determined to plant the charges that would initiate the chain reaction and destroy the Hulk once and for all. Along with his command squads and the Templars' Emperor's Champion Vosper, Helbrecht pushed deeper into the Hulk.The Terminators had held the Orks at bay during the first phase of the battle, and during the second phase they led the advance, forming the spearhead of the Templars' forces as they fought their way through the twisting corridors of the Hulk. Once they abandoned their relatively secure firing lanes, however, casualties began to increase yet again, but with the support of the entire Crusade the Terminators managed to press through the Ork defenses. As more and more strike teams broke off to complete their individual objectives, the Templars forces became ever more vulnerable to sudden ambush and attack. It was as the Templars broke into a cavernous gap between two of the ill fitting starships that made up the Hulk that the Orks launched their largest assault yet. Over a thousand of the greenskinned monstrosities threw themselves into the bolter fire laid down by the Templars, heedless of their own losses.An audible crack sounded as the Orks smashed into the Templar line. Their advantage lost, the Templars nevertheless managed to hold the line. Vosper and Helbrecht led the counterattack, scything into the Orks with unmatched skill, building a pile of Ork dead at their feet. Slowly the tide of battle turned as the Templars reformed behind their champions to cut through the Ork horde. As the two mighty warriors slashed their way through the Orks they came upon the largest of the foul creatures, the Space Hulk's Warboss, who tore through the swirling melee, cutting down warrior Battle-Brothers wherever he went. Filled with righteous fury, the Emperor’s Champion Vosper called the massive Ork to account and faced the creature in one-on-one combat. Each Templar whispered a prayer to the Emperor as Vosper and the Ork Warboss crossed blades, praying for their Champion who was the very embodiment of all that their Chapter held dear.Vosper attacked the Ork warlord with huge two-handed sweeps of the Chapter's famed Black Sword, driving the creature back step by step and slowly gaining the upper hand. But as the Warboss reeled back from a powerful overhand blow it became enraged and recovered with inhuman speed, driving Vosper back and though the Emperor’s Champion met every blow of the Ork’s sword he could not stop the creature from barreling into him. Knocked off balance, Vosper could not stand aside as the Warboss split his skull in two. Their Champion’s fall was the turning point of the battle. Despite High Marshal Helbrecht’s best efforts, the Templars faltered and the Orks redoubled their efforts. The High Marshal was forced to the ground, swamped by dozens of greenskins. His Command Squad pulled him clear but an Ork Choppa was buried in his chest armour. As the Templars fell back, many were brutally cut down and the casualties for the Chapter went from bad to horrendous. Many groups of Templars found themselves cut off as the teleporter arrays of the Light of Purity overloaded with the strain of teleporting units back on board. Without an effective defensive perimeter there was nothing the Crusade could do to rescue the stranded squads, leaving them to do nothing but try to sell their lives as dearly as possible.By the time the Light of Purity pulled away from the Space Hulk almost half of Helbrecht's Crusade had been lost and Helbrecht himself had been critically injured, only his enhanced body keeping him from joining the Emperor. Finally, with Armageddon's Season of Fire upon the combatants, the fighting on the planet's surface finally stalled as the Orks found it difficult to advance in the face of the world's rampant volcanism. The Space Hulk believed to be the flagship of Ghazghkull Thraka, the Perversion of Pain, departed Armageddon orbit along with the bulk of the remaining spaceborne Ork forces. Swearing a mighty oath to hunt down and slay Ghazghkull before he could threaten the Imperium again, High Marshal Helbrecht took his remaining Crusade forces and pursued the greenskins, but the Black Templar fleet did not leave alone. The Hero of Armageddon, Commissar Yarrick, petitioned High Marshal Helbrecht to allow him to accompany the Black Templars alongside a handpicked force of elite Imperial Guardsmen and as a sign of the esteem in which Helbrecht held Yarrick, the High Marshal granted his request.