Deathwatch - Age of the Shield Renewed (Era Indomitus), M41-M42: Note: All dates from this point forward are provisional due to errors in the Imperial Calendar, meaning these events could actually have occurred at any time from the early 41st Millennium to the early 42nd Millennium.Ultimaris Decree (Unknown Date.M42) -  Resurrected and returned to the Imperium in its hour of greatest need during the Ultramar Campaign of the 13th Black Crusade, Primarch Roboute Guilliman strove to reunite his father's shattered realm after the birth of the Great Rift and the start of the Era Indomitus. As the lord commander of the Imperium and Imperial Regent, he presided over the Ultima Founding of the Adeptus Astartes, wherein the long-slumbering Primaris Space Marines were awoken by the primarch's ally Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl and sent to join the war against Chaos. As part of this grand mobilisation, Guilliman sent entire Chapters' worth of Primaris battle-brothers as well as the new technology, materiel and vehicles created for them by Cawl to reinforce the hard-pressed Deathwatch as so-called "Fortis Kill-teams" and pull them back from the brink of annihilation. Other types of Primaris kill-teams were soon established as the watch masters of the Deathwatch began to find new ways to use their improved transhuman warriors.Scattered Leviathan (Unknown Date.M42) - In the wake of the Battle of Baal in the Imperium Nihilus, splinters of Hive Fleet Leviathan were scattered by churning Warp rifts to emerge at random throughout the Imperium. Deathwatch forces raced to counter these incursions before they could gather momentum. During the battles that ensued, Deathwatch Apothecaries noted that the physiology of the Tyranids appeared wholly unchanged despite their transit through the mutating energies of the Warp.The Death of Time (Unknown Date.M42) - To the galactic north of Fenris, Hrud overran the Shrine World of Damhal. Drawn to the rich veins of crystallised time in the world's many stasis-crypts, the chronophagic xenos wreaked havoc. Those regiments of Mordian Iron Guard deployed to fight them become wizened ancients within solar hours, and even a strike force of the Sons of Medusa was lost, overwhelmed by the xenos' entropic projections. Two full Watch Companies from Keep Extremis joined the fight. They were accompanied by a mighty spearhead of no less than eight Deathwatch Dreadnoughts. It was these ancients who lead the final strike upon the Hrud world warren, enduring the creatures' parasitic temporal aura long enough to slaughter their leaders and collapse their tunnels. Recovered from the field of victory, the Dreadnoughts were found to be rusted, inert, silent. Inside their sarcophagi, their biological remains were gone, reduced to nothing but dust by the time stolen from them by the Hrud.Drukhari Raids (Unknown Date.M42) - Capitalising upon the mayhem and isolation caused by the birth of the Great Rift, the Drukhari stepped up their slaving raids across the galaxy, preying upon countless Human-settled planets lost alone in the dark of the Imperium Nihilus. The Deathwatch's Onyx Patrol ranged out to the edge of the Segmentum Solar and beyond as they chased down these xenos raiders. Their newly instituted Primaris Fortis Kill-teams fought effectively alongside Venator Kill-teams, together bringing the fast-moving foe to battle.Weapons of Wisdom (Unknown Date.M42) - Independently reaching the same conclusions, the watch masters of Talasa Prime, Fort Pykman, the Eye of Damocles and more watch fortresses alike sent out kill-teams to every neighbouring Imperial world they could reach. These specialists shared their alien-fighting skills, training planetary garrisons and local response forces in anti-xenos doctrines. So was the thin black line of Imperial defence bolstered amidst the turmoil of the Imperium Nihilus.Flight of the Kastarsi (Unknown Date.M42) - Radical Ordo Xenos Inquisitor Balphus Bail used cannibalised xenotech to navigate the Warp storms of the Dark Imperium safely. His ship, the Kastarsi, reached Tanatha's Fall in time to deliver the Deathwatch into battle with invading T'au. During the fighting, however, xenos forces boarded Bail's ship and the Deathwatch were compelled to destroy it rather than allow the ingenious T'au to reverse-engineer his discoveries.Bonds of Brotherhood (Unknown Date.M42) - Furor Shield responded to twenty Space Marine Chapters' requests to return their battle-brothers. Yet rather than repatriate these battle-brothers fully, the watch fortress sent them back still clad in the raiment of the Deathwatch and still serving their Long Vigil. This act of compromise saw the returned battle-brothers fight alongside their Chapters once more, but in the capacity of strategic anti-xenos advisors without equal.The Primarch's Deliverance (Unknown Date.M42) - On the world of K'tokh, several kill-teams from Haltmoat faced their doom when they were caught between forces of the Necrons and the traitorous Heretic Astartes of the Emperor's Children. The battle turned back in their favour when a mighty force of Primaris Space Marines, freshly armoured in the black of the Deathwatch, arrived direct from the Indomitus Crusade to join the fight.War in the Damocles Gulf (Unknown Date.M42) - An insane, many-faceted war sprawled through the Damocles Gulf in the Eastern Fringe as forces of Tzeentchian Daemons, Tyranids, T'au and the Imperium clashed again and again. Amidst this maelstrom, the kill-teams of the Eye of Damocles reaped a great tally from the xenos forces. They combined spearhead strikes from Primaris Marine Inceptors with gunship-mounted Purgatus Kill-teams to eliminate alien command structures and leave their forces floundering, leaderless amidst the swirling carnage.Neotharsis Beast Hunt (Unknown Date.M42) - After the swarms of a splinter fleet of Hive Fleet Behemoth overran the Bastion Worlds of Neotharsis, Watcher Keep sent its Watch Companies to end the threat. Going into battle against the vast terrors of the Court of the Nephilim King, the Malleus and Purgatus Kill-teams found allies in lances of House Griffith Knights. The two Imperial forces melded their expertise in monster-hunting, and laid low entire broods of Carnifexes, Tyrannofexes and even Bio-Titans. They blunted the Tyranid advance long enough for fresh Imperial forces to join the fray.Holgjar's Folly (Unknown Date.M42) - Watch Captain Holgjar Ironfang received reinforcement in the form of the Primaris Fortis Kill-team Pharanos. Untrusting -- even scornful -- of the untested Primaris battle-brothers, Holgjar inflicted a series of ignominious duties upon them while reserving the more glorious missions for his Venator and Purgatus Kill-teams. The watch captain learned the error of his ways when Kill-team Pharanos rode to the rescue of Holgjar and his overrun brothers during the Battle of Black Gulch, driving back the Greenskin swarms long enough for the Watch Company to withdraw. In the wake of the catastrophe, Holgjar undertook a solar decade of voluntary penance for his errors, serving as a battle-brother beneath the newly promoted Watch Captain Pharanos.Blades of the Storm (Unknown Date.M42) - In a series of brutal and expertly orchestrated uprisings, cells from the Cult of the Four-Armed Emperor seized control of the Shambarac System. Taking over the planets' sprawling orbital shipyards they began creation of a seeding fleet to spread their hideous xenophile faith and genetic corruption throughout the sub-sector. However, a sudden convulsion of the Great Rift saw the system cut off by a ferocious Warp storm, and it was then that the Deathwatch struck. Capitalising on their victims' confusion and isolation, the Watch Companies of Null Breach cut apart the cult cells one by one, eliminating the higher echelons of the Genestealer Cult's brood structure and leaving the lower orders floundering. As the storm passed, so too did the Deathwatch, leaving conventional Imperial forces to descend upon the leaderless rebels and slaughter them wholesale.Battle of the Peridial System (Unknown Date.M42) - The Fool's Door Warp storm scoured the worlds of the Peridial System. Driven before its fury, warring Kroot and Ork migrations crashed into the neighbouring Imperial planets and triggered several bloody wars. The kill-teams of Keep Extremis were stretched perilously thin as they attempted to respond to one new threat after another.Loss of Paragon III (Unknown Date.M42) - When a spur of the Webway suddenly tore open, it spilled waves of Donorian Clawed Fiends across the industrial world of Paragon III, shadowed by Drukhari raiding bands that preyed upon the chaos. Hoping to imitate the daring Kryptman Gambit of Fidus Kryptman, Inquisitor Re'hneton tried to lure a Tyranid splinter fleet down to eradicate the original xenos invasion. Relying on a tenuous web of alliances that collapsed when he failed to deliver upon his own pledges of fealty, Re'hneton inadvertently caused a catastrophe of system-wide proportions. He was forcibly extracted by Aquila Kill-team Sayax, who dragged him in chains to Fort Obsidus to face trial.Tragedy of Astraghala (Unknown Date.M42) - When the Imperial world of Astraghala came under attack from Traitor forces, a host of Ynnari swept down to assist the beleaguered Imperial planetary garrison. A Watch Company from Fort Pykman also joined the battle but -- isolated from news of potential alliances with certain kindreds of the Aeldari by the darkness of the Imperium Nihilus -- it transpired that they have come to butcher what they mistakenly see as xenos invaders. Fort Pykman's kill-teams mercilessly purged their would-be Ynnari comrades, an act that saw both factions decimated and Chaos victorious.Doom of Fort Starshield (Unknown Date.M42) - The Watch Companies of Fort Starshield completed several textbook extermination missions against xenos warships that surged into the Kadus Sector from the galactic west. The Deathwatch noted that each battle was made easier by the condition of their foes, whose voidcraft evidenced severe battle damage and whose crews seemed panicked, even frantic. Realising that these invaders must, themselves, be fleeing some other, greater peril, Watch Master Valesnus requested urgent reinforcement. Fort Starshield's astropathic relay was soon after annihilated by a titanic eruption of lurid green ectoplasm. Deep-void auspex buoys went dark one by one; and their picters sent back last, blurry images of Ork warships beyond number filling the starfield. Recognising that his forces were impossibly outmatched, Watch Master Valesnus girded his warriors for a selfless strike against whatever mighty warlord ruled this space-borne WAAAGH!. He hoped that, by striking off the beast's head, he might make the sacrifice of his and his battle-brothers' lives a worthy one. Solar months later, the requested reinforcements finally reached the location of Fort Starshield. They found nothing but drifting wreckage, that of dozens of Ork warships and of Fort Starshield itself. They located the mangled corpses of Watch Master Valesnus and his closest brothers pinned to the starfort's wreckage with huge scrap-metal spikes. Each warrior's chestplate had been torn away, and on their flesh was branded the personal glyph of Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka...Battle of Kendashi (Unknown Date.M42) - On the Eastern Fringe, the T'au invaded the Fortress World of Kendashi. While highly mobile Hunter Cadres kept the planet's Astra Militarum garrison divided and embattled, KV128 Stormsurge artillery walkers were ferried from one location to the next by Manta missile destroyers. The towering T'au war engines used their phenomenal firepower to break open the interlocking networks of Imperial redoubts. In response, the Deathwatch deployed Venator and Primaris Fortis Kill-teams to Kendashi. While the swift Venators and Deathwatch Bikers drew the fire of the Stormsurge gunners, the Fortis Kill-teams closed in aboard their Repulsor tanks. The grav-waves generated by the hulking Imperial grav-tanks shattered the ice fields with their ferocity, sending massive cracks radiating outward. By the time the T'au realised the danger it was too late, and their Stormsurge walkers plunged through the collapsing ice to a watery grave. So did the war for Kendashi turn in the Imperium's favour.Battle of Tymatros Aleph and the Necron Assault on the Adeptus Mechanicus (Unknown Date.M42) - Watch Fortress Prescience despatched kill-teams to the aid of the Forge World of Tymatros Aleph. Sweeping down from orbit, the Deathwatch joined the fight against Necron forces that infiltrated the world by some undetermined means. Watch Captain Ijasos quickly realised something wa amiss when fresh waves of Necrons joined the fight, and sent out a force to locate the portal or gateway from which the Necrons were deploying. Deep beneath the Templum Primactis, the Deathwatch discovered something far worse -- a stasis tomb complex hidden beneath the surface of the Forge World itself. This devastating discovery was just the first in a sudden upsurge of Necron attacks against Adeptus Mechanicus Forge Worlds and the holdings of Knight houses across the galaxy. Requests for aid soon flooded in to every watch fortress as the scions of the Omnissiah found their worlds beset by self-healing and undying metallic foes that struck with terrifying coordination and speed. Kill-teams mobilised across every segmentum, racing to provide what aid they could against this growing threat to the Cult Mechanicus.Assault Against the Bringers of Enraptured Joy (Unknown Date.M42) -  Far-ranging patrols from Castilos Nullifact found evidence of a mobile Genestealer Cult travelling between fringe worlds aboard a fleet of voidships and posing as Rogue Traders. They set off on the trail of the so-called Bringers of Enraptured Joy, and fought several battles against the monstrously corrupted settlements the xenos-worshippers had seeded in their wake.Defence of Primaris Secrets (Unknown Date.M42) - After the Drukhari master Haemonculus Xelxyx the Shriveller captured several Primaris Space Marines, Fortis Kill-team Ultraen was sent to rescue the luckless specimens. Successfully penetrating the Haemonculus' hidden sub-realm of Commorragh, the Primaris kill-team found their targets already horrifically dissected, and the xenos surgeon's genesis-cauldrons bubbling with heretical new life forms. Knowing that they could not allow the Imperium's most precious genetic lore to fall into the hands of the Drukhari, Kill-team Ultraen sacrificed themselves by triggering the extrophic viral warhead they have brought with them. The results were hideous, but decisive and the secrets of Belisarius Cawl remained safe from the corruption of the flesh-crafters.Rise of the Alien (Unknown Date.M42) - The Imperium's armies were spread thin by the ever-escalating threat of Chaos in the Era Indomitus. Across the galaxy, thousands of xenos species that were once content to bide their time now launched full-scale invasions, encroaching upon the borders of the Emperor's realm. The Deathwatch found itself stretched to the breaking point and beyond.Chalnath Expanse Campaign (Unknown Date.M42) - Each new contact with beleaguered regions in the Imperium Nihilus brought fresh news of falling or fallen worlds, continuing to far outweigh any tales of heroic resistance. In the blighted Chalnath Expanse of the northern Ultima Segmentum, scores of Imperial star systems were in the throes of uprisings and civil wars, scourged by fear-mongering prophets. Into these fractures, more than one xenos ideology seeped. Since the emergence of the Cicatrix Maledictum, the nearby watch fortress of Mortguard and its surrounding watch stations had weathered not only the ferocious Warp storms that had afflicted the surrounding sectors, but surges of xenos as well. Though many aliens had been wiped out by the birth of the Great Rift, many more were driven to invading new territories after losing their own, or were scattered into the path of weakened Human worlds by raging empyric tempests. Such threatening occurrences seemed to have afflicted the Chalnath Expanse. From its own network of astroduct splicing, comm shunts and informants, Mortguard identified a growing alien influence on the Imperial systems of the Chalnath Expanse. Its exact nature was revealed by Inquisitor Jazad D'ontor. The elderly Ordo Xenos investigator sent an encrypted missive to Mortguard's watch commander, Agathon. The Inquisitor's transcripts and vid-captures showed the hand of the T'au Empire at work. After worming their way onto poverty-stricken Frontier Worlds, the T'au had openly moved against several recalcitrant systems. On some worlds, D'ontor revealed, Astra Militarum regiments attempted to hold back T'au offensives, but other regiments were embroiled in vast civil uprisings of unknown origin. D'ontor had no answers as to how or why the T'au had appeared so far to the galactic north of their primary territory in the Eastern Fringe, but made clear that this was surely only a prelude to a full-scale invasion. The old investigator had intercepted T'au delegations making for the pivotal expanse worlds of Cestis and Saint's Halt. He had lost a sizable party of Inquisitorial Acolytes in the Arrajian System, too, and believed that all three locations faced being lost. Should they fall, the T'au would spread like a stain, corrupting the Chalnath Expanse from the inside out to threaten the vulnerable worlds at the southern rim of the region. From there, a major Warp route led directly to the Segmentum Fortress at Kar Duniash. The xenos could not be allowed to threaten so vital an Imperial stronghold. In response, Watch Master Agathon led three entire Watch Companies from Mortguard to the worlds of the Chalnath Expanse. D'ontor's evidence gave suggestions of possible T'au disposition, but the Deathwatch had deeper suspicions. The T'au, they believed, were not the only aliens in the expanse. Broken reports of mutants and religious sects, not to mention D'ontor's missing retinues, all reeked to Agathon of Genestealer Cult infections -- a foe the Deathwatch of Mortguard had fought before.Assault on Arrajian IV (Unknown Date.M42) - After losing assets sent to scour the trade guilds of the Arrajian System, Inquisitor D'ontor had set watchers at the system's perimeter, sure that a T'au fleet was poised to attack. The Deathwatch, however, believed the canker of a Genestealer Cult was already there. Shrouded rapid strike vessels from Mortguard stalked the system, monitoring vox-traffic and analysing astropathic signals sent to other systems in the Chalnath Expanse. The Deathwatch discovered that the entire system was on a war footing. The trade guilds were pouring funds into raising Astra Militarum defence regiments as well as private paramilitaries, from the glacial algae seas on Arrajian II to the mag-trawlers skimming the atmosphere of the gas giant Arrajian IX. Everything pointed to preparation for a system-wide conflict, a laudable precaution given T'au aggression against other systems of the expanse. With a precise teleport strike, a single Proteus Kill-team led by Watch Lieutenant Alvor manifested in the servo-ducts beneath the guildhouse on Arrajian IV. Their aim was to uncover the true reason for the Inquisitor's missing assets. Within solar minutes of their arrival, the kill-team came under attack from "work gangs" of Genestealer hybrids and degenerate Aberrants. Kill-team Alvor pushed through one duct after another, seeking some source to the infection. For two solar days, the kill-team fought higher into the guildhouse's foundation, losing more and more of their number. All the while their signals back to orbit were blocked by psychosqualls of xenos static. By the third solar day, the kill-team had slain dozens of xenos-corrupted guilders, but only Brother Tyvus survived to pull himself to the surface and activate his teleport homer, taking into orbit a tale of widespread alien infection and twisted experimentation. Within solar months the system had fallen to the Genestealer Cult, but Mortguard now knew the truth and would return.Battle of Cestis (Unknown Date.M42) - On the mountainous and barren world of Cestis, in the south-east quadrant of the Chalnath Expanse, T'au pioneers of the Fifth Sphere Expansion had already gained a foothold. Their Earth Caste engineers had erected a research station, while their Water Caste envoys bribed Human black marketeers to keep its presence hidden. Watch Captain Seraphus, who had overseen the interrogation of one such pirate, knew from his Ordo Xenos data-inloads that these sites were the T'au's common means of eventual invasion. Either built piecemeal inside such stations by a veritable army of the aliens' robotic drones, or snuck in under a stealth field projected by its domed surface, these structures could amass huge military presences under a charade of "scientific research." Attacking with all haste, the Deathwatch deployed air superiority squadrons and heavy ground forces supported by Land Raider armoured transports. The tanks advanced through valley floors, converging along routes established by a preceding Spectrus Kill-team. Drone-controlled turrets bearing T'au heavy weaponry studded the valley walls firing towards the Imperial force as swarms of drones poured from hidden boreholes. The Deathwatch's snipers felled dozens of the skimming drones, while heavier fire carved into the turrets that lined the scree. Portals opened in the research station's curved surfaces and T'au Battlesuits jetted out. Their weapons immobilised one Land Raider, blocking the route for those behind. In response, Deathwatch armoured battle groups joined sniper fire squads and set up lethal kill zones. What should have been a single hammer blow would drag on in a battle of attrition, spreading across the mountains of Cestis as both sides continued to pour larger forces into it.Battle of Saint's Halt (Unknown Date.M42) - The Chalnath Expanse Shrine World of Saint's Halt was home to billions of people. They crowded into cramped coastal cities that were squeezed between acidic seas and inland plateaux dominated by continental reliquary palaces. The Deathwatch strike cruiser Void Sentinel, upon translation into the system, found the world already under siege by the forces of the T'au Empire. Native Planetary Defence Force infantry regiments of the Saint's Tidecasters fought alongside the battle-sisters of the Order of the Blue Robe, and Astra Militarum forces from the Riatov and Pennutsk Systems that had breached the T'au orbital blockade to reach the surface. From Void Sentinel's command throne, Watch Master Agathon conducted Mortguard's global campaign against both T'au cadres and Genestealer Cult uprisings. Hive Tor Saev burned, illuminating the southern pole. At Hive Delina, the Absolutis Arch was hung with bloody Loyalist corpses as their Genestealer Cultist murderers defended the city from T'au bombardment. Vast battle lines had opened up around every major hive city; Agathon concentrated his strikes against three. At Leonis Hive, the watch master directed kill-teams to sabotage a Shield Generator protecting the T'au flank from Riatov artillery companies. To Gedronis, he dispatched waves of Storm Speeders to cut off the xenos grav-tanks attacking the Gate of the Emperor's Vengeance, hoping to allow the Adepta Sororitas trapped there to break out. Mortguard's Watch Company Quintus in its entirety smashed into the T'au offensive outside the planetary capital city, Boran Prime. In a storm of special-issue bolter ammunition, cleaving blades and psychic scourges, the T'au buckled. The Deathwatch drove them back into the claws of xenophile cultists who declared themselves to be the Hivewyrm, forcing the two breeds of xenos to turn on each other. In orbit, Deathwatch reserves awaited the ambushes Agathon knew both faithless xenos species were capable of initiating. When the next one struck, he would be ready, as the war for the Chalnath Expanse ground on.Octarius War (Unknown Date.M42) - Vermillion-level astropathic alerts reached the Doombreak, Eye of Octos and Furor Shield watch fortresses as the unthinkable finally happened. Triggered by empyric shock waves from the opening of the Great Rift, swarms of enormous Tyranids and hordes of hulking Ork Skarboyz finally broke away from the Octarian War to attack neighbouring star systems. The watch masters of all three fortresses immediately requested urgent reinforcement from the wider Imperium, before surging into battle.