Achilus Crusade - Crusade Timeline: The Achilus Crusade Begins (777.M41) - With the discovery of the stable Jericho-Maw Warp Gate from the Calixis Sector across the galaxy to the Jericho Reach, the possibility of using it to launch an Imperial Crusade into the Jericho Reach and reclaim this formerly great realm for the Imperium quickly finds favour with the High Lords of Terra. A plan was hatched under the command of Lord Militant Tiber Achilus to undertake this singular military campaign, and under his command were mustered forces ranging from the Astra Militarum, the Adeptus Astartes and Adepta Sororitas, and scores of Imperial Navy warships to enact the Imperium’s will. The High Lords were mindful, however, that the existence of the gate and what it portended offered dire peril as well as possibility, and decreed that the Achilus Crusade was to be launched from a staging point far from the territory it intended to conquer, and under a shroud of the deepest secrecy, with the complicity of the masters of both the Calixis Sector and the Departmento Munitorum. The crusade would prove to be a bloody, grinding conflict fraught with reversals of fortune and beset by enemies both unexpected and nightmarish. As for the Lord Militant Achilus, he would not live to see out its first solar decade.The Greyhell Front (785.M41) - The Canis Salient is launched against the T'au-controlled domains of the Velk'Han Sept in the Black Reef area of the Jericho Reach, reinforcing armies already fighting against the highly organised and sophisticated alien forces across the so-called Greyhell Front previously dispatched by Lord Militant Achilus. The fighting is particularly bitter. Lord Commander Sebiascor Ebongrave, the Imperial salient commander, gains a swift reputation for barbarous and unorthodox tactics.The Banner has Fallen (786.M41) - The death of Lord Militant Tiber Achilus occurs when his flaghship, the Proclamation of Wrath, suffers a catastrophic Geller Field failure. Afterwards, Solomon Tetrarchus ascends to the position of Lord Militant commanding the Achilus Crusade into the Jericho Reach.The Council of Ashes (786.M41) - Lord Militant Tetrachus summons all senior crusade command staff to the Fortress World of Alphos. Also present are senior members of many of the Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes present in the crusade at that time, as well as members of the Ecclesiarchy, Adeptus Mechanicus, and the Inquisition. The gathering is a grand war council at the commencement of which fifty senior officers formerly favoured by the late Lord Militant are withdrawn from command or shifted into more junior roles. A council of new advisors and the crusade's officer elite is formed and begins a dramatic reorganization of Crusade forces and strategy.Against the Tides of Hell (786.M41) -The Acheros Salient is launched towards the centre of the Jericho Reach, there to give battle to the degenerate worshippers of Chaos and their foul allies, and retake the core worlds of what was once the Jericho Sector. The resistance they meet is unexpectedly high, particularly in the daemon-haunted Cellebos Warzone and casualties incurred by the Imperial forces are massive, blocking the salient’s progress and transforming the conflict into a bloody war of attrition.The Achilus Crusade Conquers (787.M41) - The Orpheus Salient is launched to reclaim worlds lying along the Rimward portion of the Jericho Reach. Here, progress is relatively rapid and successful, with scores of worlds returned to Imperial control.The Loss of the Margin Crusade (788.M41) - Elsewhere in the Imperium, contact is finally lost with the Imperial forces of the troubled Margin Crusade. From this point on, the Margin Crusade exists as a lie, and is used to garner greater tithes and musters of troops and materiel for the Achilus Crusade from the distant Scarus, Ixaniad, and Calixis Sectors via the Warp Gate to replace heavy and ongoing losses.The Return of Castobel to the Imperial Fold (789.M41) - Battlegroup Santos of the Achilus Crusade reaches the Castobel System and finds that it has stayed loyal to the Imperium through four millennia of shadow and isolation. A hundred-day festival of celebration is declared. At its end, the first regiment of tithed Astra Militarum (the 1st Castobel Reborn) are lifted off the planet. The 1st Reborn will be the first in a series of Astra Militarum regiments tithed from the planet.The Seriphos Sanction (789.M41) - Covert operations by the Deathwatch disrupt diplomatic talks between the technologically advanced but Renegade Human world of Seriphos Secundus and the emissaries of the T'au. Deathwatch Kill-teams assassinate both T'au Ethereal Caste dignitaries and representatives of the Seriphon Unity, plunging the two factions -- Renegade Human and xenos -- into open warfare.The Liberation of Colhep (789.M41) - Battlegroup Venicus, together with a company of Storm Wardens Space Marines, breaks the alien enslavement of the Colhep Systems. A daring in-system translation from the Warp and surgical strikes against key enemy holdings in overwhelming force return the human population to Imperial rule in a single week of fighting.The Conquest of Eleusis (805.M41) - Warp Storms abate around the Eleusis System. Achilus Crusade forces find the once sacred world has fallen to the worship of false gods under the tyranny of a priest caste called the Charnel Oracles. It is cleansed of their dark taint by the forces of Battlegroup Argo under the personal command of General Curas in a brutal extermination campaign against the blood-glutted abominations that much of the planet’s population have devolved into. After their priests are isolated and slain, the mutants, despite their monstrous distortions of body and inhuman savagery, lack the intelligence or cohesion to mount an organised defence, thus freeing the scattered few who have remained fully human from their torment. Following the swift and merciless victory, a thousand-day re-hallowing and sanctification of the former Shrine World begins by the faithful servants of the Ecclesiarchy.The Destruction of the Crimson Harvest (805.M41) - A vast space hulk designated the Crimson Harvest and forged from the fused and twisted remains of xenos star vessels and artefacts of unknown origin appears on the edge of the Hadex Anomaly. Ships bearing the blasphemous sigils of Chaos take flight from the Dark Forge World of Samech and make their way to rendezvous with the craft, sparking a deadly series of running battles between the servants of the Ruinous Powers and attack ships from the Achilus Crusade forces operating in the Acheros Salient and the Deathwatch. The Deathwatch Kill-team under Brother-Sergeant Hurak of the Iron Hands sacrifices itself in order to plunge the Crimson Harvest into the heart of a dying star, thus denying the pawns of Chaos their prize.The Conquest of Vanir (807.M41) - The war against the Secessionist systems of the self-proclaimed Kingdom of Vanir is broken by a daring strike at the Hive World of Vanir by Achilus Crusade forces of the Orpheus Salient.The Lament of Goln (810.M41) - Six Deathwatch Kill-teams under the command of Lexicanium Raphael break the attack by the forces of Chaos on the recently conquered world of Goln. The Deathwatch attack crippled the Chaos leadership in the process of recovering a psyactive xenos artefact from the Chaotic war host's commanding cabal. Fearing that they will be overwhelmed by a second counterattack, General Saiden, the commander of the Achilus Crusade forces occupying Goln, orders the Kill-teams to redeploy against the remaining Chaos forces. The Deathwatch forces withdraw without acknowledging the general's "order." Goln falls three solar days later to a second Chaos assault.The Shadow of the Warp Descends on Jericho (812.M41) - Astropathic communication between parts of the Achilus Crusade and the re-conquered portions of the Jericho Reach is lost without warning. Particularly affected is the Orpheus Salient which disappears behind a crawling shadow of Warp interference.The Great Devourer Comes to the Jericho Reach (814.M41) - The Deathwatch warship Thunder's Word enters the Freya System to investigate the silence of an astropathic relay. It finds no trace of the relay and indeed no trace of any life in the Freya System. Preparing to leave the star system, the Thunder’s Word encounters two Tyranid drone ships. Its hull scored and pitted with acid and its magazines nearly exhausted, the Thunder’s Word arrives at Watch Fortress Erioch bringing the dark news that the Great Devourer has come to the Jericho Reach.Death in the Void (814.M41) - The Imperial deep range cruiser Admiral Ishmael goes missing after attempting to make contact with the lead elements of the Achilus Crusade's Orpheus Salient. All across the northern (rimward) portion of the Jericho Reach worlds are swallowed by darkness and horror, and the vaunted Battlegroup Argo is lost, presenting a severe blow to the forces of the Achilus Crusade.Hive Fleet Dagon (814.M41) - The name of the Tyranid attack into the Jericho Reach is officially designated as Hive Fleet Dagon, a possible splinter of the much larger Hive Fleet Behemoth defeated by the Imperium during the First Tyrannic War solar decades before, and identified as the greatest single extant threat to the success of the Achilus Crusade, and indeed the lives of every living being in the Jericho Reach. The Deathwatch remains fully engaged in facing this dire threat.An Era of Peril in the Jericho Reach (817.M41) - The Omega Vault of Watch Fortress Erioch is becoming increasingly active, and threats of a scale unprecedented in their scope, diversity and sheer portent stalk the stars and shadowed worlds of the Jericho Reach, leading many within the Inquisition to draw the conclusion that a great turning point in the fate of the region, perhaps of the Imperium itself, is coming to pass here in the Jericho Reach for good or ill. The Long Watch continues, and the watchers stand ready for all that is to come...