Raven Guard - Notable Campaigns: Battle of Hell's Anvil (Unknown Date.M30) - Before uniting with their long-lost Primarch, the XIXth Legion saw over a century of war. During this time they fought at the behest of Horus Lupercal, treated almost as a specialised detachment of the Luna Wolves Legion, one essential to many of the victories later claimed by them that often went unremarked by the Order of Remembrancers. Though their battles were unseen and unremarked, they were telling in the shape of history. The Battle of Hell's Anvil was typical for many of the XIXth Legion's early engagements, a savage legend that Corax would later seek to repress, and one that exemplified both the similarities in tactics and the difference in character of the warriors that made up the XIXth Legion and later the Raven Guard. Hell's Anvil was the name given by Imperial strategos to a massive fortress situated on the planet of Baratrum. For almost five years the Imperial Army had fought a futile battle to destroy the overseers of the planet, who had long since surrendered their humanity, and capture the world's prodigious mineral wealth for the nascent Imperium. Thousands of lives had been lost and the Imperial Army was unable to secure any foothold in the sunken metropoli of Baratrum. The arrival of a fleet bearing three full Chapters of the XIXth Legion, under overall command of Shade Lord Arkhas Fal, then the Master of the Legion. Accompanied by a sizable contingent of Luna Wolves, this force changed the nature of the campaign. The taskforce's Strike Cruiser began a concussive bombardment directly above the previously unassailable sub-surface fortifications of Hell's Anvil, heedless of the collateral damage to the planet's subterranean population. The massive tectonic force of the bombardment shook the planet to its core, causing severe damage to many of the underground cities. Into this hellish landscape Shade Lord Fal ordered three regiments of Thorosian Voltigeurs, a unit attached to the Imperial Army detachment that had so far failed to assault the fortress, to lead the vanguard assault. Soon they were beset upon by hundreds of frenzied worker-drones. With casualties mounting and the fortress still spewing forth its berserk defenders, a desperate request relayed to the XIXth Legion for reinforcements went unanswered. Waiting until Hell's Anvil had emptied, the combined Space Marine taskforce descended into the bowels of Hell's Anvil. The head-hunter companies of the Ashen Claw Chapter, led by Shade Captain Kirine, were able to hack and blast its way into the interior of the beleaguered fortress, and ruthlessly hacked down the hulking Overseers. After hours of fighting, the XIXth Legion finally discovered Hell's Anvil's titanic plasma reactors. After facing the largest of the Baratrun Overseers, they planted Melta charges amongst the reactor's delicate containment fields, and retreated as suddenly as they had struck, back into the upper levels to detonate the charges. On the surface Shade Lord Fal and his forces had put the frenzied drones to the sword. The destruction of Hell's Anvil saw the swift collapse of the Baratrun resistance, and despite the damage the various factory-warrens had sustained, the envoys of the Mechanicum were able to restart production with only a minor delay, feeding the Imperium's expansion and continued conquest. The Thorosian regiments bore the brunt of the assault's bloody cost, losing over 100,000 soldiers, whereas the XIXth Legion and Luna Wolves had suffered only a few hundred casualties between them, mostly among the Ashen Claws. This cost, though high, was less than might have been expected from a drawn-out siege and the battle was lauded as a mighty victory for the advancing Great Crusade. It also established the reputation of the XIXth Legion as harbingers of death for those units of the Imperial Army assigned to their support. This remnant of their heritage as slave-masters and raiders in the dust plains of Old Earth did not find favour with the Raven Lord when he joined with the XIXth Legion, and this practice was only forgotten, both within and without the Legion, after long years of campaigning under Corax's guidance.The Carinae Retribution (Unknown Date.M30) - The conquest of the Carinae Sodality remains a black mark on the record of the Raven Guard, a campaign whose details, long suppressed by factions within the Officio Militaris, show the Raven Guard as directly responsible for the campaign's delay and the excessive casualties recorded by Imperial Army units assigned to the fighting. The Raven Guard task force arrived in the Carinae System with a force of almost 30,000 Legionaries and twice that number of soldiers of the Imperial Army, and made swift progress with the conquest of the "Thousand Moons of Carinae" -- immense void-cities that circled the otherwise planet-less primary, remnants of a power long lost to Mankind whose isolationist inhabitants were ill-disposed to bend the knee to the Emperor. Directed by the keen tactical acumen of Corvus Corax, the Raven Guard turned the Carinae's greatest strength into a fatal weakness, for though the void-cities were many and their defences strong, each fought a solitary war, separate from aid and unable to support the defence of their fellows. Rather than attempt a grand campaign, besieging the entire star system at once or challenging the combined fleets of the Carinae Sodality for void-supremacy in the system, the Raven Guard used mobility and stealth to strike a single moon at a time. It was on one such moon, designated Zenith-312, that the combined taskforce assaulted in good order. All was well, until the cities' Arch-Comptroller unleashed a terrible weapon from the Age of Strife, long held in stasis in the depths of the city -- an anima-phage of terrible potency that rendered men into creatures of rage and hunger, bereft of all reason and memory. The Raven Guard suffered little ill-effect, but the ordinary citizens of Zenith-312 and the mortal soldiers of the Imperial Army were reduced to a frothing, mindless horde that numbered in the tens of thousands. Immediately the Raven Guard found themselves beset on all sides, and were forced to put down those who they once called allies, granting them the mercy of death as the XIXth Legion swept the void-city clean. In the aftermath of the fighting, it was discovered that the Arch-Comptroller Agarth had used the massacre of his own people to make good his escape aboard his personal shuttle. The Raven Lord was incensed, and vowed that the Arch-Comptroller would be forced to account for his actions. The taskforce abandoned the prosecution of Carinae's conquest, and instead focused all of its efforts into locating the escaped Arch-Comptroller. Discovering the object of their wrath, Argath was tracked to a remote outpost drifting in the outer reaches of a star's corona. The Raven Guard turned to its Moritat kill cadres to bring their murderous vengeance to the Arch-Comptroller. Once aboard, the Moritat quickly went on the offensive and methodically began to leave a bloody trail of corpses in their wake. Making no attempt to reach the Arch-Comptroller, the surviving Moritat made their way to the lone hangar and destroyed all of the station's transports, save one, to make good their escape. The void station took over four solar hours to fully break up as the sun's fiery embrace blistered and seared the station's hull plating. Corvus Corax stood and listened for all four hours as the Arch-Comptroller raged, blustered and finally pleaded over open Vox channels, only leaving when the station's molten collapse cut off his final screams. The Raven Guard had avenged those sacrificed on Zenith-312, but in doing so had granted the remainder of Carinae's defenders time to consolidate their defences, and without their support the Imperial Army and Crusade fleet assets had suffered badly as they had attempted to hold the line. The Carinae Campaign, which should have been swift and painless for the expanding Imperium, would rumble on for almost another seven solar months and would cost many thousands of lives as the price for the XIXth Legion's need for retribution.The Breg-shei Eradication (ca. 977.M30) - On the world of Farinatus Maximus, a detachment of the Raven Guard under Commander Alkenor carry out a Writ of Annihilation against the xenos-species of the breg-shei, highly dangerous and hostile insectoid aliens which had evolved there. Operating alongside the VIIIth Legion, the Night Lords, the Raven Guard infiltration team led by Sergeant Dravian Klayde charged with collapsing the berg-shei's nest was discovered and killed but for the tenacious Sergeant. Having lost one arm and both of his legs, Dravian Klayde however succeeded in reaching Imperial lines, dragging himself by his sole valid arm for days on end. This feat earned him the nickname of "The Carrion", imprinted upon him by the Night Lords who found him. Klayde would undergo extensive augmentic repairs which would ultimately lead him to be selected for training as a Techmarine on distant Mars, thus allowing him to be present during the Schism of Mars and play an important role in it.The Compliance of Indra-sûl (ca. 990.M30) - With the discovery of Kiavahr came the long expected union of the XIXth Legion and their Primarch, and the beginning of a subtle change to the Legion's character and reputation. Taking place almost fifty standard years after the Primarch had resumed command of his Legion, Corax' prosecution of the Indra-sûl Campaign is typical for many of the conquests undertaken by the Raven Guard, and displays how the melding of Deliverance-born insurgents and the brutal raiders of Terra's Asiatic Dustfields melded to produce the Raven Guard. The last years of the Great Crusade saw the majority of the Raven Guard assigned to Expeditionary Fleets in the far galactic north, pressing the Great Crusade's expansion past the reaches of the Segmentum Obscurus and into the dim stars of the galaxy's northern fringe. It was here that the Raven Guard discovered Indra-sûl. Once the planet must have served as a mighty Explorator port for the fleets of the Dark Age of Technology, but now it was reduced to a wasteland, with the exception of a vast glittering spire of silver many kilometres thick that reached from the ground to the void above, terminating in a series of branch-like docking tendrils that blanketed the sky of one hemisphere. Within this great structure the Raven Guard found the last survivors of Indra-sûl, and the creatures who now ruled them. In the dark years of the Age of Strife the xenos nightmares known as the Khrave had systematically harvested the population of Indra-sûl over the course of many centuries. Corax could not countenance the abject suffering of the people of Indra-sûl, no more than he could have left the people of Deliverance in bondage to the tech guilds of Kiavahr. Despite suggestions form some Terran-born Captains to release nerve-phage gas into the facility that would effectively kill both xenos masters and human slaves as the most effective solution, the Primarch laid plans for the salvation of Indra-sûl. Refusing to commit either his own Legionaries or the soldiers of the Therion Cohort to the war of attrition intended to take the spire level by level, the Raven Lord personally led a force of less than 2'000 Legionaries, selected from the ranks of the Raven Guard's reconnaissance and infiltration companies, into the structure. Infiltrating the massive spire at its midpoint by insertion from specially modified Shadowhawks and Darkwing gunships, the Space Marines were confronted with a vision of the past. The survivors of the human population of Indra-sûl were wretched and malformed, packed into chambers like cattle. Some detachments also encountered the Khrave, towering monstrosities gorged on centuries of captive bounty, impossibly strong and wielding foul Warp-glamours. Only with much slaughter were they able to slay such creatures. The Raven Guard both of Terra and Deliverance instinctively fell into the doctrines of guerrilla warfare, leaving their foes dazed and confused until they were finally slain. Discovering the hibernation chambers of the slumbering Khrave, soon the foul xenos began to stir from their slumber. The Raven Guard made a tactical withdrawal, while the Raven Lord and a demi-company of those who had fought at his side on Deliverance took the near-suicidal duty of providing a rearguard whilst the remaining Raven Guards accompanying him raced to deploy their teleport beacon array. Despite the slaughter that ensued, the Raven Guard held their ground, fighting to their last breath with only the desire to slay their foes until death claimed them. Finally, after an hour of non-stop combat, a flash of light announced the arrival of the Deliverers, a company of Terran-born Raven Guard clad in Terminator Armour, grim in aspect and wielding an array of fearsome weapons not usually favoured by the subtle tactics of the XIXth Legion. The Deliverers' massed firepower pushed the Khrave back and the Terran Legionaries advanced, the ferocity of the Terran Raven Guard finishing what the stoic determination of their brethren from Deliverance had begun. Within hours the Raven Guard had cleansed the spire of the xenos' foul presence. Now secured as a base for the Great Crusade's push into the Ghoul Stars, Indra-sûl was given into the custody of the Mechanicum, and the Raven Guard made preparations for their next conquest. Unknown to the Raven Guard, the Iterators and other Imperial servants following on the heels of the XIXth Legion's advance would later condemn the survivors to a living death as Servitor labourers, seeing them as corrupted in both mind and body. It is perhaps fortunate that the Raven Lord never discovered this prior to the outbreak of the fighting on Istvaan V, for his reputation leaves little doubt over the response that would likely have followed.Istvaan III Compliance (994.M30) - The world of Istvaan III was brought into Imperial Compliance by the 27th Expeditionary Fleet led by the Primarch Corax some fifteen standard years before the Drop Site Massacre during the Horus Heresy. The military forces of the indigenous Istvaanians, including the renegade psykers known as Warsingers, were professional soldiers who did not break easily, even when confronted with the might of Space Marines. There was some resistance, but the last elements of the aggressive faction, including the Warsingers, were destroyed by the Raven Guard at the Redarth Valley on Istvaan III. An Istvaanian delegation formally surrendered before the Primarch Corax and the 800 companies (80,000 Astartes) of Raven Guard Space Marines that comprised his XIXth Legion and their allies: the men of the Therion Cohorts and the Battle Titans of the Legio Victorum and the Legio Adamantus. The Istvaanians kneeled as a defeated foe but were welcomed into the fold as men of the Imperium. Though they had waged war against one another, the Imperial Truth had prevailed and the Istvaanians had sworn to accept its teachings. By proving themselves men of wisdom and civilisation, they were deemed fitting partners for the many other worlds of the nascent Imperium. The Remembrancer Order had not yet been foisted upon the Space Marine Legions by the Council of Terra at this time, but a substantial civilian contingent was left behind to begin the integration of the Istvaanian population with the Imperial Truth. Vardus Praal was left behind as the world's Imperial Planetary Governor to command Istvaan III in the name of the Imperium, to ensure continued compliance and manage the dismantling of the traditional religious structures that defined the planet's autochthonous society. Unbeknownst to Corax and his Raven Guard, they would return fifteen standard years later to the Istvaan System, to the world of Istvaan V, to bring the rebel Horus to account.Battle of Gate Forty-Two (ca. 000.M31) - Soon after Horus was declared the Imperial Warmaster, the Raven Guard were recalled from operations along the coreward edge of the Ghoul Stars and ordered to take their place in the line alongside several other Legions under the Warmaster's direct command to retake the Aukum-Sothos Cluster, which had been brought into Compliance by the Luna Wolves early in the Great Crusade but had rebelled against Imperial rule due to the actions of controlling xenos. Horus had formulated a plan to cast down the Unsighted Kings, the xenos-possessed leaders of the insurrection, in a lightning war that would purge the afflicted population while retaining the cluster's highly developed infrastructure for future re-population. Furthermore, a rapid victory would demonstrate to Horus' brother-Primarchs that the Emperor had been correct to elevate him to so high a rank. The Warmaster's plan called for the bulk of four Legions -- the Luna Wolves, Space Wolves, Iron Warriors and Raven Guard -- to converge on the heavily fortified lair of the Unsighted Kings before a final, overwhelming assault was launched. Though Corax strongly disagreed and nearly came to blows with Perturabo over an accusation of cowardice, Corax mustered the Raven Guard before Gate Forty-Two. Knowing their particular demeanour would carry them forward, Corax assigned many of his Terran-dominated companies to the vanguard, in particular those whose captains appeared the most willing to play their part in the Warmaster's plan. At the height of the battle, with the assault companies decimated and the attack faltering in the face of overwhelming fire, Corax himself led the forlorn hope, his battle cry firing the Legion to such efforts that the breach was carried and Gate Forty-Two taken. The honour of slaying the Unsighted Kings was claimed by Horus as Warmaster and at the moment of their execution, the xenos' hold over the population was dispelled. The Akum-Sothos Cluster was delivered and Horus' prize was reclaimed. The cost was terrible however, for not only had countless millions of hosts been crippled in mind and body, but thousands of Raven Guard, the bulk of them Terran-born, had given their lives before the shattered walls.Drop Site Massacre of Istvaan V (566006.M31) - Noted as one of the most devastating defeats in the history of the Adeptus Astartes, and certainly in the history of the Salamanders, the Drop Site Massacre of Istvaan V saw the Raven Guard, and Salamanders Legions nearly annihilated as effective fighting forces and only the quick thinking and initiative of the Salamanders allowed a bare few Space Marines of these two Legions to escape that dreadful day. In response to the treachery of the Warmaster Horus and his betrayal of the Loyalist Astartes in the Sons of Horus, Emperor's Children, World Eaters and Death Guard Legions at Istvaan III, the Primarch of the Imperial Fists Legion, Rogal Dorn, on the direction of the Emperor who had learned of Horus' actions from the Loyalist survivors aboard the Eisenstein, ordered 7 Loyalist Space Marine Legions to Horus' base on the world of Istvaan V to challenge the Traitors. They would attack in two waves and fall under the supreme command of the Iron Hands Primarch Ferrus Manus. The Legions comprising the first wave were the Raven Guard, Iron Hands and Salamanders. The Legions comprising the second wave were the Alpha Legion, Night Lords, Iron Warriors, and a large contingent of Word Bearers that their Primarch Lorgar had stationed in the star system. Unknown to Loyalists, the Night Lords, Alpha Legion, Iron Warriors and Word Bearers had all turned from their service to the Emperor and secretly pledged their loyalty to Horus, and been instructed to keep their new allegiance to Chaos a secret. The Iron Hands, Salamanders and Raven Guard were deployed in the first wave of the assault on the planet while the Raven Guard Legion's flagship Shadow of the Emperor and the rest of the flotilla of Loyalist vessels provided overwatch of the planetary assault, standing by in case they needed to provide assistance to the attacking ground forces. After they secured the drop site, they were to have been followed by the arrival of the other four Legions. The first wave secured the drop site, known as the Urgall Depression, though at a heavy cost. Horus ordered his front line troops to fall back in a feint, tempting Ferrus Manus to overstretch his already thin lines. Against the advice of Corax and Vulkan, Manus led his Veterans against the fleeing Traitor Marines unsupported. Manus then brought his brother Fulgrim to combat. As the two Primarchs drew their weapons, the Raven Guard and Salamanders fell back to regroup and allow the second wave's Legions to advance and earn glory. However, as they returned they were mowed down by the four Traitor Legions that had landed to supposedly support them, thus revealing their new allegiance to Chaos. At the same time the apparent rout of the Sons of Horus, the World Eaters, Death Guard and Emperor's Children suddenly halted and the Traitors pressed their attack. As Horus pressed the counterattack he managed to sandwich the Loyalists between the two Traitor forces, killing most of them. As the black-armoured Astartes of the Raven Guard Legion were cut down by the Traitors' sustained volley, the traitorous Primarch Lorgar ordered his Word Bearers Legion to attack the Raven Guards' unprotected flank. Corax charged into the ranks of the Traitorous Word Bearers, a blur of charcoal armour and black blades, butchering with an ease that belied his ferocity. Argel Tal, the Crimson Lord and leader of the daemon-possessed Astartes known as the Gal Vorbak, Lorgar's "Blessed Sons", leapt forward to meet their end at the hands of the enraged Primarch. Lorgar soon noticed that Corax was wading through the Gal Vorbak, ripping his daemon-possessed crimson warriors apart. Despite the protestations of both Kor Phaeron and Erebus, Lorgar sprinted forwards across the churned earth and dead bodies of his brother's Legion to engage in a battle he had no hope of winning. The two Primarchs fought in furious combat -- Corax fighting to kill, while Lorgar fought to stay alive. The Primarchs traded vicious blows, but the Raven Lord had the advantage not only of speed and finesse, but also of being a gifted warrior with decades of fighting experience. Lorgar did not, for he had always been more of a scholar than a warrior, and his lack of experience cost him dearly as Corax impaled Lorgar through his stomach and out his back. As Corax stepped closer, he raised his one functioning Lightning Claw to execute his brother, but was thwarted by the timely intervention of the Night Lords Primarch Konrad Curze. Weakened by his battle with Lorgar, Corax took advantage when the Night Haunter was momentarily distracted and fired his flight pack, burning his fuel reserves to escape Curze's grip, soaring skyward away from Curze's rising laughter. As the Traitors wreaked a bloody toll upon the first wave of Loyalist Astartes on the planet's surface, in orbit, the Shadow of the Emperor received their stand-to and distress broadcasts. It was cut off within a matter of minutes, jammed by the Traitor warships in orbit. It was too soon for the vessel's cloaking Reflex Shields to be raised, and against the numbers that were arrayed against them, the use of that technology would have been the only defence. The Terminus Est, under the command of First Captain Calas Typhon, was one of the few capital ships of the Death Guard Legion. When the Traitors revealed their treachery, the Terminus Est suddenly engaged and treacherously destroyed the unprepared Shadow of the Emperor as well as its accompanying Escort ships. It is argued by many Imperial scholars that this engagement was the earliest recorded conflict between Battleships that were specialised to carry Attack Craft. The engagement was swift and brutal, depriving the embattled Loyalist forces on Istvaan V of any air support in the massacre that followed. The loss of the Shadow of the Emperor is remembered to this day as one of the greatest losses of the Raven Guard in the Horus Heresy and the Chapter maintains a long-standing grudge against the Death Guard as a result. Meanwhile on the surface, the Iron Hands were cut off and slaughtered to a man -- the veteran Morlock Terminators cut down while Ferrus Manus was beheaded by Fulgrim. The Salamanders and Raven Guard could do nothing to help the Iron Hands, and were forced to make a costly break-out with precious few of their forces. Those Thunderhawk and Stormbird gunships that lifted off and escaped Istvaan V were far fewer than those that had landed. Corax was badly wounded and Vulkan's fate was unknown for some time. The remainder of the Iron Hands Legion arrived to find their Veterans and Primarch dead and the Salamanders and Raven Guard reduced to a fraction of their full strength, with both Legions nearly wiped out. Corax and his Raven Guard returned to Deliverance in defeat, steeled to rebuild and take revenge on Horus and his Traitors.Battle of Ravendelve (ca.006.M31) - Following the calamitous events of Istvaan V and the Raven Guard's flight to Terra to bring word of the disaster, the shattered XIXth Legion returned to their home world of Deliverance. Unknown to them, the insidious Alpha Legion had inserted several of their own Legionaries, surgically disguised as Raven Guard Legionaries who had died on the black sands of Istvaan V. Gathering intelligence on Primarch Corax' efforts to reconstitute his Legion utilising a sample of pure Primarch DNA given to him by the Emperor Himself, the Alpha Legion operatives patiently waited until the Raven Guard had achieved a genetic breakthrough. In the meantime, they fomented rebellion amongst the old tech-guilds of Kiavahr, the Forge World that the moon of Deliverance circled, while assembling Alpha Legion forces nearby, for an unsuspected surgical strike. The Alpha Legion successfully tainted the Primarch DNA, which resulted in the disastrous mutation of newly inducted Raven Guard aspirants into hideously transformed creatures. At the same time, the Alpha Legion's plans reached their climax. The Kiavahr rebellion was well under way, supported by the newly arrived Alpha Legion forces, who were camouflaged as Raven Guard. The Loyalist Raven Guard successfully put down the rebellion and killed all the Alpha Legion operatives.Assault on Iydris (006-007.M31) - In the wake of the terrible slaughter of Loyalists at the Drop Site Massacre on Istvaan V, a small fleet of Astartes from the ravaged Raven Guard and Iron Hands Legions managed to flee off-world. Among these vessels was the Sisypheum, a Strike Cruiser commanded by the mortally wounded Iron Hands Captain Ulrach Branthan. Determined to continue to strike against the Traitor Legions wherever and whenever they could, the crew of the Sisypheum eventually manged to intercept the encoded communications of the Traitors and learned that the turncoat Primarchs Fulgrim and Perturabo were leading their Emperor's Children and Iron Warriors Traitor Legions, respectively, into the Warp Rift later named the Eye of Terror by Perturabo, in search of an unknown Eldar weapon known as the Angel Exterminatus which could decisively tip the balance of the Horus Heresy in favour of the Traitors. The Iron Hands eventually assembled a small fleet of similar Loyalist survivors of the Drop Site Massacre and made their way into the Eye to stop the Traitors from acquiring this weapon. Once within the Eye, Fulgrim led the combined Traitor Legion forces to the ancient Eldar Crone World of Iydris, into the citadel known as Amon ny-shak Kaelis where the Angel Exterminatus was supposedly located. The Traitors were forced to repel countless attacks by the ancient Eldar defense systems and from Eldar constructs animated by the countless dead Eldar souls of the Crone World. In truth, the entire quest for the Angel Exterminatus had been a ruse perpetrated upon Perturabo and the Iron Warriors by Fulgrim and the Emperor's Children. Fulgrim, now a Champion of the Chaos God of Pleasure, Slaanesh, sought apotheosis to become a Daemon Prince of the Prince of Chaos. But he needed the power provided by the life force of a Primarch and the sacred energies of a place like an Eldar Crone World that was sacred to Slaanesh to complete his ascension to daemonhood. Fulgrim had given to Perturabo a cloak, to which was affixed a skull-shaped pin carrying a relic known as a maugetar stone. As long as Perturabo was within the confines of the Eldar citadel the stone slowly absorbed his life force and fed these energies to Fulgrim. Once Perturabo discovered his brother's perfidy, the Iron Warriors launched an assault upon the Emperor's Children, and a three-way battle soon developed as the Iron Hands from the Sisypheum and its small flotilla of Loyalists entered the fray against both Traitor forces, unaware of what was truly happening. In the course of the combat that followed, Perturabo slew Fulgrim's mortal body with the great warhammer Forgebreaker, which ironically had originally been forged by Fulgrim for Ferrus Manus. But this action was only the final component in Fulgrim's ritual of apoetheosis, and his body remade itself into the twisted, serpentine form of a Slaaneshi Daemon Prince. Fulgrim became the first of the Traitor Primarchs to ascend to daemonhood, but he would not be the last. His goal achieved, Fulgrim teleported his Emperor's Children away from Iydris and the Crone World began to collapse as the potent life forces of the dead that had long sustained it were drained away by Fulgrim's ascension. The Iron Hands and Perturabo's Iron Warriors successfully fled the crumbling planet, though Perturabo escaped by taking his fleet deeper into the black hole that lay at the centre of the Eye of Terror. For the first time, one of the Traitor Legions had turned on another, a situation that was to become all too common as the Dark Gods of Chaos tightened their grip on Horus' followers.Raid on Cruciax (ca. 007.M31) - The Raid on Cruciax, which harboured a listening post of the Word Bearers Legion marked the Raven Guard's return to the battlefield after the crippling losses suffered during the Dropsite Massacre. Intended as a field test to further assess the capabilities and discipline of the new contingent of the XIXth Legion, the Raptors, the raid was a full success, wiping-out the Word Bearers garrison and destroying the facility in less than twenty minutes. The first three hundred members of the Raptors, which were all genetically perfect, were declared battle-ready following this action and the Raven Guard quickly put its eye on a more important target -- the Siege of the Perfect Fortress on the world of Narsis.Siege of the Perfect Fortress (ca. 007.M31) - Located on the world of Narsis, the so-called "Perfect Fortress" had been erected by the IIIrd Legion, the Emperor's Children during the Great Crusade-era. As its name may indicate the Perfect Fortress was a military base, but also a hive city harbouring many millions of inhabitants where elegant buildings and colonnades hid both administrative buildings and tanks and weapon depots, where ornate balustrades revealed themselves as redoubt and every balcony was a perfect firing position on pre-planned kill-zones. Taking the Perfect Fortress would be an arduous task, a task which in truth lay beyond the capabilities of the severely depleted Raven Guard to take alone. Following the Legion's catastrophic losses and the ill-fated attempt to quickly replace these losses, Corvus Corax decided that his Legion would assail the highly symbolic location. It was then fortunate that shortly after the Kiavahrian Uprising, the ranks of the XIXth Legion were swelled by the reconstituted and vastly expanded Therion Cohorts. These regiments of the Imperial Army would then take the brunt of the assault, landing far away from the Perfect Fortress and marching on it while weathering its considerable fire power. For three long days, the Therion Cohort assailed the Perfect Fortress before their losses forced them to retreat. This was all the enemy commander, Captain Luthris, had been waiting for. The Emperor's Children counter-attack hit the Therions hard, the Raven Guard letting their allies being slaughtered on the ground for the better part of a day before committing themselves to their own counter-attack. With the Emperor's Children drawn out of their most heavily defended positions, the Raven Guard revealed themselves, having hidden in the city under cover from the Therion's assault. The so-called "Perfect Fortress" fell within the day. This highly symbolic action not only marked a severe defeat for the notorious Traitor IIIrd Legion, but also the return of the XIXth Legion to the front lines. It was purely an act of spite against Horus, and even though it nearly brought it to extinction, the Raven Guard would still oppose him and prove to be a thorn in the Traitor's side.Liberation of Scarato (ca. 007.M31) - Having fallen early on in the Horus Heresy, the former Imperial world of Scarato had been turned into a prison world by its new masters, the Sons of Horus under whose yoke the population suffered heavily. Despite the execution of much of its planetary nobility, resistance -- if discreet -- was progressively organising itself, building its strength for a full-scale rebellion against the Warmaster's troops. When the Raven Guard arrived at Scarato the uprising was nearing its final stage. With the help of the XIXth Legion, Scarato liberated itself from the meagre occupation force left by the Traitors. Yet casualties amongst the Scaratoan natives were fairly high, as the ill-armed people had to swarm their better-equipped overseers by sheer dint of numbers while the Raven Guard performed precision strikes against more sensitive targets. With Scarato liberated, the Ravenlord ordered its astropathic choir to be used to send out a rallying call to those scattered warriors that still fought in the Emperor's name. This allowed the Raven Guard to considerably bolster its forces, drawing more than three hundred Astartes of various Legions to teach them the art of guerilla warfare that made the Raven Guard such a thorn in the Traitors' sides. Most distinctively, this call allowed the Legion to welcome back one of its most esteemed sons, Gherith Arendi, the former commander of the Shadow Wardens -- Lord Corax's own bodyguard that had been disbanded on the sands of Istvaan V -- who had been believed slain. During his time away from the Legion, Arendi had gathered information on another prison-world, Carandiru, which would soon come under attack from the Raven Guard.Raid on Kapel-5642A (ca. 007.M31) - The Raid on Kapel-5642A stands as an exemplar of the Raven Guard's preferred tactics in the years following the Horus Heresy. With the XIXth Legion severely reduced, the Raven Guard focussed its attention on sensitive and -- where possible -- less-heavily defended targets in an effort to disrupt the enemy's supply lines and reduce its manufacturing capabilities. The brief but hard-fought assault on the asteroid-base of Kapel-5642A emphasised this new strategy by which the sons of Corax would now fight. Located in the Cretherach Reach, Kapel-5642A was a Mechanicum-controlled asteroid-base that functioned as a shipyard, tasked with building new warships for the Traitors' fleets. Through the use of tens of thousands of indentured workers and forced labour, the small asteroid-base had succeeded in building several warships in the space of a scant few years, where a comparable task would have taken more than a decade during the time of the Great Crusade. As the warships neared completion, the Raven Guard struck. Stormbirds, Thunderhawks and other assault craft delivered assault cadres of Legionaries which quickly disabled the base's orital defence grid, wrecking havoc amongst the defenders and keeping their eyes away from their true intent. With the enemy already inside his compound, the base's commander spared the approaching Avenger no second thought as it drew closer. Unopposed, the Avenger launched a devastating torpedo-strike on the base which destroyed its docks and the ships it contained. So swift was their assault, that the Raven Guard had departed the asteroid-base well before their torpedoes hit their target. The entire offensive had lasted a scant few minutes.The Liberation of Constanix II (ca. 007.M31) - Atlas was one amongst several barge cities that roamed the skies above the acidic and toxic seas of the minor Mechanicum Forge World of Constanix II. Archmagos Delvere, master of the capital city of Iapetus had allied himself with the Traitor Word Bearers Legion and begun the manufacture of presently unknown daemon-engines. Stumbling upon the Kamiel -- the Strike Cruiser in charge of resupplying the Traitors of the XVIIth -- more by luck than anything else, Corax himself led the assault to take the ship with his most senior officers in tow. In the datacore of the Kamiel, the Raven Guard discovered its intended destination. Intrigued by what the Word Bearers had in mind for this isolated and almost forgotten Forge World, Corax quickly decided to investigate the matter. He split his small flotilla in order to head to Constanix, despite the misgivings of such Raven Guard Commanders as Branne and Agapito. Corax would not be swayed, and so the order was given to split their forces and part ways. On Constanix II, the Raven Guard quickly assessed that Delvere's malign influence had expanded to nearly each of the other city-barques, including some of the Titans of the Legio Nivalis charged with the protection of the planet's floating cities. Using diversions, the Raven Guard infiltrated and successfully seized control of the city-barque of Atlas with the help of loyalist Mechanicum elements and the might of Castor Terminus, a towering Warlord-class Titan that had been posted at Atlas to ensure its defence. With Atlas firmly under their control, Corax was swift to order an attack on the capital of Constanix II, the city-barque of Iapetus where the Word Bearers and Dark Mechanicum awaited them. After the opening moves of the battle, Corax -- as it had become increasingly more common -- left his commanders in charge of the ground offensive and personally took the fight to the enemy, his detachment attacking the enemy's headquarter, the central shrine of the Machine-God. There the Primarch encountered a new model of hence-unknown daemon-engines whose descriptions match those of the dreaded war-engines known as Defilers. Defeating the daemon-engines, Corax went on the hunt for Archmagos Delvere, who quickly perished under his Lightning Claws, before confronting the Word Bearers Champion Azor Nathrakin, a former Librarian turned Sorcerer, whom had allowed a daemon to possess his body. Having opened a warp rift from which he could continuosly siphon off energy and regenerate himself, Nathrakin almost succeeded in defeating Corax before the Primarch managed to hurl his opponent into the Warp Rift, destroying the blasphemous machinery keeping the portal open. Imploding, the warp rift utterly destroyed Nathrakin, allowing the Raven Guard to claim yet another victory over the Forces of Chaos.The Day of Vengeance (ca. 008.M31) - The Day of Vengeance on the prison-world on Carandiru was to inaugurate a new method of warfare -- a new means to destabilise Traitor-held domains -- but instead became known as one of Corax's closest brushes with defeat. A lone Legionary named Commander Shoukonou infiltrated Carandiru's population and began to expand, form and contact existing resistance cells in order to sow the seed of rebellion against their common oppressors. He was given two months to bring the population to rise up in the name of the Emperor before the Raven Guard would intervene. At the chosen date -- designated "V-Day" or the "Day of Vengeance" -- the civilian uprisings broke out, mobilising the enemy forces and turning their attention away from essential facilities which were then targeted by the Raven Guard. Elite infiltration squads of Mor Deythan landed covertly in the capital, seizing plasma generators and overloading the city's power grid, thus disabling anti-air defences and shrouding the entire capital in darkness. While the main focus of the attack was Carandiru's citadel -- which had been erected with the skill of the Imperial Fists during the Great Crusade -- other sensitive targets were simultaneously targeted by the Raptor-Company under Commander Brann. These would be the first to discover that Carandiru had not only been a prison but also a diabolical laboratory where gruesome experiments had been conducted on captured Loyalist Astartes. Under the dark input of the Emperor's Children's dire Chief Apothecary Fabius, these experiments had evolved in the creation of a superior type of Legionary sometimes referred to as "New Men" or Legiones Superior. Equipped with experimental technologies of unknown and esoteric designs, these "New Men" successfully overcame Lord Corax himself, capturing him, until a taskforce of Raven Guard Legionaries under former Commander Gherith Arendi, disobeying the Primarch's orders, arrived in the nick of time to save their Primarch's life.The Luck of the Raven Guard (ca. 008.M31) - On a routine sweep, the Fearless, a Raven Guard Light Cruiser, encountered an abandoned ship in an unhabitaded system, a Legiones Astartes rapid deployment vessel that turned out to belong to the VIth Legion, the Space Wolves. The ship was drifting dead in the void, all power lost, yet no sign of damage or battle could be ascertained. Lieutenant Navar Hef, commander of the Fearless and a company of Raptors, ordered that the ship be boarded and searched, which only helped to thicken the mystery. The Raptors discovered three defaced corpses of obviously Space Marine stature. Accessing the ship's log, the Raptors successfully traced back the vessel's point of origin -- an unhabitated moon orbiting a gas-giant in a nearby system. The Fearless went to investigate the matter, discovering a sizable Traitor force comprised of the Sons of Horus. Entering the system stealthily, the Fearless launched a reconnaissance mission, led by Hef himself, to further clarify the situation on the ground. The landing party quickly discovered that the Sons of Horus had been laying siege to a Loyalist facility, whose occupants proved to be the surviving Space Wolves. The Raven Guard and Space Wolves quickly joined forces. The Fearless conducted a stealth-attack on its enemy counterpart, which led to its destruction, before starting an orbital bombardment of the Traitor's positions. With no other option left to them, the Sons of Horus stormed the facility, hoping to seize control of its orbital defence lasers which had severely damaged their own ship beforehand, but ran into the Space Wolves' cunning trap, as the facility's plasma generator had been set to overload. Unfortunately, none of the Space Wolves were able to clear the blast in time, a fact for which Navar Hef -- who had suggested the plan in the first place -- has always expressed his deepest regrets. Yet, rumour had it, that events did not occur exactly as Hef had consigned them in his personal log -- and so, the ultimate fate of Arvan Woundweaver and his pack remains a mystery to this date.Fate of the Sabalis Liberatus (010-012.M31) - The Sabalis Liberatus, a Raven Guard Legion battlecruiser lost in the Warp since escaping the void battle over Istvaan V, finally broke into realspace near Galaspar on the borders of the Veiled Region on the Southern galactic fringe. The survivors on board, comprising a mixture of Loyalist Legions, had spent the time in self-imposed suspended animation and awoke to find themselves utterly cut off from information or support. Fired on by Imperial patrol vessels whose captains had sided with the Traitors, this "Shattered Legion" force boarded the patrol vessels and conquered their attackers. Effecting repairs from the captured ships, they began a further two-year odyssey of battle to return to the Segmentum Solar and finally Terra, where they would ultimately fight in the void battles against the Traitor onslaught in the closing days of the war.The Malagant Conflict (011-014.M31) - With surviving Loyalist enclaves apparently crippled by the Warmaster's onslaught, those Death Guard elements assigned to the garrison of Barbarus spearheaded an assault into the southern reaches of the Imperium. The grim warriors of Barbarus made the vast industrial hives of Malagant their prime target, a world made valuable for the strategic worth of its manufactoria, and to crush the defiance of the surrounding sectors, many of whom looked to the determined Loyalist leaders of Malagant for leadership. Yet where the Death Guard had expected to crush the Malagantine auxilia in short order, they found themselves mired in cunning ambushes and punishing counter-attacks led by Legiones Astartes bearing the sable mark of the Raven Guard. Lacking the numbers to meet the Traitors head-on, the sons of Corax plied their deadly skills as skirmishers and assassins upon their erstwhile brothers; trapping them on a world they could not afford to abandon, battling a foe they could not pin down and crush. For three years, little more than a company of Raven Guard occupied an augmented chapter of Barbarus' finest, until 014.M31 when the Death Guard retreated in the face of approaching Loyalist reinforcements from Inwit.The Raiders Raided (508.M40) - After almost a century of hunting down the power base of a band of Eldar pirates, the Raven Guard located their quarry deep within the frozen reaches of the Subaron Rift. Mindful that any hint of attack would cause the raiders to vanish once more into the void, Strike Force Ultra was dispatched to eradicate the Eldar with overwhelming force before they would have time to flee. Captain Oradias managed to take the aliens by surprise after making opportunistic use of a nearby drifting asteroid to carry his force undetected through the Eldar's defences. When the Terminators stormed their enemy's base they fóund the Eldar completely unprepared to face them, and soon the icy tunnels of the rift ran red with xenos blood.The Zypher Campaign (204.M41) - In 914.M40 the Ork Warlord Arbuttz the Incredible launched a massive Ork WAAAGH! that swept through dozens of uninhabited star systems on the far southwestern rim of the galaxy before eventually slaughtering their way through several Eldar Exodite colonies and smashing into an area of Imperial frontier space known as the Zypher Sub-sector. A dozen Imperial worlds fell to the Ork WAAAGH! before it ran out of steam on the Imperial Death World of Gorang and petered out. As the WAAAGH! came to an end the Orks had conquered the entire Zypher Sub-sector, which they subsequently inhabited and transformed into a new Ork empire. For nearly three hundred Terran years the Ork empire went uncontested until in 204.M41 the Imperium finally responded. A Crusade spearheaded by forces from the Marauders, Eagle Warriors, Revilers and Raven Guard Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes with more than two dozen Regiments of the Imperial Guard in support swept into the Zypher Sub-sector and initiated a long and grueling war against the Ork inhabitants. The campaign took twenty years to complete but by 224.M41 the Zypher Sub-sector was declared free of xenos taint. The Imperial Crusade was not content with merely retaking lost ground and chose instead to continue on into unexplored regions of space. The Imperial war machine tore across the systems conquered by WAAAGH! Arbuttz three centuries prior, laying claim to worlds where no man had ever set foot before, assigning each world the Crusade forces encountered a Regiment of Imperial Guard to cleanse and then settle. The 127th Death Korps of Krieg Regiment under the command of General Himmel von Paulus was assigned to cleanse the backwater world of Baran. The world was a savage place of wild forests, broad open steppe plains and craggy mountain chains overrun with tribes of now feral Orks. Driving the Orks from the open steppes proved easy for the Death Korps and the Raven Guard forces assisting them but it was nearly impossible to completely eradicate the greenskins in the depths of Baran's dense forests. Without the manpower to cleanse the forests of the feral greenskin tribes infesting them General Paulus decided to contain them instead, building a network of interconnected fortresses to bottle the Orks into their wilderness hideouts. Over time these fortresses grew into Baran's first cities, with urban sprawls built up within layers of ever expanding fortifications under constant assault from roving bands of Orks. In generations the colonies grew and prospered, though Baran's cities were never populous by Imperial standards they thrived, giving rise in time to new Imperial Guard Regiments to replace the long deceased Death Korps founders. These new Imperial Guard Regiments were dubbed the Baran Siegemasters, for the inhabitants of Baran were intimately familiar with siegecraft from their ever constant battles to hold off Feral Ork warbands. The Raven Guard chose to remain, building a fortress-monastery on one of Baran's orbiting moons, a black rock named Coron. From their keep a little over 100 Battle-Brothers of the Raven Guard kept watch over Baran and those nearby worlds of value, realizing that the harsh conditions of Baran might one day breed potential Aspirants for the Chapter. For decades the Raven Guard made little contact with the Baran Siegemasters, contenting themselves with hunting down and slaying any Ork Warbosses who they believed may have stolen Imperial technology during the initial WAAAGH! three centuries previously. With the consolidation of Baran and the other frontier worlds the Zypher Campaign came to a close.Baran Campaign (224.M41) - Decades after the colonisation of Baran the Eldar of Biel-Tan arrived to find the original Exodite colony on that world wiped out by Orks and their world infested with Greenskins and humans. Filled with a burning need for vengeance, the Fire Dragon Exarch Mauryon led a campaign against the Feral Orks of Baran, driving them from ancient Eldar sites in the deep forests. Unable to face the Eldar in battle, the Orks began a mass exodus from the forests that brought them into furious conflict with the human Baran Siegemasters and their Fortress Cities. As the colony cities came under ever more intense assault, the defenders realized their position was ultimately hopeless if they did not receive support. Governor Asaberra despatched what reserves he had from the capital city of Enderra to the most isolated colonies, but realized that this was only a delaying measure at best. Asaberra called upon the Raven Guard on their moon of Coron for aid. Shadow Captain Moradius chose not to deploy to the embattled Fortress Cities as his forces were too few to effectively aid in the defence of so many isolated sieges. Captain Moradius was more concerned with what was driving the Orks from the forests than he was with the Feral Orks themselves. Determined to discover the cause for the Ork attacks, the Raven Guard returned to Baran, making only brief contact with Governor Asaberra before they struck out for the deepest, wildest sections of Baran's forests. As they searched the forests for signs of the Orks, the Raven Guard discovered every Greenskin settlement had been destroyed, every lair rooted out and there was barely an Ork remaining to be found. Something had destroyed the Ork's camps and driven them from the forest. Captain Moradius knew that such spontaneous and orchestrated activity across the entire planet was not likely to have been the result of the Orks' own in-fighting. With little else to discover in the forests, Moradius recalled his scout teams and took his warriors into the Voltus Plains, a barren region of steppe-plains where even the Orks did not establish settlements, choosing instead to roam the plains riding giant boars, Squiggoths and other creatures as warring nomadic tribes. After a week of hard marching across the plains, the Raven Guard at last encountered the Orks, but Captain Moradius was not seeking to drive yet more Orks towards the Fortress Cities and so broke off contact after a brief skirmish. After withdrawing from combat with the nomadic Greenskins, Moradius ordered his Scout Marines to shadow the Orks and watch for signs of the force that had driven the Orks from the forests. Days later the Scouts reported back that the Greenskins were under attack. Without delay the Raven Guard rushed to the Ork tribe's location aboard six Thunderhawk Gunships. Despite their haste, the Orks were wiped out by the time they arrived. The Raven Guard instead came face-to-face with the Eldar of Biel-Tan. Well-versed in the slippery nature of the Eldar, Moradius ordered an immediate assault, striking the Eldar forces rapidly and reaping a heavy toll in xenos lives. The Eldar had apparently not planned on engaging the local Imperial forces so soon and certainly had not counted on the presence of the Space Marines. For hours the Astartes and Eldar fought a running battle as the Space Marine slowly began to outnumber the xenos forces, striking at them from all sides until the xenos at last fell back to a circle of standing stones, ancient monuments from the days of the Eldar empire's rule over Baran. Resolving to crush the Eldar army decisively, the Raven Guard committed to the attack, but this was what the Eldar had wanted. As the Astartes closed in on the remaining Eldar forces Webway gates opened up all around the ring of standing stones. The Raven Guard force found itself encircled by the entire Eldar Swordwind that had been rampaging across the surface of Baran. Though they fought bravely, the Space Marines held out for only a few hours before they were utterly exterminated. The Eldar managed to open an ancient Webway gate on Baran's plains from which Eldar Titans could emerge to join the battle. The defenders of Baran were swept from the world, which was reclaimed for the Eldar, though the Imperium -- and the Raven Guard -- vowed to retake it.Downfall of the Megarchy (748.M41) - In 748.M41 the Hive World of Thruskus denounced the Imperial Creed. The stirring oratories of the local ruling council of elders known as the Megarchy whose charismatic and persuasive oratory held the hives of Thruskus in their thrall. However their rule was short lived. The Raven Guard stroke like lightning, defeating the Megarchs and hanging them from their own hive spires. Within a day of the Megarch's death the world of Thruskus was brought back to compliance.Sabbat Worlds Crusade - Liberation of Caligula (750s.M41) - During the Sabbat Worlds Crusade, a small force of Raven Guards Space Marines was involved in the landing against the Chaos-controlled capital city of Nero, launching an assault along with Imperial Guard troops from the Latarii Gundogs that broke through to the upper levels and into the Administratum tower.The Hunt for Voldorius (ca. 855-865.M41) - Honoured Kyublai, the Great Khan of the White Scars, announced during the feast celebrating his ascension that he intended to bring justice to one of the Chapter's greatest foes, the foul Daemon Prince Kernax Voldorius, the leader of a warband of the Alpha Legion. To accomplish this Hunt for Voldorius, the 51st Master of the Hunt, Kor'sarro Khan and his 3rd Brotherhood, was despatched to bring back the head of the foul daemon, or not at all. For more than a decade Kor'sarro and his warriors tracked Voldorius, as the warriors of the White Scars fought their way across Zoran, Kavell and Modanna but chance always allowed Voldorius to escape. Finally Kor'sarro and his company found themselves on Quintus, a desolate rock to the galactic south of Chogoris. Before the coming of Voldorius, Quintus had been a bulwark against the Orks of the Jagal Stars. The Daemon Prince's warriors had infiltrated the military of Quintus and when the White Scars arrived they found not just the warband of the Alpha Legion, but a whole planet of soldiers ready to face them. Kor'sarro would not be deterred however and leaving his Strike Cruiser in the outer system, the Master of the Hunt and his warriors approached the planet stealthily via Thunderhawks and made their way through the planetary defense grid and landed in the blasted canyons to the south-west of the capitol. Despite their stealthy approach there are others more adept at such things than the White Scars and upon their arrival they were met by none other than Captain Kayvaan Shrike and the Raven Guard 3rd Company. For millenia the relationship between the White Scars and the Raven Guard had been strained. But the forces arrayed against them were too much for either force to deal with single handedly. Their hands forced by the situation the two Captains and their commands worked together. The following morning Shrike and his company led a dawn strike against an orbital defense battery to the west of Mankarra. Even before the complex was fully taken the Raven Guard were preparing to defend it as fully half of the Alpha Legion warband and much of Mankarra's garrison roared towards them as reinforcements. Outnumbered badly and stretched thin the Raven Guard held their ground with stoic determination, though they were slowly forced to give ground. Despite a counter-attack by Shadow Captain Shrike, the Traitors continued to force the Raven Guard back. But this was all according to plan, for the White Scars had secreted themselves in caves to the south and the moment the Traitors were over-committed the White Scars pounced. Roaring down on their foes on their Space Marine bikes the White Scars smashed aside all resistance. Within moments the Traitor Baneblade Ironsoul was crippled, its sponsons destroyed and crew slaughtered. With the loss of their largest war machine the backbone of the traitors broke and they were slaughtered piecemeal by the Raven Guard and White Scars. Despite the formidable defences of Mankarra, Voldorius had not bothered to spend much time on repair or maintenance. The Raven Guard Thunderhawks and the White Scars Vindicator known as the Thunderheart were able to blast a sizable hole in the curtain wall with little trouble and before the defenders could react the White Scars were loose in the city streets. Staying mobile the White Scars roared along roads and alleys, striking wherever they were least expected and slaughtering every traitor without mercy. Meanwhile the Raven Guard deployed from their Thunderhawks on the rooftops and beset their foes from above. Caught from multiple angles the defenders were butchered. Finally only Voldorius and his bodyguard remained, trapped and outnumbered in the shadow of the Cathedral of the Emperor's Wisdom. Though many fell to the foul daemon prince the outcome was never in doubt. At last Voldorius was broken and pinned to the fallen statue of the Emperor by Shrike's Talons. With one sweep Kor'sarro cut the head from Voldorius' shoulders and the battle was over. A month later, with the planet in the hands of a Imperial Guard regiment from Tallarn the Space Marines departed. Shrike returned to the Targus battlezone and Kor'sarro returned to Chogoris with Voldorius' head. Each Captain took with him a newfound respect for the other and the relationship between the long-estranged brother Chapters took its first step towards healing.The Shadowblade War (890.M41) - Following a fruitless search-and-destroy mission against Raven Guard forces, Dark Apostle Erelek's Word Bearers return to resupply at the Fortress of Damnation only to find it in the hands of Raven Guard Scouts. Faced with the bastion's considerable firepower, the Word Bearers attempted to withdraw, but their escape route was cut off when Stormravens descended to surround them. Caught in the open, the traitors were cut apart in a merciless crossfire.The Battle for Targus VIII (Unknown Date.M41) - Shadow Captain Shrike and an elite team of infiltrators found themselves cut off behind the lines of the Orks when their pickup Thunderhawk was shot down. For more than two years Shrike and his marines fought a guerilla war deep in Ork held territory, stealing supplies and munitions, sabotaging Ork installations, ambushing and slaughtering the greenskins whenever they could, as well as relaying vital intelligence to the Imperium's forces fighting in the campaign. Shrike's actions brought the campaign to a successful conclusion decades earlier than predicted and earning the legendary captain the Laurel Imperialis.Battle for Empalion II (Unknown Date.M41) - When the Raven Guard laid siege to an Iron Warriors fortress on the world of Empalion II the task seemed hopeless, until a force of Brazen Minotaurs arrived to assist their cousins in their hour of need. The Brazen Minotaurs sacrificed an entire company to distract the Iron Warriors and allow the Raven Guard 4th Company to infiltrate the Iron Warriors fortress and destroy it from within.Mission to Kasharat (Unknown Date. M41) - During the war for the Sargassion Reach the Brazen Minotaurs Chief Librarian Theseon was captured by the forces of the Empyrion's Blight Chaos Space Marine warband and brought to the corrupted Mortuary World of Kasharat to be broken. A small team of Brazen Minotaurs mounted a rescue mission but would likely have failed without the intervention and assistance of a squad of Raven Guard Astartes led by Shadow Captain Koryn who deployed to the surface of the Mortuary World in advance of the Brazen Minotaurs rescue mission and cleared the way for them. Though both Chapters suffered casualties, the mission was ultimately successful and a debt between the two Loyalist Chapters was repaid.Battle for Fortane's World (Unknown Date.M41) - The Sargassion Reach was on the brink of destruction at the hands of the foul Chaos Space Marine warband known as Empyrion's Blight when the Fortress World of Fortane's World fell to the machinations of the Archenemy. Rather than having fallen to strength of arms the bastion fell to corruption from within. Even worse, the eccentric orbit of Fortane's World would bring it within a matter of days within the outer limits of the densely populated neighboring star system of Kandoor. Unwilling to allow the sickening plague of the Traitor Legions to infest another star system, the Brazen Minotaurs' 3rd and 5th Companies laid siege to the bastion of Fortane's World, determined to cleanse it of the Traitors before they could stage an invasion of the Kandoor System and doom billions to plague and death. With time running out and the siege protracted, the enemy, dedicated servants of the Plaguelord Nurgle, was able to swamp the Brazen Minotaurs with endless hordes of corrupted Traitor Imperial Guardsmen, delaying them until the planet's orbit reached its zenith and entered its neighboring system. Determined to aid their fellow Chapter, a strike force from the Raven Guard's 4th Company led by Shadow Captain Koryn came to the Brazen Minotaurs' aid. Three squads made planetfall and though they suffered significant casualties, the Raven Guard were ultimately able to infiltrate the bastion and open it for bombardment from orbit, destroying a massive Chaos army and protecting the colonists of the Kandoor System.Nimbosa Crusade, The Battle for Nimbosa (992.M41) - The planet of Nimbosa is a hotly contested world on the Eastern Fringe of the galaxy, where the Tau Empire and the Imperium have clashed on numerous occasions. Chapters such as the Imperial Fists, Black Templars and Ultramarines are all reputed to have fought the Tau on the planet at one time or another and the world has changed hands many times during the course of the Nimbosa Crusade. The Raven Guard's 3rd Company under the command of Shadow Captain Kayvaan Shrike assaulted the Tau positions on the planet and forced the xenos to retreat sometime during the Crusade. Though the current status of the planet is unknown, it is believed to still be contested.At First Unseen (995.M41) - A talented demagogue, the Water Caste ambassador Por'O Myen O'Res convinced the populace of Lurid IX to join the Tau Empire one speech at a time. Wherever he appeared, the ambassador was guarded by several Hunter Cadres from the Fire Caste, and the skies above him are patrolled by Air Caste pilots at all times. The Raven Guard was given the honour of his execution order, but had barely a dozen warriors with which to accomplish it. Instead of mounting a direct attack, Shadow Captain Shrike led a Storm Wing-led strike that bore all the hallmarks of his signature stealth tactics. The gunships flew in close formation through the winding miles of Lurid IX's graffiti-strewn underways, emerging from a pitch-dark culvert less than half a mile from the Water Caste delegation. Myen O'Res was gunned down mid-speech, the sheer volume of missiles and bullets thundering into his podium overcoming the Shield Generators intended to protect him. Three squads of XV8 Crisis Battlesuits soared towards the low-flying Storm Wing Squadron to avenge their fallen ambassador, but were met in mid-air when Shrike and his Jump Pack veterans effected an aerial deployment, barrelling into the Tau's midst with Lightning Claws flashing. The Raven Guard's dramatic victory was broadcast by the same pict-feed servitors that the Water Caste had intended to use for their own ends, and the world of Lurid IX was returned to the Imperial fold within the hour.Raid on Kastorel-Novem (992-996.M41) - The Orks of WAAAGH! Garaghak invaded the Kastorel-Novem Sector in 952.M41, swiftly taking over the area and transforming Kastorel-Novem into a manufacturing center for all manner of Ork war-machines. In 988.M41 WAAAGH! Garaghak struck at the sector capital world of Forsarr and in 992.M41 the Raven Guard arrived to assist the Imperial defenders and launched a raid on the centre of the Ork WAAAGH!'s war production on the world of Kastorel-Novem. The Raven Guard task force was commanded by the renowned Shadow Captain Korvydae, who commanded elements from the 1st, 5th, 8th and 10th Companies. The 10th Company alone provided seven full scout squads, a significant portion of the Chapters recruits. The raid on Kastorel-Novem had two primary objectives; the elimination of Big Mek Buzzgob, the WAAAGH!'s chief Mekboy, and the destruction of the Ork fuel depot and refinery complex which would cripple the Ork WAAAGH! and swing the war in favour of the Imperium. Chaplain Eitath commanded a deep strike assault against the fuel depot and refinery. Chaplain Eitath's forces encountered only light resistance and were able to plant their Melta charges and destroy the refinery in short order. With their task complete, Chaplain Eitath and his command extracted via Thunderhawk. Shadow Captain Korvydae and the rest of the task force were waiting for confirmation of Buzzgob's location from the Chapter's Scouts when word was received of a massive Ork force moving in on the hard-pressed Elysian positions. The 181st Elysian Drop Troops had been deployed to Kastorel-Novem to destroy a partially constructed Gargant and kill as many Orks as possible but would not be able to resist long under such a great assault. Korvydae was unwilling to stand by while the Elysians were slaughtered and immediately led his forces in an assault on the Ork column, which consisted of Orks from Garaghak's Goff clan. The Raven Guard assault proved devastating and stalled the Ork advance long enough to allow the Elysians to fall back to another defensive position and request evacuation. However the respite was only temporary, for the Orks merely paused to consolidate and bring up Stompas before striking at the Elysians again in force. Korvydae once again threw the Raven Guard against the Orks to give the Elysians more time, but hordes of Deff Dreads, Killa Kans and formidable Megadreads retaliated and cost the Raven Guard many lives. At the height of the battle Korvydae's Land Raider Prometheus was destroyed by a Megadred, yet Korvydae proved it would take more than that to kill him and dragged himself from the wreckage. With the battle turned so heavily against them Shadow Captain Korvydae issued the order to withdraw. Braving heavy ground fire, the Chapter's Thunderhawks extracted the embattled Raven Guard. The surviving Elysians withdrew in their remaining Valkyries to isolated airbases and evacuated the planet. In the end, over seventy Battle-Brothers of the Raven Guard lost their lives and of the 2,400 Elysians of the 181st Elysian Regiment that deployed to Kastorel-Novem, less than 400 survived. To make matters even worse, the Elysians were able to recover none of their more than 130 aircraft from the planet, abandoning all of them to the Orks. Determined to resist the Orks of WAAAGH! Garaghak, the Raven Guard deployed to the sector capital of Forsarr, but in 996.M41 the planet was lost to the Ork invaders. The fall of the Kastorel-Novem Sector left the Raven Guard's own Chapter homeworld of Deliverance in the warpath of the Ork WAAAGH!. Facing the threat of a full-scale invasion, the Raven Guard's Master of Shadows recalled the entire Chapter to the Ravenspire. For his failure, Shadow Captain Korvydae is now serving two years in the Deathwatch as penance for the failure of the Raid on Kastorel-Novem.13th Black Crusade, the Reclamation of Kathur (999.M41) - When the Imperial Shrine World of Kathur fell to the Curse of Unbelief during the 13th Black Crusade, a force of Raven Guards from the 5th Company under Captain Corvane Valar and Codicier Zauren Kale was despatched to reclaim it for the Emperor. The Strike Cruiser Second Shadow swiftly brought the Astartes to link up with the vanguard elements of the reclamation force in time for the assault on the capital city of Solthane. The Raven Guard had originally brought Kathur to Imperial Compliance during the Great Crusade, and despite the hard fighting all around the Cadian System such a direct insult to the Chapter demanded a response. Ultimately all 50 members of the 5th Company that were involved in the fighting, as well as Captain Corvane and Codicier Zauren, were presumed lost, fallen in battle delaying the approach of Typhus the Herald of Nurgle and his forces, whilst the Second Shadow was destroyed in orbit as well. However, the mission proved to be a success in a manner of speaking, as the Daemon Prince of Nurgle formerly known as Sergeant Arlus was slain, Typhus' Battleship the Terminus Est was severely damaged, and well over a 100 Death Guard Plague Marines and a Death Guard Chaos Dreadnought were killed by the combined efforts of the 88th Cadian Shock Troops Regiment and the Raven Guard. Whether this costly defiance made any difference in the outcome of the 13th Black Crusade is not certain, but the Raven Guard took great satisfaction in the damage done to the Forces of Chaos.Battle for Ultramar (999.M41) - While the Ultramarines were obviously at the forefront of the battle to save Ultramar when the empire came under assault by a massive invasion force of the arch-enemy, they were not alone. Shadow Captain Aethon Shaan and a full squad of the Chapter's finest warriors were dispatched to recover the renegade Captain Ardaric Vaanes. Fighting alongside the Ultramarines 4th Company, the warriors of Captain Shaan proved to be an invaluable asset, turning the tide of battle multiple times when it swung against the forces of the Ultramarines and their allies. Most impressive was the destruction of the terrible Black Basilica, a massive mobile fortress of the arch-enemy with enough firepower to tear the heart out of the Imperial defenders. Captain Shaan and his warriors infiltrated deep behind the lines, stalking past the siege fortifications of the chaos forces and scaling the sides of the horrific mobile weapon and shrine to the dark gods. Shaan led his warriors deep within the Basilica and planted demolition charges within the mobile fortress' primary munitions magazine before working their way back out of the terrible war machine. Unable to get back to the Imperial lines without discovery the Raven Guard detonated the demolition charges, destroying the Basilica, breaking the back of the invaders and providing the Sons of Corax a large enough distraction to make their way back to the Ultramarines and their compatriots. Shortly after the destruction of the Basilica the Raven Guard joined Captain Ventris and a small strike force as they journeyed deep within the core of Calth. In a lost and ancient shrine the Ultramarines and Raven Guard faced the Blade Dancers of Xiomogra and the Iron Warriors of the Warsmith Honsou, who had engineered the invasion of Ultramar. Though all ten of Shaan's Raven Guard fell in the furious fighting for the shrine, they succeeded in foiling the Chaos plot, and the renegade Ardaric Vaanes at last redeemed himself in combat against the traitors. Shaan accompanied the Ultramarines as the 2nd and 4th Companies made a jump-pack assisted drop onto the contested world of Talassar to aid Chapter Master Marneus Calgar and was witness to the final defeat of the Daemon Lord M'kar the Thrice Born. Captain Shaan attended the honorary funeral of the Ultramarines who fell during the Battle for Ultramar, along with a black flag for every one of the Raven Guard who fell in the protection of Ultramar. The gene-seeds of the fallen, including Vaanes, were recovered to be returned to the Chapter with Captain Shaan.