Silver Skulls - Notable Campaigns: The Red Heresy (290-310.M36) - During the Age of Apostasy, the Red Heresy Plague erupted across the Don'lorth Sector, a foreshadowing of the later battles that would become known as The Plague of Unbelief. It was here that the Cult of the Old Gods rose. Agitators and anarchists stirred up the hive cities into open rebellion. Workers in their untold billions were urged by red-robed priests to cast off their shackles, to reject the corpse-god Emperor. The horrific slaughter of all agents of the Adeptus Administratum and Adeptus Ministorum was enough to draw in vast fleets of Imperial armed forces. Seeking a quick way to end the rebellion, the Silver Skulls Chapter deployed en masse in a desperate attempt to kill the leaders behind the rising cult. The hunt was disastrous -- with Drop Pod assaults ambushed and multiple Thunderhawks brought down en route to their objectives. Only the arrival of the Dark Angels Deathwing and Ravenwing forces, along with the 3rd Company of the Angels of Vengeance, staved off certain defeat. However, the Silver Skulls observed the Deathwing forsaking the battle in pursuit of a mysterious robed Space Marine, who turned out to be the notorious Fallen Angel known as Cypher. Before Cypher escaped, an Angels of Vengeance Librarian detected several Fallen ensconced within the red-robed hierarchy of the Red Heresy. The Silver Skulls were left to dig themselves out of their own predicament. They did so, but openly condemned the Dark Angels; another formal protest was filed to the High Lords of Terra.Expedition to Beta-Garmon IV (679.M36) - When the Rogue Trader Lord-Admiral Khorlu was tasked by the High Lords of Terra themselves with penetrating the benighted Veil of Kanth in search of the fabled Beta-Garmon System, he invoked ancient familial bonds and secured a demi-company of the Silver Skulls Chapter's 7th Company to aid him in this perilous quest. With the Chapter ever at the spearhead of the expedition, the system was rediscovered. However, the battle to take the glittering jewel that is Beta-Garmon IV proved bloody and at its successful conclusion, Lord-Admiral Khorlu ceded the world to the Silver Skulls in honour of their services.Great Malagantine Purge (770.M38-791.M38) - The Great Malagantine Purge was an Imperial military operation carried out in the years 770-791.M38 by 5 Space Marine Chapters collectively termed the Manus Irae who unleashed the Emperor of Mankind's wrath upon the heretical Malagant Sector in the Segmentum Tempestus. The details of this operation have been kept secret from the Imperial adepta, including the Inquisition, with the records of the campaign sealed deep within the Celarno Vaults on Terra. What is recorded in fragmentary Imperial records is that the Manus Irae were charged by the High Lords of Terra of that era to "spare none and set a bloody, fearful example to the realm of Mankind." The death toll unleashed by the Manus Irae during the course of this 21-standard-year-long campaign is believed to have been enormous and to have cost hundreds of billions of lives. Whole worlds were put to the sword by the Astartes or were wiped clean of all life by Exterminatus orders that unleashed a hideous, flesh-dissolving virus upon their inhabitants. In recognition of their successful participation in this campaign, the Fire Hawks Chapter was granted the Feudal World of Costeau XI as their demesne by the High Lords. However, due to their willingness to carry out such merciless exterminations of civilian populations whose guilt was not clear, the Fire Hawks would be shunned by many of their fellow Adeptus Astartes Chapters. The Black Fragments of Cardinal Bloch the Reviled, one of the few remaining heretical sources which contain information concerning the Purge of Malagant, explains that the Manus Irae consisted of 5 Chapters, but listed only three by name, including the Fire Hawks, the Silver Skulls and the Charnel Guard.Corinth Crusade (698.M41-705.M41) - The Silver Skulls participated in the Corinth Crusade that fought under the command of the famous Chapter Master Marneus Calgar alongside elements of the Ultramarines, the Angels of Absolution, the Lamenters, Scythes of the Emperor and Marines Errant Chapters, supported by 50 Astra Militarum regiments against the Ork WAAAGH! Skargor. The crusade drove WAAAGH! Skargor back to the world of Corinth and ultimately Warlord Skargor was slain. This Imperial Crusade pushed back the later invasion of Imperial space by the Charadon Orks' WAAAGH! Argluk by 30 standard years.Lazar System Blockade (857.M41) - The Silver Skulls' Chapter fleet blockaded the Dead Worlds of the Lazar System for three standard years in 857.M41. Nothing got in or out, and no explanation for the blockade of this empty system was ever provided by the Silver Skulls. In truth, the Silver Skulls had been engaged in a campaign against the Necrons to purge them from the system's worlds in vengeance for the destruction wrought by the Necrons upon the Silver Skulls' 4th Company. Though the main Tomb World in the system was overwhelmed and obliterated by the Astartes, the Silver Skulls soon regretted their hasty assault, as secondary Necron bases throughout the Lazar System were awakened to life following the destruction of the Tomb World. Unable to admit defeat, the Silver Skulls chose to dig in, and what should have been a simple reciprocal assault transformed into a grueling military campaign involving the entire Chapter. To this day, no outsider has ever learned the truth of what happened in the Lazar System.The Traveller Has Come (859.M41) - The nomadic Necron Overlord Anrakyr the Traveller arrived in the embattled Lazar System and immediately joined his forces to those defending against the Silver Skulls' onslaught. Necron victory was finally assured at the Battle of Dreadpeak, when Anrakyr's Pyrrhian Eternals spearheaded an assault on the Silver Skulls' downed battle barge Argent Hammer. Though the Space Marines battled hard against the veterans of Pyrrhia, their efforts were undone when Anrakyr seized control over the battle barge's still-functioning weapon batteries and turned their fury on the Imperial defenders. With their Chapter Master slain and their forces in disarray, the Silver Skulls were forced to withdraw their blockade of Lazar -- though they took great care to ensure that word of their defeat did not spread. His duty done, Anrakyr took ship and headed out into the galaxy once more to aid the Necron cause.Scouring of Ammas (892.M40) - During the Scouring of Ammas, Space Marines of the Silver Skulls Chapter first encountered the Daemonic warband known as "The Soulmaw". Their champion was apparently destroyed by the Librarian Lucius Clave.Soulmaw Assault Aragave (954.M41) - Having survived the horrors of the Black Night, the citizens of Aragave, a vassal world of the Silver Skulls, were further tormented by an unidentified Daemonic warband. When the Silver Skulls Chapter responded to the distress call, the Daemons quickly vanished. These entities were suspected to be the Daemonic warband called "The Soulmaw" that had also afflicted the world of Ammas sixty standard years before.Soulmaw Assault on Varsavia (955.M41) - With much of the Silver Skulls Chapter absent, the Daemonic warband known as "The Soulmaw" struck against several worlds close to the Chapter's homeworld of Varsavia. The Silver Skulls' Chapter Librarians suspected a Daemonic attack on their homeworld was imminent. They barely managed to resist the Chaos attack.Battle of Valoria Quintus (Unknown Date.M41) - The Oracles of Change Heretic Astartes, led by the Chaos Sorcerer Karteitja, assaulted the Imperial world of Valoria Quintus. Their goal was to transform the planet into a new Daemon World dedicated to Tzeentch. The Oracles proved successful in capturing the Governor's Palace at the heart of the world's capital city and corrupting the city's population to the service of Chaos. However, the arrival of a force of Silver Skulls Space Marines disrupted the Oracles' ritual and caused the plan to fail. As the Silver Skulls reclaimed the world in the name of the Emperor, Karteitja was abandoned by his comrades and slain by a Silver Skulls Terminator.Third War for Armageddon (998.M41) - The Silver Skulls participated in the Third War for Armageddon, deploying 7 companies. The ruins of Hades Hive, badly damaged during the Second War for Armageddon, were once again the scene of heavy fighting during this conflict. Space Marines from the Silver Skulls Chapter were engaged in fierce battles in an attempt to prevent the Orks from looting valuable metals from the shattered hive city for use in the construction of the gargantuan Greenskin war machines known as Gargants. The five companies of the Silver Skulls at Hades Hive had to fall back from Yarrick's Hope Harbour after a tanker full of Orks and explosives rammed the docks. However, the Silver Skulls struck back at the foul xenos, having shown exemplary skill in infiltrating one of the Ork Roks to the southeast of the hive, fighting their way into the core of the fortress and using the Orks' own teleporter arrays to send thermic charges into the orbiting space hulks that had previously provided the Orks with a continual stream of troops and war machines.Gildar Rift (998.M41) - The Silver Skulls Chapter fleet encountered and destroyed a Red Corsairs strike force comprising several Executor-class Grand Cruisers. The surviving Renegades made planetfall on several planets in the Gildar System including its primary world, Gildar Secundus, but the Silver Skulls were not to be thwarted so easily. Captain Daerys Arrun, the Master of the Fleet for the Silver Skulls and commander of the 4th Battle Company, ordered his Astartes to track down the Red Corsairs and launch a planetary assault on the world of Gildar Secundus where they had gone to ground. In a matter of solar weeks, the Gildar System was declared free of the Red Corsairs' influence, though the price proved high for the Silver Skulls -- Captain Arrun was slain in single combat with Huron Blackheart, the Tyrant of Badab, the infamous Chaos Lord who leads the Red Corsairs. Blackheart and many of his Renegades escaped from Gildar Secundus to plague the Imperium at a later date, but the people of the Gildar Rift were kept in the Emperor's light through the sacrifice of Daerys Arrun.Zeist Campaign (999.M41) - The Silver Skulls participated in the Zeist Campaign, heeding the call of the Lord Macragge, Marneus Calgar, the Chapter Master of the Ultramarines, who tasked Captain Cato Sicarius of the 2nd Company to lead the Imperial forces in containing the T'au expansion in the Eastern Fringes of the galaxy. The Silver Skulls contributed several Tactical Squads that were instrumental in the successful assault and liberation of the world of Augura, which had served as a primary forward base of operations for the T'au Empire's forces during its Third Sphere Expansion.Second Relief of Mordian (Iron Crusade) (Unknown Date.M42) - As Imperial forces withdrew from the Stygius Sector during the Invasion of the Stygius Sector, the Iron Hands refused to retreat and instead gathered on Mordian, itself under siege from Chaos forces. Alongside a mere dozen or so regiments of the Mordian Iron Guard, the Iron Hands sought to reforge themselves and purge the weakness they had displayed earlier in the campaign. During the siege the Iron Hands were joined by allies enraged by the defeatism of the Imperial forces, among them the Brazen Claws, Fire Lords, Silver Skulls, Sons of Medusa, and Iron Lords in what became known as the "Iron Crusade." They arrived on Mordian to find the planet terrorised by a Night Lords warband under the command of Ahrak Deathshriek and his Raptor hordes. Deathshriek planned to use the terror his Heretic Astartes created in the Mordian population to power a Chaos ritual that would plunge the entire world into the Warp. The Iron Hands and their allies struck with customary bluntness, emerging without warning from the Warp and engaging the Traitor fleet in orbit and launching a Drop Pod assault on Mordian's capital. Clan Avernii under Iron Captain Caanok Var led the charge and Deathshriek drove his Chaos Cultists into the Iron Hands' guns. One by one, the remaining Iron Hands clan companies joined the battle and Deathshriek was wounded in single combat by Var. Even as the Iron Hands' drop zone came under fresh assault from the Benedictian Guard and the Cult of the Whispered Word, Renegade warlords from across the sector united in their realisation that the Iron Hands could be wholly destroyed. With the Loyalist assault faltering, Deathshriek claimed victory as he led his fleet against the Iron Hands in space, outnumbering their warships three to one. It was at this point that the Iron Hands Successor Chapters arrived. Deathshriek's armada was caught in disarray by the Loyalist reinforcements and crushed. The newly-arrived Loyalist warships rained obliteration below on the Mordian populace. The orbital bombardment seemed indiscriminate, but nothing could have been further from the truth. The tactical doctrine known as "Hammer and the Storm" had been pursued planetside as well as in the trackless void, the Iron Hands' assault calculated to stir the Renegades and Traitors into reckless deeds. What had seemed a faltering Loyalist advance had merely paused while the Iron Hands Techmarines laboured to erect void shields and reinforce the capital city's surviving bunkers. Thus the Iron Hands and those portions of the Mordian populace they deemed worthy of survival endured the orbital firestorm. Their foes, caught in the open and drunk on the prospect of their imminent victory, were not so fortunate. In a little over one solar hour's bombardment, the Chaos hold on Mordian was broken for the second time. Eventually other Imperial reinforcements arrived from Cypra Mundi and the Iron Crusade was able to not only push the Chaos forces off Mordian, but to counterattack Chaos garrisons on nearby worlds. The Iron Hands' governing Iron Council then unleashed a second phase of the campaign, with a plan to scour the surviving worlds of the Mordian System of their Chaos presence and wrest the refineries and orbital shipyards of the neighbouring Kharvos System from Chaos. At present, the campaign is ongoing.