Death Company - Notable Campaigns: The War of Broken Wings (261.M33) - A unified armada of vessels drawn from the Night Lords Legion and its myriad allies assaults the Angels Sanguine's battlefleet in high orbit above the world of Anzyra. The Angels Sanguine, fighting for their homeworld and the very survival of their Chapter, are pressed into a defensive battle to prevent mass bombardment of their fortress-monastery. To end the engagement, which records list as several solar days of protracted void war and boarding actions, the Angels Sanguine force a final resolution by offering the perfect bait: they allow their flagship, the Cruor Domina, to be crippled and boarded by hundreds of enemy Traitor Marines. While the Space Marines defend the Battle Barge to keep it from being taken as a prize by the raiding Night Lords, a full three hundred Death Company warriors are sent by boarding torpedoes to slaughter their way through the vulnerable crews of eight enemy capital ships, including the renowned Lies of Dawn of the Foresworn, and the Brotherhood of Darkness' warship Sightless Godling. The Angels Sanguine have always suffered fiercely from the Flaw, and such an assault represented a standard century's worth of prisoners within their fortress-monastery's Tower of the Lost being unleashed into battle one last time. Without Chaplains to lead them, the Death Companies were sacrificed in desperation, with no hope of recovery. It turned the tide. Suddenly, at risk of losing many of their own flagships, the Traitor warbands fought their way back to their own vessels, only to be cut down by the enraged defenders as they turned their backs and fled. Those Traitors that managed to return to their own ships were met with entire decks left as abattoirs by the rampaging Death Companies, and were forced to contend with the blood-maddened boarding parties even as they ordered their ships back from the primary assault.The Ghost War (811.M37) - During the long years of the 7th Black Crusade, the full might of the Blood Angels Chapter falls upon a vast Black Legion warband on the world of Mackan. Although the conflict ultimately ends in the near-extinction of the Blood Angels at the hands of Abaddon the Despoiler and his primary lieutenants -- the Sorcerer-lord Iskandar Khayon and the swordmaster Telemachon Lyras -- the Blood Angels Reclusiarch Thalastian Jorus becomes one of the few Imperial heroes to ever land a blow against the Warmaster of Chaos. With his Chapter devastated, the Chaplain endures solar weeks of hardship in the wilderness and the constant trials of keeping his crazed warriors undetected on Mackan. When the time is right, Jorus leads his Death Company in a lightning raid behind enemy lines, butchering the unprepared sworn warriors of the Despoiler's honour guard, and allowing the Reclusiarch to lock blades with Abaddon himself. It is said the Warmaster still bears the scars of that battle, even three millennia later. Whatever the truth of the matter, it is known that the Despoiler honoured Jorus once the war was over -- perhaps in mockery, or perhaps with nothing but sincerity. After Mackan, thousands of Blood Angels corpses were desecrated, their gene-seed ruined beyond recovery. Of all the Chapter, only a handful of bodies were left undefiled: Reclusiarch Jorus and his Death Company, clad in their battered and broken black ceramite, seated in makeshift thrones made from the armour of those Black Legion warriors they had killed on that fateful night.At Gaius Point (998.M41) - Not every incident involving the Death Company rings with morbid honour. Many are not even victories at all. During the Third War for Armageddon, the Order of the Argent Shroud bear full witness to the Flesh Tearers committing atrocities against Imperial citizens at the world of Gaius Point, when the Chapter's warriors breach the human militia's barricades and turn their blades on the very souls they were sent to protect. Soon enough, reports reach the Inquisition and the Adeptus Terra that the Flesh Tearers are a dangerous, unstable threat, and that their Chapter must be purged at once, and any survivors declared Excommunicate Traitoris. No Imperial agent sees what comes next: the reckoning demanded by the Blood Angels and their Successor Chapter cousins. Warriors from several nearby Chapters approach the Flesh Tearers' commander, Gabriel Seth, demanding an answer for the apparent transgression. Gaius Point marks one of the rare, sad instances of Astartes brother lying to brother in the name of survival, as Seth lays the burden of blame on his Death Companies. In speaking this lie to save his Chapter, he damns the Flesh Tearers' Death Companies to lives of even deeper revulsion, as even other Blood Angels Successors consider them tragic mongrels in sore need of execution, in order to keep their bloodline's darkest secret.The Shield of Baal (998.M41) - News reaches Baal that the Cryptan Shield, intended to hold back the might of Hive Fleet Leviathan, had collapsed. Already Lord Commander Dante had put plans in motion to defend the Blood Angels' homeworld, strike forces fighting hit-and-run battles with the Leviathan's smaller splinter fleets throughout the Red Scar. Meanwhile, the defences of Baal and her moons have been bolstered like never before; indomitable fortresses rise above the sweltering sands, and the might of the Blood Angels' Successor Chapters gathers from across the galaxy. Yet still it may not be enough, for the Tyranids are seemingly without number, and Hive Fleet Leviathan is learning the weaknesses of its prey at an exponential rate. Knowing that the consumption of the Cryptus System would open the floodgates for an unstoppable Tyranid invasion of Baal, Commander Dante takes action. At the head of a mighty strike force that comprises the 1st and 2nd Companies of the Blood Angels, Brother Corbulo, Captain Arenos Karlaen, Chief Librarian Mephiston and the bulk of Gabriel Seth's Flesh Tearers, Dante strikes out for the Cryptus System. He will see the defences shored up if such a thing is still possible, and if not will do battle with the Cryptoid Tendril directly in a desperate bid for the salvation of Baal. The invasion of Tartoros, cursed innermost world of the Cryptus System, would fall to Dante's Death Company, designated Strike Force Mortalis. It is a rare and fearsome thing for so many Death Company to be gathered together, the black-armoured warriors mad with rage and lost in their own insane delusions, seeking only the death of their enemies and their own glorious demise. Strike Force Mortalis would rip its way through the broods of hulking beasts that stalked the burning plains of Tartoros, their fury and madness driving them on under the guidance of their Chaplain. Though ultimately they would all receive the blessed gift of death they so craved, their mission was successful, and their sacrifice was not in vain.Diamor Campaign - Defence of Amethal (999.M41) - As Dante's forces made all speed through the Warp to return to bolster the defences of their Chapter homeworld, they received word from High Chaplain Astorath the Grim that a new threat had emerged in the Diamor System -- an invasion by the Forces of Chaos that could undermine the defences of the Cadian Gate. Already the High Chaplain was en route at the head of the Blood Angels' 5th Company, but greater strength would be required to defeat the traitorous foe. With a heavy heart, the Lord Commander despatched the Blood Angels' elite 1st and 2nd Companies to help bolster Astorath's force. As the two companies translated into the Diamor System, they were momentarily delayed by unknown forces. This delay saved them from sudden damnation, as the 5th Company, which arrived earlier, had been struck by Warp sorcery of some kind. The malefic attack struck at the heart of the 5th Company, causing the entirety of the company to fall to the effects of the Black Rage. Only Astorath and Death Company Chaplain Daenor, the other Chaplains on board and their Librarians -- those with psyker training or psychic defences -- survived. The rest had fallen to the Blood Angels' genetic curse. It unleashed sheer bedlam aboard the vessels of the 5th Company. First Captain Karlaen immediately despatched the Chaplains of both the 1st and 2nd Companies, as well as the Sanguinary Guard, to aid the beleaguered survivors and bring their fallen under control. Having succeeded at this task and determined the wider strategic situation in the star system, the Blood Angels wasted no time in launching their attack. They could not do so quickly enough, for it seemed as though the enemy's plans were well advanced. Crimson Slaughter warbands were present at all of the primary Mechanicus Hubs on the world of Amethal. The secret that the Black Legion sought, and that the Adeptus Mechanicus were in a race with them to seize, lay deep beneath the surface of Amethal. It was the Banshee Stone, an ancient crystalline cage for the infernal creatures of the Warp, a weapon to dwarf the Damnation Cache that had slipped through Abaddon's fingers on Pandorax. And, according to the divinations of Chaos Lord Xorphas and his followers, it was full to the brim. It required only the correct ritual to be broken open, at which point the sudden release of so many Warp entities would tear a gaping wound in reality itself. In the brutal and bloody fighting that followed, the Death Company sustained appalling casualties, losing over ninety percent of its afflicted Battle-Brothers, and Chaplain Daenor took terrible wounds when he confronted the infamous Khorne Berzerker known as Khârn the Betrayer in single combat. The loss of the Death Company brothers was acceptable, for it had always been their destiny to perish in selfless battle, and they had sold themselves as dearly as they could. In the end, Astorath extracted Daenor and the remaining afflicted brethren from the surface of Amethal, as the commanders of the 1st and 2nd Companies continued the fight against the Sorcerer Chaos Lord Xorphas. Eventually, the Blood Angels seemingly foiled his machinations. But whether true victory had been attained by the Blood Angels remains to be seen, for the Banshee Stone is full, and its cage is cracking.