WARHAMMER 40K LORE: TACTICA IMPERIALIS A HISTORY OF THE LATER IMPERIAL CRUSADES

[Music] [Music] tactically Imperialis history of their later imperial crusades introduction many inglorious are the deeds of man and there is not a city or station anywhere in the vast realm of imperial space that has not contained some monument shrine or citation to the courage tenacity and sacrifice of the warriors of mankind without the ceaseless selfless efforts of military personnel in theatres of war ranging across our galactic territory as the Imperium would not have endured down through the millennia the Imperium is founded upon the blood sweat and muscle of the warrior classes High Command and the official tactic take pride and recording all individual actions with as much accuracy and detail as is possible the archival body of material held on various sector capital worlds and in the Engram vaults of holy terror itself is an extraordinary and vast resource a treasure in which the scholar or aficionado may find extraordinary accounts of heroism and fortitude these records are kept and primarily so that the deeds of the past may not be forgotten while the archive remains the names and roles of the illustrious dead may be honored and gratitude offered in their memory thus will the deeds of man persist but the archive is also a weapon from it we may discern not just that a particular victory was accomplished but how a particular victory was accomplished we may analyze and study the tactical decisions made by the warriors of the PAH their ideas their inspirations their insights can be learned and handed on to each new generation of fighting men the archive allows us to preserve both heroism and the meanness of heroism to promote this assets the officiator tactic Oh has selected certain actions from its vast records to use as examples for military historians and officers in training the actions have been chosen because they illustrate especially well a particular kind of warfare or tactical application the example is together with illuminating discourse and supporting analysis are published in a multi-volume sequence known as the tactical Imperialis and are considered to be essential reading for all trainees operational supplicants neophytes and cadets the exemplars very an origin and tone and are drawn for many different ages as the Corps reports on which they are based are drawn from a wide variety of places and display some variants in authorial voice and authorial subjectivity however each one contains a basic and essential lesson in the art of war a study detects wisely and learn before though the Emperor protects it is the duty of us all to stand ready and fight when the our demands Naxos the reef stars Nate 1:1 m41 the mid-gulf and core wood regions of the reef stars had long suffered particular predation from the so called younger indeed the zones vulnerability to the Dark Eldar known locally as the primals had become one of its defining characteristics Dark Eldar raids happened in seasonal cycles the rhythms of which were inscrutable to Imperial experts whether driven by elemental or economic factors ritual influences or migratory habits the cycles would begin with little advance warning not the long periods of dormancy and the region will be subject to bloody raids which often ceased without explanation due to the small and agile nature of the Dark Eldar raiding forces the cycle could seldom be stemmed by decisive military effort however the example of Naxos innate one one is a rare exception to that rule from our history of the later Imperial Crusades the account of Naxos was a simple from a variety of contemporary documents and reports by Colonel yarn holders in a t56 as part of an oversight treatise on the tactical considerations of the reef stars commissioned by the governor sub-sector yo Keem valance at the time of his assumption of office an imperial tactician assigned to the house of the governor hovers was a particularly insightful no-nonsense observer of strategic history and it is his analysis of the Li GAO starties as much as the Dark Eldar that makes the report of such a value to tactical officers and the account is reproduced here with only minor editorial Naxos is a non-viral mineral wealthy world one of the outer planets circling the star 88 beta nexus in the core word region of the Reef stars proximal to the mandible point at 46 GMOs first identified in m37 during the sixteenth boys of the road trader Bonifacio la Zelle the system was recommended by him for mineral exploitation and but such development only began in 5 6 1 m3 8 under the authority and benefit of the governor sub-sector at tarsal at this time the speculative prospector outposts were established on four of the system's worlds but within a decade the world now known as Naxos had been revealed as the most resource rich the other outposts were shut down and all development work concentrated on Naxos itself it was then that Naxos adopted its name from its local star and being the most prominent in the planetary group Naxos is abundant in several rare inner transition metals including zeig night from which the adamantium analogue tampering can be alloyed and phlogiston a vital component in the manufacture of heat sinks and the ignition rings of plasma weapons by 589 m create the prospector outposts on Naxos had been operated to a mining station in which capacity it continued to develop and prosper until 2 1 7 m39 when it was awarded a colonial charter and the mining station received the designation Naxos colony 1 despite its remote location Naxos colony one third well for many centuries and proved to be one of the sub-sectors most lucrative out holdings twice in 5-8 om 3 9 and 3/4 1 m4o the colony's governor petitioned for a second colonial charter to be as the workforce influx drawn by the expanding mining operations threatened to outstrip available habitat development indeed around five 8 o m39 work began to prepare a second colony site a thousand kilometres west of Naxos colony one however in both instances the Charter was denied due to fluctuating economic pressures in the region that its height circa 3 400 m 4o Naxos colony wants population approached three and a half million Imperial citizens but this figure had declined by the time of the action in question to around 400,000 in the five decades leading up to the events under consideration in this account of the prosperity of Naxos had began to fall off due to dropping productivity mineral reserves were worked out and the commercial production of zyg night had effectively ceased by 785 m for one furthermore the vast mineral reserves in the Cuates belt opened up in 6-9 om for one had swiftly become the region's principal provider of the ores and metals that had made Naxos viable for so long by 8 1 1 M 41 the Naxos was a colony in a slump the remote nature of Naxos dislocation had also worked against it over the years as the colony lay vulnerable to periodic Dark Eldar AIDS the entire region was prone to such hit-and-run attacks and on occasion held colonies in the zone had been wiped out for instance gaudiya twist and sickle out phlegm during its comparatively long robust history Naxos colony one suffered thirty-nine raids the most significant ones and being in 476 m 4o when 8,000 citizens died in a four-week campaign and 5 - oh em for one when the colony was besieged and two of the mining complex is destroyed estimates vary but it is possible that as many as a hundred thousand Imperial subjects had been killed on or abducted from Naxos the since records began in eight one one m41 there had been no Dark Eldar predation in 30 years it was on the morning of the ape shift close to the first Sun men arm was about my business on the rising side war between me 860 Habs and the old temper smoke works the blue night's shadow was still on the rising hills but it was clear enough my was walking the route to check 476 when I saw a man on the wall ahead of me I decided I would know his business because at that hour there shouldn't have been no other up there except me and my watch my came to him thinking him to be a hammer or minor on the wonder after a drink too many we sometimes got them up there the smoke kids and they're swingers I stepped up - hello him nan him with his back turned to me looking out at the hills there was something wrong about him and this I cursed myself I did not take seriously he was dark tall thin dark a dark man on the wore his hair fluttering in the wind very quiet his hair was very black like smoke I reached out to pull at him when I made a very proper demand of his business and he turned and he looked at me and he laughed and he was not a man at all he grabbed me and with one gesture threw me off the wall itself into the yards below which is when I broke my legs in my back as I lay there I heard the sound of engines and saw the dark machines sharp as knives come slippin in over the top of the wall above me account from Naxos the raid lasted for five hours in force of approximately 400 enemy warriors mostly conveyed on light graph capable fighting machines swept in from the mountains on the rising west side of the colony location as is the habit of these creatures the assault was fast moving hit and ran the colonial defense force under the command of major yogi Fodor had maintained a program of strenuously rehearsed attack protocols over the years for just such an eventuality and responded with Admiral Swede however the enemy moved with shocking swiftness using the transit channels to stay below the fire fields of the defense batteries fierce fighting broke out in mass residential Habs 12 and 13 and in the axillary process of plants at the rising freemind 89 members of the CDF were killed or injured in these battles along with over a hundred citizens of over two hundred and seventy three citizens perished in the fires that swept through mass residents had 13 in the aftermath of the raid this loss was initially blamed on inadequate evacuation mechanisms but later studies showed that the attackers had deliberately seeded the hub area with slow burn incendiary devices and had disabled the fire prevention systems only the starworld efforts of the falling fire watch divisions prevented the fire from spreading into adjoining mass residence structures an effort for which they were later recognized which tations in the immediate aftermath major Fodor made it plain that the enemy had not been driven off nor even withheld the CDF had been fighting for survival the enemy as ever operating according to the rhythm of some great and secret tide had simply chosen to remove themselves from the conflict there was little doubt they would return precious little is known of the Zeno type known as the Dark Eldar though their rapacious habits of plague certain regions of the Imperium since earliest times culturally they are a blank with few pointers to suggest what ambitions and strategies might drive them on except perhaps the basest urges of plunder and blood of all mankind's principle enemies they seem to number the least released show themselves in the fewest numbers and biologically they seem to be related to the Zeno type alder the similarity that has given coin to their most usual epithet in the reef stars they are also known from folklore as the primals or also as the smoke riders what can be said with certainty is they practice violence against mankind in swift shock attacks and display astonishing levels of cruelty and depravity in doing so their technology is advanced and almost entirely so it appears predicated on pain and wounding during the course of their raiding strikes they often take human captives presumably for slaves in both physicality and weaponry a primal warrior is easily a match for a guardsman or aren't human there is also no doubt at all that they are possessed of keen intelligence but certain telogen cease focused completely on cunning amount some expert observers have seen in their ritual marks and decorations certain similarities to the abhorrent symbols of the archenemy is it possible they conjecture that the primals are an offshoot of the Eldar race that has like our own shameful traitor kin fallen prey to the influence of chaos and the war the colonial governor of Naxos Tobin cloister issued an immediate state of emergency and place the colony under conditions of martial law mining operations in all facilities except South primary who were suspended and extended mine workings were closed down and sealed on the recommendation of major Fodor all leave was canceled and Defense Force Reserves armed and mobilized from the work of masses their closer was a career politician who had risen to power 17 years before on the back of a process of reforms designed to bring their colony back to previous levels of prosperity he firmly believed a belief based mainly on the strength of recent metallurgic assays conducted in the rising mountains that Naxos had a great measure of previously unrecognized mineral wealth he had been campaigning hard to have the colony's mining charter extended and to attract new wealth and investment to Naxos crosser who had not seen a primal raid during his office realized that the day's events and it's probable sequels might barrier the colony's reputation for viability forever he sent an immediate request for aid to the governor sub-sector on tarsal two days later via Astro perfect channels their closer received a response his request had been refused the reasons cited by the governor sub-sector for his refusal a decision made with great regret we're simply ones of mobilization the five decade-long Dinah stick wars in the Karelian group were still raging and a hot war had recently broken out with the separatist movement on Braccio the standing reserves of the Imperial Guard were at full stretch men on could be committed for at least ten months sidereal it is possible that our issues affected a decision a rumors had begun to circulate at courts and from diplomatic back channels the Lord militant power tired with the seneschal ship of the petal world's given to him after the on durian campaign was petitioning to raise a crusade against the greenskins a military operation later famously curtailed at the eleventh hour after Bauer's sudden death Bauer was a figure of immense influence and those who backed his crusade call with promises of manpower and support who would find themselves in favor at the very highest levels it would be a pardonable sin to suggest that the governor sub-sector was amassing true preserves in the expectation of lending them to Bauer's buildup in the face of such an enterprise the fate of a single small remote colony was a minor thing it is also possible that Naxos was considered to be as good as lost already however and the governor sub-sectors message concluded with the curious suggestion that he was examining other options in his Diaries we learn that closer regarded this final phrase as an empty promise to save face but it proved to have more weight than that two weeks after the primal attack a starship translated into geosync orbit above the colony tensions in the colony were running high there had been no further raids by the Dark Eldar but rumor and that spawned a thousand stories of figures in the hills beyond the colony of spectres haunting the Habs at night and of children taken from their cots Wow it is entirely possible that some of these tales had a basis in genuine Dark Eldar activity most of them were the product of overheated overstressed imaginations though unpredictable in almost every measure Dark Eldar raids are often notable for the length of time between assaults as if the enemy delights in waiting to appear again long past the endurance of any patience or courage it is as if they attack once and then leave the victim to stew in their own fearful apprehension tearing themselves apart with panic and ghastly possibilities suddenly in that two-week period 18 men deserted another five were executed for desertion and 29 citizens were killed or injured in outbursts of rioting or street violence the arrival of the starship briefly brought the simmering mood in the colony to boiling point many believe that this was the arrival of a fresh primal raid civil unrest greater than any seen before broke out and the CDF her to work hard to contain it to orbital Landers in formation left the orbiting ship and descended towards the colony they made no request for landing rights or descent data they set down in a slag zone north of the gas separation facility they were imperial vessels they were a star tease Thunder Hawks building a force of 40 battle brothers space marines of the lee gos starties chapter the iron snakes had arrived on Naxos they were led by brother captain trochus captain trochus immediately met with closer major Fodor and other seniors of the colony he explained that routine strategic monitoring of the region had bought the price of Naxos to the chapters attention and they had decided to mobilize a force and step in when it became apparent that no Imperial Guard Force was available to reinforce Krakus would not confirm if the governor sub-sector had contacted the iron snakes chapter house or not in his own private journal Fodor speculated that the iron snakes had been monitoring astro Pathak traffic and had learn of the situation by intercepting the encrypted communication closer and the governor sub-sector this notion which Fodor sensibly kept to himself was later cast into doubt by another perhaps more sinister possibility the governor cloth sir was at once delighted and dismayed no governor his colony in peril would ever refused their help of mankind's greatest warriors though it is pertinent to reflect that Rockers offered no choice in the matter and howled as a mortal man begin to refuse a brother of the authorities however there were misgivings the first shared by Fodor and the other officers was that their own command and control of the situation would be diluted at best and dissolved and their worse the Liege Aristarchus were autonomous and would answer to no Master except their own in all but the largest engagement Space Marines operated by their own authority was respectful of governor class's status trochus his iron snakes would expect full cooperation from the colony and full dispersal command of the CDF and the levies the second concern and perhaps glosses greatest worry was that the iron snakes were not the garrison he had petitioned for closest simple desire had been for a large strong garrisoning force that could remain on station at the colony for the duration for mumps or even years if necessary safeguarding the sites against any occurrence of the Dark Eldar activity folder an experienced and rational man had advised the governor that any campaign against the primal threat and to be waged using time and patience the iron snakes like the estar T's of all chapters were battle warriors their role was to engage and fight in swift decisive operations they were too rare too few too powerful to be wasted on efforts of fortification the iron snakes were not likely to stay on Naxos beyond any immediate flashpoint the so-called Mayan snakes are an ancient and illustrious chapter that traces its origins back to the second founding they make their chapter house on the fortress moon of Charybdis which orbits the tempestuous water world Ithaca a planet from which they draw most if not all of their neophyte recruits part of an iron snakes rite of passage is to hunt and kill one of the gargantuan water wines of Ithaca it is from these near mythical beasts that the iron snakes take their name and their heraldry together with the archetypical weapons of bolter and blade the iron snakes sometimes carry battle modified versions of their wine hunting sea Lance's sources characterized the iron snakes a stoic aesthetic and courageous but the chapter is also marked by a history of cunning and battlefield guile perhaps more than some other chapters the iron snakes admire ingenuity and tactical flair and pride themselves and rewarding wisdom and inspiration they pay a special heed to their librarians and make an art of studying tactical sciences as much as any cadre of warriors can be said to be they are thinkers and planners many of their most famous victories have been soundly won on the campaign's chart table long before any battle commences like all-star tease chapters they revere tradition and ritual since records began they have taken it upon them to be the particular protectors of the reef stars although they undertake this protection in their own autonomous manner their battle honours include many great triumphs against the forces of chaos and the green skin that they have always considered the special enemy of the reef stars the Dark Eldar their particular sworn foe on the first evening records tell us the governor closer held a formal banquet to welcome his visitors Captain trochus attended along with his squad commanders there it is recorded that they ate little of the feast and drank nothing except water they attended in full armor it is impossible to underplay the effect of the iron snake's arrival on the populace of Naxos none of the colonists had seen a Space Marine before and many of them believe them to be mythical creatures such was the infrequency of their appearances now they were solid palpable fact and moreover though they were terrifying armored like Giants each one fully a third larger than the largest man their accents were strange even the smell of them was strange in a report sergeant Victor temperance of the CDF wrote may have seen a thing today which I know only from the storybooks of my childhood a snake of iron no so mighty and so broad and so bold that it might have been a statue on the colonnade of the Emperor come to life I call it it because it was not a he nor Eva a she but a thing like a God its armor glowed like the moon gunmetal bright and it smelled of sweet oils and sacred lotions in its fist five times the size of my fist it clenched a spear twice the length of my body I think we will live if these gods are with us now temperance is not alone in his all the people of the colony who came out to garland the iron snakes and lured them the young boys painted the marks of their heraldry on their cheeks and foreheads but there was fear to put all their splendor and physical size there were only 40 of the Astarte wood that could that be enough others in the population feared the reverse they were so dismayed at the physicality of the iron snakes they began to panic as to what threat really faced them if such things were needed what was coming as if sensing losses misgivings at their arrival truckers presented him with a letter of assurance during the state banquet its matter is reproduced below from a copy held at the imperial archive tassel when undertaking to Naxos to the colonists of Naxos and to their governor who is named tobin closer greetings I named my brother trochus to be my proxy in the matter of your deliverance from the smoke riders I would ask that you trust him as you would trust me and as you would trust the eternal benediction of the Emperor himself alert to your circumstances aware of your pain and I've charged my brother truckers and the battle brothers who accompanied him to quit the chapter house in full war harness and an anointed for battle and to come to your side it is my pledge as solemn as any I have given the chapter iron snakes will champion the interests of Naxos and the colony there on this pledge I make with the water of Ithaca homeworld may the god emperor guide and protect us all Ithaca on receipt of the assurance new closer was far from reassured he spoke with captain truckers laying out his concerns but the captain reportedly said that he did not expect the war on Naxos to be at all drawn out later that night closer sent an encrypted missive to the governor sub-sector pleading for him to reconsider his decision and send Imperial Guard reinforcements he received no reply in the week following the arrival of truckers his force a defensive works were set in motion at the past of the iron snakes Crocker's made his command HQ in the Jura light armoured basements of the central refinery and there gathered his officers his library and also in a gesture that seemed at best palliative major fodder and his senior men folders a journal tells us that apart from certain specific details of geography and layout his opinion and the opinions of his staff were seldom asked for apparently anticipating a sub from the West from whence had come the previous attack truckers who ordered a secondary line of defense built along the rising side wall and also around the span of the 970 Habs and rising to mine and also around the south all pens he ordered the defense batteries be moved from inner colony positions and spaced in the open country south of rising to mine and also in the hinterland an industrial waste north of rising - and the central refinery he ordered two of his squads to take position in the lower access ways of hab 10 another in rising free mine and the fourth in the water cooling station at the southern end of the main generation facility the truckers then instructed the CDF to man the new defenses a rising side wall and the 970 Habs but also positioned a significant number of the levee reserve around the falling store domes and South secondary mine Fodor was beside himself he confronted truckers and demanded to know on what basis the iron snake's captain believed the enemy would assault from the same side as before their colony is falling side was woefully under protected and vulnerable as was in his opinion the refinery interchange captain trochus was polite but brooked no dissent according to a CDF eyewitness he told Fodor plainly that this was the way to protect the interests of Naxos his instructions were carried out against Fodor's objections two days later they were put to the test and were found wanting the the second Dark Eldar raid began twenty-three days after the first to the hour that was the only thing that marked it in common with the initial assault as major Fodor had predicted the foe directed their attack in from a different direction altogether the Dark Eldar had apparently concentrated their forces estimated then at some 600 plus in the deep canyons east of the colony the so-called falling side there below the reach of all specs they had masked their numbers and struck at dawn the comparatively undefended flanks of the colony racing in across the edges of the land shelf they struck at south secondary mine south primary as the only mine units still functioning and the falling sidewall north beyond mass residents had 15 carnage ensured the massed levies most of the miners and hab workers drummed into a militia was slaughtered at falling sidewall north four hundred and twenty two men died many of them valiantly defending the Habs of families and friends Lomas dracs a militia man wrote it was all confusion terrible confusion we had been told the iron snakes were with us but where were they I saw my friends and neighbors good men all perish cut apart by blade and blast the Devils went all upon us they came streaking in on their bikes cackling as they fired volley after volley into our midst we had no cover hen Estelle BAE another of the militia levius station of the falling side domes road I was left insensible by the air shock I'm a deaf man now my saw shapes coming in and held on to the hand of my friend as we were lifted by savage explosions then I found a hand was all I had left of him crawling in the dust I saw South secondary explode so secondary mine and did indeed explode a catastrophic detonation that left 900 Colin is dead or crippled folder called frantically for CDF scrimps to pull back across the colony and reinforce the levees on the falling side he also called fort raucous for aid nan came by the time the Dark Eldar withdrew five hours after the assault had began South secondary mine was ablaze and nearly three thousand colonists had been killed the iron snakes had not moved from their positions the following day an air of disbelief hung over Naxos colony warned the colonies infirmaries were working to capacity to deal with the influx of injured and labor crews worked in dangerous conditions to bring the blazing mine at South secondary and the control and the entire colony zone was blanketed in thick black smoke the iron snakes were held directly responsible for the grave wounds Naxos had taken by their tactical incompetence and their inexplicable decision not to even show themselves during the race but they won't dare to confront them demonstrations gathered in public places and at the square at the north end of the colonnade of the Emperor members of the levy reserved ceremonially cast down their weapons and refused to fight any further oklet's jockeys were summoned to speak to the dissenters and renew their vigor berated from all sides by citizens and officials who had nowhere else to direct their anger their governor closer went to speak with captain trochus at the central refinery in the gloom of the looming lit basement Krakus seemed far more threatening than before he cut the governor short before he could iterate his objections and curtly presented him with a list of troop deployments that he expected the governor to implement immediately closer was dumbfounded by the arrogance of the space marine commander and one of the governor's aides Martin Birkin and later wrote of his disbelief that my old governor should find the courage to raise his voice to the space marine my Lord governor shouted his angry denouncement of the iron snakes daring the wrath of the monstrous warrior I expected in my true heart that the great captain would turn and strike my lord the governor down with a flat of his hand for his impudence I say that my lord the governor is after that one moment quite the bravest man I have ever seen Krakus did not strike closer down not even react in any provoked way he simply witheringly told the governor you have your assurance claw sir was dismissed governor closer called an emergency session of the Colonial Office and took advice from his senior men including the ecclesia key the CDF and the muna Turin all felt the same dismay as closer the same feeling of wretched helplessness Nascar sir had feared from the moment the ion snakes arrived here was a bad situation now slipping rapidly out of his control at length it was perhaps surprisingly major fodder who spoke with the coolest head Fodor had been openly dubious of the iron snake scheme all along but was at heart a military man who understood their plans for warfare were often composed from elements that appeared incomprehensible to the soldier on the ground from the recorded minutes of the meeting we learned that Fodor said from the start of this we knew we would be passengers in the Astarte swore our voices and opinions ignored we knew we wouldn't like it from what I've seen of the captain's strategy I don't like you that either it cost us dear last night but I have to believe that there's some hidden sense in it some greater policy of war that we don't see or understand in this we are the common soldiers on the field so loafers I am to suggest this and I think we must go along with it come what may we must trust that the iron snakes know what they are doing Krauser noted this reasoning adding what choice have we cooperates with a plan that we dislike but which might save us or refuse to cooperate and have no plan at all the motion was carried Fodor and his officers immediately began to implement tro curses scheme he was on a moment too soon as if suddenly eager for the blood they had tasted the day before the Dark Eldar struck again that night in numbers comparable to the day before the Dark Eldar massed out of the dying light from the cover positions in the east and canyons they struck at falling sidewall north and for the second day running the site became a place of terrible bloodshed and combat a second prong of the dark L of our attack drove in hard against the South primary wall while a third run the smoke wash coming off the burning mine and sliced in between it and a falling side dome storage area where it was met by heavy resistance from levies and the CDF horses dug in across the transit roads and loading aprons the fights on the South primary war was intense and damage was suffered by adjacent hab blocks but it lasted less than twenty minutes a great number of the Dark Eldar there withdrew when were lost from sites in the dying light the savage fighting raged a long falling sidewall north and the storage area for three hours the situation became so intense that folder ordered further CDF reserves to move forward in support of the storage area forces drawing these from the perimeter of the main generation facility one of Fodor's senior men wrote later I had not seen an equal to that carnage in a long life of soldiering the ground was spongy with the blood that had soaked into it everything was lit by the leaping flames one blessing we had it is not madness to save was the Beast you lust of the enemy if they had simply driven at us wholesale the power of their vile weapons and the speed of their machines would have overrun us in short order but these murderous beings through to strike deaf blows by hand to involve themselves in the melee as if it is some sort of sport or game so they came amongst us with close-quarter weapons diabolic shadows in the fire and smoke and this gave us a chance to match them blow-for-blow even then we did not stand a living chance but our resistance and the life of the colony itself was prolonged and Fodor has sent several messages to truckers demanding he engaged the fur truckers did not reply for the second time Lea starties forces had remained conspicuously absent from the field the battle for the falling side ground on into the night Justus Fodor began to hope for relief just as he began to hope that the Dark Eldar might as before simply pull out and quit an urgent Fox message came through in large numbers the Dark Eldar perhaps the very ones who had pulled back from the South primary wall earlier that evening had circled the colony and began an assault on the rising side having exchanged fire with the defenders positioned before the 970 Habs and rising to mine they had driven in in great force at the refinery interchange major Fodor's fears had been realized by breaching the outer wall at refinery interchange the Dark Eldar had penetrated the inner zones of the colony crucial objectives such as the central refinery and the main generation facility now lay in their sights the Raiders took some losses to the batteries ranged on the hinterland behind the interchange complex but with little cover available these batteries were quickly overwhelmed or became sites of fierce close-quarter fighting as the Raiders dismounted and set about the CDF personnel Maj Fodor at that time position to the east at the gas separation facility immediately set off West at a personal command of the incursion zone battle in issue estimates but the number of Raiders that said penetrated the breach at 300 by the time Fodor arrived these numbers had risen to almost 500 more were arriving at every moment apparently summoned by their brethren that had made entry the raiding bands attacking the falling side of the colony were withdrawing to swing around the colony zone and enter the breach Fodor retasked as any of the CDF and levy elements that he could to close into the hinterland area and meet the invasion within 45 minutes of the initial incursion it became clear to those on the ground that the Raiders were focusing their attack on the central refinery ringed by zoned shielding revetments and blade wire the refinery was one of the colony's most secure facilities manness evidently piqued to the Raiders appetite they swept in across the hinterland district and began an assault on the refinery defenses and approached tracks intense pockets of hand-to-hand fighting broke out along the principal track and around the gates to the refinery compound eyewitnesses reported the scene as hellish and infernal the entire area was littered with flame right and the dense smoke had rendered the night's darkness solid and opaque just before midnight with the Raiders some ten minutes away from engulfing the refinery captain trochus finally deployed via starties under truck is's personal leadership the two squads of iron snakes positioned in the lower access ways of hab 10 broke from cover and assaulted the right wing of the Raiders main incursion the sudden appearance of space marine forces seemed to fill the Raiders we've both dismay in darkly they had little option but to turn and engage in a 30-minute set piece battle the twenty Space Marines cut a swathe through the enemy mass and left over a hundred of them dead or dying rallied by the site the CDF own levies threw themselves into the fray and followed the cutting edge of the space marines advance the Dark Eldar forces must have been counting on their own reinforcements to outweigh the space Marine force but almost all of their raiding strength was already deployed onto the hinterland they're charging impetus gone and their unit cohesion lost in the confusion all told perhaps 600 Dark Eldar Warriors had the colony area to be met by the ferocity of an a-star tease resistance supported in full by the eager colonial forces like a pack dog sectioning off a herd of livestock truckers drove his two squads northeast and decapitated the Dark Eldar main force in front of the central refinery about 90 Dark Eldar were marooned on the refinery approaches while the bulk of the raiding force recoiled and began towards rising free mine Krakus it was now clear had planned this trap maneuver with intricate skill and confidence using his limited numbers - startling and devastating effect he wheeled his two squads west and began to pursue the Dark Eldar main section towards rising free mine with large sections of the CDF in support a running battle broke out simultaneously his third squad concealed in the water cooling station at the southern end of the main generation facility stormed out of concealment and attacked the remainder of the Dark Eldar force on the main refinery approached these radars were in the space of 20 minutes and Naya lated between the iron snakes third squad and the levy strengths that had remained on station the main strength of the Dark Eldar attack force sought cover in the rising free mine complex intending to turn dig in and take the fight back on to the numerically inferior iron snakes but the truck as his fourth and final squad was waiting there for them patiently and truck asses order the fourth squad engaged and terrible slaughter was done on the enemy as they were caught in the open between the two opposed fronts of iron snakes power 70 or 80 Raiders were slain in that intense exchange the surviving mass wheeled east and attempted a dramatic and hasty flight from the colony zone via the refinery interchange the way they had entered truckers had prepared for this by secretly mining the entire interchange complex at this point he detonated the killing many of the fleeing Raiders enforcing the rest to turn in a flight that was little short of panic once again truck has heard his foe like livestock now turning them South in flight using his own two squads with the third on his right flank to channel the Raiders against the barrier formed by the 970 Habs the Raiders now numbering less than 200 took shelter in the rising two mine they intended to use the structure to their advantage the way they had hoped to do with the other rising side mine this time no hidden squad of Space Marines awaited them inside they dug in the massive rock creats superstructure of the mine complex offered them ideal fortress cover with their start ease and colonial forces in the open hinterland before them the advantage was momentarily theirs once more captain truckers had also laid charges in the rising to mine once the dark held our inside he detonated the charges triggering a huge explosion magnified by igniting gases the mine was levelled in short and Swift order the iron snakes had annihilated a Dark Eldar raiding force that vastly outnumbered them Naxos colony 1 had suffered miserably in the course of the undertaking the death toll had been high the property damage immense and two of the colony's main mining structures had been destroyed one by deliberate sacrifice governor closer filed several formal complaints at the way his colony had been used as bait and trap but he was generally ignored or overruled some reparation was offered in the form of financial aid by the governor subset to eight months later but it was just a fraction of the commercial value that had been lost the damage and loss of productivity accelerated the colony's decline at the time of writing though still functioning Naxos colony one teeters on the edge of on viability to summarize after the fact many telling details emerge from this event it is clear that the iron snake scout network and early warning systems had detected a major Dark Eldar raiding force mobile in the region as much as two years before from experience the iron snakes knew they might spend decades hunting such an agile elusive force through the reef stars they needed a trap and a means to eradicate the Menace in one blow it seems likely that it was the iron snakes themselves who prevailed upon the governor sub-sector not to send a garrison force to Naxos they wanted Naxos undefended because they wanted it to appear enticing to the raiders furthermore they know that the Dark Eldar were likely to ignore any potential targets where space marines might be present for this reason the iron snakes remained under ployed and out of sight during the initial rates only showing themselves once the Dark Eldar had become supremely confident and overcommitted Naxos was indeed used as bait and one might say given its subsequent economic collapse entirely sacrificed in order that the enemy be vanquished however it is to be considered that the iron snakes remit is greater than elephants of one world or colonial outpost the written assurance given to governor closer that the iron snakes intended to champion Naxos his interests refer to a bigger view the destruction of the Dark Eldar Raiders was essential for the interests of all Imperial subjects in the region and therefore by extension in Naxos his interests even though the colonists are to suffer to achieve it the episode shows us just how effective even a small force of space marines can be and offers salutary lessons in the differences between a starties and Nona starties mindsets there is a clinical brilliance to crocuses victory but a ruthlessness to for the good of the Imperium space marines may make choices beyond the moral compass of the Guard or the Navy it is worth noting as a footnote that major Fodor whose belief that the iron snakes were working to some bigger plan was convincingly vindicated and it did not survive to see he was killed in combat on the approach to the central refinery the Emperor oppose any life wasted in his name and we fight daily to preserve the vitality of our species but we must know the value and necessity of sacrifice and understand what it is to have the strength and courage to make clearly and confidently such decisions in the heat of warfare lie above the Sabbat world's 778 m41 by its 23rd year the monumental supper world's crusade was entering the defining phase under the Mercurial command of the war Master Makarov the main armies of the crusade had successfully advanced into the savagely disputed territories of the Cabal systems a densely fortified and defended region and was beginning to make significant gains in the carcharodon foster attract generally regarded as the Heartland holdings of the archenemy many believe that overall Imperial victory was in sight perhaps no more than five years off however lovers feared that a number of factors could unsettle the imperial confidence possibly with disastrous effect more than once the fortunes of the crusade had switched drastically against the Imperial side there were two key considerations firstly the fighting in the Kabala land had carried on regions were on such a scale previously unseen even in a long crusade that had witnessed massive set-piece battles secondly and more insidiously there was unfinished business in Makarovs wake the Khan group trail would that the Cabal systems were still beset by enemy forces many of them attempting to effect a counter-attack in his effort to race ahead Makarov had left many unresolved conflicts to be dealt with by his second front conflicts that if mishandled or lost would allow significant arch enemy forces to drive at the crusading forces from behind from a history of the later Imperial Crusades the accounts of the life of war is taken from operational reports made during and after the action a body of material later formalized and annotated by general Galan gouts in his book a strategic assessment of the karun conflict 799 m41 which was later approved for inclusion in its charter list of recommended works by the tactical Imperium the life of section has often been republished separately for academic study the Gulf's at the time a junior officer served under Khan hybl and later saw command at sannyasa and Xerxes free the editorial perspective is guts and is reproduced here with minor amendments requested by Imperial Guard High Command began in 755 m41 the suburb world's crusade was a massive endeavor to liberate over 100 inhabited systems along the edge of the segment and Pacifica's from the forces of chaos an ancient and feudal II held region the Sabbat world's has an imperial history dating back many thousands of years men in that time has been severely threatened and invaded by the enemies of mankind most especially the federal chaos force is known to occupy the so called sanguinary world's spin word of the inhabited sectors liberated early in their formal existence during the crusade led by Saint sabot from whom the Stars take their name the worlds were extensively retaken by the enemy during the Sabbat incursions that began a century and a half prior to the crusade though many worlds held out during this troubled and dangerous period and by 740 m41 it was clear the region no longer retained any semblance of central Imperial control and a crusade scale mobilization was prepared to retake them initially it generated and led by the inspired command of war Master Slade oh the crusade enjoyed vigorously early successes the despite savage opposition and the first phase culminated in the critical battle at bal hood a considered a turning point in the opening decade of the endeavor however the Great's ledo perished in the bow Hood conflict his named successor as war master was the young unproven but brilliant Makarov who galvanized imperial interests with his positive some might say impetuous leadership for the second 10 years of the crusade Makarov drove his forces on through a remarkable of engagements eventually puncturing the monumental enemy defenses at the cabal system which opened up the vital carcharodon cluster and paved the way for the Crusades third principle phase when the imperial armies confronted the arch enemy forces in their own heartland however in the years immediately following a 773 m41 the arch enemy attempted a considerable counter-attack the pincer ring behind the advancing Imperial front at Makarovs overstretch lines of supply and communication the focus of this counter-attack was the Kahn stars and off of old Imperial worlds and colonies adjacent to the Cabal systems where Imperial governance of the region had once been situated action on this second front raged for many years and many times Imperial forces hung in the balance it was feared that Makarovs muscular gains to spin would would be for nothing if the counter-attack succeeded in its objectives and bisected his advance at the Khan stars and tactical scholars believe that if Makarov main force was decapitated in this way and nothing could prevent it from being surrounded overwhelmed and obliterated several of Makarov senior commanders were charged with the prosecution of the second front including generals van Voight's Kelso and bulletins and Lucian Lords militants I born and Hamill and Marshall Blackwood for the most part their task was to block and defend against the counter-attack but this often meant they had to retake strongly-held enemy world that Makarov had bypassed in his way to glory left unmolested these worlds could form powerful beachheads and staging posts for counter attacking fur one of these worlds was lie above first settled in the early historical period of the region circa m36 lie both had grown to be a hive world of considerable power and manufacturing capacity with a large population and significant guard and PDF Garrison's it had been one of the last to fall to the arch n during the Sabbat incursions effectively conquered in 750m for one lie both had suffered under archenemy occupation for two and a half decades and their several hive cities had remained under Imperial control for good portions of that time and major land Wars had been waged as a result as strategically useful due to its location on one of the main jump routes alive of was also believed to be a source of fuel munitions and other consumables for the arch enemy forces in the carne group Layton 777 m41 Lord militant Kai borne ordered it to be retaken and gave command responsibility to general Khan Hyde general andreas carne Hyde was a veteran Guard commander with a long and respectable military career that predated the start of the crusade he had served under Slade Oh during the Kulin Wars in seven five two to seven five four and had thus become one of the war masters chosen command echelon at the start of hostilities and prior to libel however his service in the crusade had been unspectacular as circumstances found him most often in command of deployment Garrison's or transit forces NAFTA balford and Slade owes death carne Hyde suffered the same fate as many of his contemporaries when he found himself out of favor with the new war master Makarov with characteristic petulance took it upon himself to give operational preferment to those he felt where his own which is to say the new blood the younger often untested officers who had risen with him on the skirts of Slade owes command many esteem herbal veteran commanders with nothing to prove in terms of loyalty and ability were relegated unceremoniously to secondary roles as a result a great number of them were saddled with the onerous chores of second front command con Hyde born on Gudrun in seven-11 was consequently a capable officer who had never been given the opportunity to truly shine he was well liked by the ranking and had an easy nature that seemed relaxed and could often be mistaken by detractors for timidity and indecisiveness it must be said that his selection for the theatre command of libe of was not made on merit never stretched and beset by free significant conflicts in the immediate car group Lord militant Kai Bourne had tasked the job of liberating live off to the only senior officer he felt he could spare the similarly card hide was not blessed with control of a well-formulated well awarded mission force there were decent size his Liberation Army was framed together at the last minute from disparate units most of whom had not served alongside one another operationally and many of which had been on frontline service for excessive duration and urgently required retirement and restating it may be that Kai Bourne considered Karn hide and his force expendable or liable to be less of a threat then it actually proved to be and most likely he regarded Karan Hyde's Task Force to be a stopgap a competent but unexceptional commander with a tired and structured army who would keep live of busy until such time as Kai Bourne was clear of his immediate problems and could come to claim victory for himself the significant enemy forces awaited Karn hide on live off especially in the so-called Transcontinental Nexus where the bulk of the planet's most viable hives and manufacturer centres lay cult armies and levies of prodigious size occupied the zones many of them drawn from the indigenous population polluted by the caustic touch of the war those Imperial citizens who had not succumbed to the taint of chaos were cruelly employed as slave labor in the industrial belt the arch enemy forces were further supplemented by war machines armored aircraft and battlefield titans as well as some considerable numbers of traitor Marines usually such arch enemy forces were stratified and uncool nated united by a common cause but unharmed in terms of command and control cohesion in arch enemy armies is often weak or flawed and rivalry feuds and in turn a sign power struggles often erupt what had begun to make the enemy so dangerous in his savage worlds was a new unity of command there's still clan and cult centric in nature as the enemy forces recognized one senior Overlord Archon who was the equivalent of the Imperial War Master the Archon named Urlacher gur had evidently claimed by right of combat or ritual the overlordship of the innumerable federal clans and factions now the clan leaders many a monstrous potentates in their own rights had become his lieutenants or Magisters for the first time the archenemy was operating with one unified purpose as much as any army of the ruinous powers can be said to do so central to galas harmonizing efforts was the Blood Pact realizing the true methodical soldiering will win more for chaos than the rampant zealotry of berserk cultists gur had initiated the development of a personal plan army called the blood pact which he modeled sadhana Cleon the Imperial Guard indeed many of those who took the blood pact with ger found themselves equipped with weapons kit in uniform procured from dead or captured Imperial Guardsmen this bastardized almost parodic reflection of the Imperium sámi proved to be highly successful once it had mastered the principles of proper disciplined warfare and tactics the Blood Pact and a comparable institution named the sons of Seck after one of Garth's most notorious Magisters who was able to compete with the guard on equal terms to understand its methodology and turn it against the imperial ground troops the arch enemy forces on live evolved were commanded by a being known as Iraq etiquette a capable and charismatic leader Imperial scholars believe that oetiker is an honorific rank meaning sub or demigod donating perhaps a colonel or general analog nerrac oetiker had forged the disparate parts of the arch enemy occupation force into one coherent structure this new breed of Kaos army awaited Karn Hyde's forces any successful liberation of libe of had to focus on the Transcontinental Nexus the vast and balkanized heartland of hives and industrial regions that occupied the southern half of the main landmass 19 separate fronts for mass drop assault were considered and rejected by karen hyde and his planners including schrade EBA zinc hill and Kazon burg principle assault of libe of hive was deemed infeasible so long as the other hives of the Nexus remained active and defensible from the eyewitness account pilot officer Gregor helps 33rd kalian air wing when we aquella pond live off we were dropping in from 30,000 meters in a flat diamond formation of 25 machines we had the main Sun right behind us visibility was good and we got a decent impression of the sheer scale of the main hive the enemy was a plan in force I counted about 600 machines mostly in dogfights with twenty nine and six seven two squadrons it was a massive agile planes from 4-5-1 squadron Colonel Xerxes piled in right past us on a steep dive moving much faster and steeper than us so we turned in and stood in our wings and peeled out to attack the blessing of the Emperor was upon us I had my guns on too before I had to turn up out the dive and crossed with a third that I'm pretty certain I sent to hell it was deadly work every curve and turn every banking move or roll risk the collision with another craft friend or foe it was like shoals of fish racing and lapping around one another the G was intense on every turn and five times as many as the digits on my right hand evaded a fatal clash by a hair's breadth I made two more good kills both confirmed on my way out then struck two a trio of enemy fighter bombers turning low and west and sent one of them down then I found myself in a knife fight with an arch enemy machine a devil of a pilot who rolled around the sky until most of my munition load was gone that was low on fuel and I didn't fix him I lost him over the Western transits and I think by then he may have bounced some of the Thunderbolts of 29 but I didn't see it then I turned back for the carrier on the last dregs of my reserves most objections to the various drop point plans were made by Karn Hyde's infantry commanders intelligences had procured a great deal of useful data suggesting the nexus zone enjoyed considerable air cover from the arch enemy interceptor squadrons based for the most part on mobile land carriers these hunter-killer squadrons were hard to track and kill from orbit the infantry Force commanders reasoned that the fighter screen would render any troop drop practically suicidal while the dense formations of enemy stooped bombers would swiftly annihilate any forces that made it to the surface intact this was especially true of the Shradha Bey landing zones that work on heights particular preference the car hider bounced the problem to his Navy officers initially with requests to bring the landing fleet into a much tighter lower orbit from which the carrier machines could be more accurately targeted unwilling to risk their line ships and troop conveyances against the range of the archenemies huge anti orbital batteries the Navy officers devised the scheme of their own realizing that a flat refusal pecarn I'd might result in them being warded into clothes all with anyway flight marshal Carol hidin presented an attack plan to general can hide where by the Navy fighter squadrons would be deployed into the atmosphere in advance of the troop drop to engage the enemy aircraft head-to-head for air superiority such a bold tactic was ordinarily disliked by most commanders of the fleet who resented wasting a fighter craft by sending them in without orbital barrage support however the individual pilot officers whose views were often overlooked have relished the notion of such a challenge and in this theater the commanders of the major vessels prefer to gamble their fighters rather than their main ships the plan was agreed eight mast waves of Imperial fighters the predominantly Thunderbolts were also some wings of lightnings began the assault at zero hour on day one almost 30,000 machines were sent in and were matched at the height of the engagement by almost 45,000 enemy warplanes overall 63,000 Imperial warplanes were committed to the campaign the total number of arch enemy machines is not known but is estimated to be around 140,000 the principal attack zones were the Shred a Bay Area bulk cliff hive and the zinc hills region the most intense of these initial air battles were fought at SRI de Bay on the 1st and 3rd days of operation and at zinc Hill on day 4 as the air war entered its second week a massive engagement lasting nine hours engulf to the coastal zone of bulky cliff hive later in the second week more air battles cut across the coast at shrah de Bay north and then at the start of the third week which was day 15 a final mass engagement took place southwest of libor hive itself and by that stage arch enemy airpower had been reduced to about a third of its starting strength its wings clipped by both could no longer protect itself comprehensively from the air it was now vulnerable to full-scale Landis but after over two weeks of air combat the archenemy knew what was coming in the opening segment of the campaign con Hyde had been required to mediate between the interests of the Imperial Guard and the Imperial Navy many of his command elite saw these difficulties as symptomatic of the unalloyed unfocused nature of the task force CAI born had bequeathed to can hide and furthermore regarded their command as handling of the problems as weak however we may see in hindsight the Kahn hide was a skillful manipulator who concealed his guile well behind a veneer of gentle conviviality a warrior of the old school card hide had enough experience to know that the guard and the Navy were August and the rival schools of warfare and that lack of cooperation between them was as traditional as it was endemic he orchestrated the air war simply by showing both parties what they didn't want to do and then standing back and allowing them to conjure their own solution now the land war had to commence though the skies were clear enough for a full-scale drop that God were once again resistant the air war had given the enemy plenty of time to make ready for an inevitable orbital invasion can hide understood the reservations a weaker or perhaps less flexible commander might well have ordered the guard in any way damning the consequences but can I believed that the answer lay with the mechanicus another thorny web of negotiations faced him if the guard and the Navy could be famously uncooperative the mechanicus was another thing entirely the mechanicus priesthood had entered into the crusade through cooperative pacts carefully formed by Slade Oh in the early years and their war machines have proven invaluable not to say decisive in a great number of cases but they were still an autonomous body no more willingly subject to the command of a regular crusade general than the adaptive societies and it was widely understood that the priests of Mars were growing increasingly dissatisfied with the progress of the crusade it had endured longer they had been led to expect mice later and they were being required to provide ever greater quantities of battlefield vehicles Makarov had done little to placate them and those sections of the mechanicals that had been assigned to the second front greatly resented not being used for the glory of the primary campaign if they were able to used at all they declared then in the Emperor's name they would be used where the true glory lay God height had a reserve of over 130 Titans in his task force the majority of them wore hound variants he believed that the Titans had the power and fortitude to break open the ground defenses and open a way for the guard and its armor Kanhaiya spent hours in patience respectful talks with the priests of the mechanicus eventually he reduced his argument to a very simple piece of persuasive logic he reasoned their war master Makarov boldly seeking triumph and glory would most likely summon to the front line those units that had shown the greatest zeal and appetite for war the very hunger for victory that he himself exhibited in which he looked for in others if the mechanicus wish to quit the second front and be realigned at the front then an active display of military ambition would be needed he promised that if the mechanicus led the ground attack on live off he would personally see to it that the reports of that action were sent directly to the war masters attention it is important to note that con Hyde made no other promises nor any claim that he could bring to bear influence that would not in his remit he simply ceded the idea in the minds of the priests that they could get what they wanted by demonstrating their desire to meet the enemy the Titans of the mechanicus Libya assaults the next day three key target zones were selected should a babe bulk cliff hive and zing kill the Titan landings were achieved with the support of long-range orbital bombardment and carpet bombing at each location the mechanicus tactic was to land and then radiate its forces out from the landing zone rather than to drop and then advance on a target large areas of territory were cleared at Zink hill and shred a hive in this fashion 23 hours after the Titan operational deployment with all signs from the surface good the Imperial Guard at last mobilized to hit a mass drop of troops in Armour 2.6 million troops went in with the first wave targeting the free main zones where the Titans were already opening the defenses however a fourth drop falls directly targeted Kazon Berg the drop troopers predominantly carnelian and Lightfoot stormed the inner towers of the hive and wrested control of the hives automatic defenses from the archenemy they're the second largest hive on the planet Kasim Berg fell by far the fastest and most easily with the minimum of collateral damage later during restoration work the manufacturing and generating plants of the generally intact Kasim Berg was swiftly bought back into use by the Imperial occupation force which greatly aided earlier recovery the Zink Hill etosha resized industrial high of in the heart of the southern Nexus proved the toughest of all the subsidiary hives to conquer it had been the most resistant to the mechanicus assault and still retains some air cover which had used a devastating effect additionally second wave Imperial Guard elements were dropped close to it and advanced under armored support a vast battle then erupted along the western wall of the main hive structure as the Imperial forces attempted to storm the hive the arch enemy deployed many Bazaar engines of destruction including mobile wall top hardpoints and mechanized heavy mortars which spat by means unknown to the Imperial tech priests geezers of high velocity razor chaff these latter weapons were able to shred both men and body armor even at comparatively long range however their mechanisms were delicate in heavy bombardment from Imperial Guard field batteries eventually bred their line after three days of constant warfare the Western war was breached and the Imperial Guard element successfully penetrated the outer ring of the hive in the broad agra ponics owns inside the wall the Imperial forces found themselves facing an enemy concealed in a ditch work of trenches and foxholes vicious trench warfare persisted for a further two days until the Titan vainglory tumultous was brought in to clear the way ground troop losses were high once the inner hive had been breached the Imperial Guard was harried by a host of poorly armed cult zealots who attacked down the hive streets and stacks with suicidal disregard for their own safety can hide rendered field command to the discretion of his officers on the ground at zinc Hill allowing them to deal with the fluctuating and chaotic street fighting on a minute-by-minute basis rather than issue blanket commands from a distance wisely he recognized that by the time he had made any command decisions based on the data flow the situation would have already changed later an investigation revealed why zinc Hill had been so hard a target Erik Etta Gore had made his base at zinc Hill rather than as many would have presumed at the major hive zinc Hill had evidently become a site of keen ritual or sacred importance for the arch enemy forces and was therefore defended with special vigor it is also entirely possible that Erik Etta Gore was in residence at zinc Hill at the time of the invasion then the storage defense was in part a cover to allow him to escape and flee to live of hive observers and comrades described general Khan Hyde's demeanor during the campaign as calm and affable and as unflustered almost relaxed and this reputation did him no favors later however as is evidenced by his campaign journal he was more than listen of the demands placed upon him and the difficulties presented by lighbulb as a target he wrote there grateful as I am for the chance to take an active command and I could have wished for better than this hive place the land is tough and uncompromising and the foe bedded in there is no time for furrow work to be done for intelligences such as their pressure set upon my shoulders by the Lord militant and I'm given an army to use that while large is far from codified and honed I have not had time to get aware of it or to understand its particular traits review review review all day and all night just to scan and learn the merits of the men I have at my disposal once the hour of attack was imminent his tone became darker my threat for this now in the Emperor's name may he protect us the navy and the guard are bickering at staff level and the fleet will not move as I dispose them as for the hallowed priests of the mechanicus I have not even contemplated their sour visages yet I am shown daily scans of the surface perhaps Thunderbolts will open this for us I have not seen such entrenched fortification since bowel hood men will burn and die that I can see men will burn and die here as much as on any field of war following his success in convincing the deafness mechanicus to deploy Karn Hyde's town was lifted so contemporary accounts run but again his journals show the light of it the Titans are in this morning good work to be seen coming back by overwatch picked after picked clear transmission and I've seen walls fall and fortresses begin to burn such is the wrath of Mars but I have stood in the cargo bays at the foot of a giant Titan and gazed up at it as if it was a god now they seem like specks and my magnifier scope just specs omits the blooms of fire there are walls down there that nothing may shake apart not even a god perhaps more tellingly heroes I have been given an army of pieces and I am expected to make a hole out of it better pieces at work rather than a hole that does not the southern fortresses of the Transcontinental Nexus were cleared or in the process of being pacified carne Hyde's attention turned to the main hive the gigantic sprawl of libe of hive to which the majority of all extant enemy forces had retreated as a tactical objective light bulb represented four major discrete strategic problems first and foremost was the main hive itself as kyanite rose any Force Commander unless he is insane takes a deep breath before commencing assault on a major hive in many cases even the insane ones do too in their years of occupation the enemy forces a turn live off into a veritable fortress armoring the hives outer structure and thus tuning it with gun emplacements and malicious anti-personnel devices but there were secondary problems to the west of live of hive lay the ancillary hives as Enoch and Sivan both of which were still in enemy hands via these two hives primary power reserves were fed in to live off from the power farms of the western seaboard to the south and southwest of the main hive an overlapping system of defensive trenches dikes and armored traps had been constructed in a wide Crescent many hundreds of kilometres long parts of this area had also been mined it would be a battle just getting to the main I've Khan hides officers offered many conflicting schemes of how best to take live of hive some recommended a frontal assault Alvers an encircling movement to the east other still a cross-country drive to smash and cut off the ancillary hives before turning on the main hive itself Khan I'd is sharing remarkable fluidity of thinking though it was seen as woolly indecision by his peers elected to try all of the plans simultaneously in his journal he reasoned two concepts strike me with equal merit one is that no single ploy will bring lie above hive to its knees the other is that an officer usually strives the hardest to accomplish if it is his plan he hates to be proved wrong can't height divided his considerable forces into six armies the first under Major General Arco who had recommended a slow siege to wait the enemy out was to maintain the solid and firm occupation of the areas already taken standing in reserve if necessary the second under Colonel highjack who had supported our Cole's plans was to be kept in reserve and support position outside shred a hive ready for fast deployment he had racks armed he was mostly motorized light infantry the Third Army which can hide would command himself was the largest and would commence the frontal assault on libe of hive cutting the path through the defensive system the 4th army under general douching was to encircle live of hive around the east fringe and attack from the northeast sector Dawson had recommended such a plan the 5th and 6th armies both smaller and motorized with extensive armor would be commanded by Colonel P Quint and Colonel Vern setter respectively they would drive at the ancillary hives with the 5th army severing the communication links with libe of hive while the six struck at Zevon and zenyk themselves as a final touch Khan height brought in the Navy a mechanicus again privately praising their actions thus far he told them that the war was almost won and that he would hate to see either of them robbed of their share of the climactic glory by the Imperial Guard the mechanicus immediately lent its war machines and Titans to the 3rd and 4th army strengths while the Navy agreed to conduct precision airstrikes on the coastal power farms and then move in to provide air cover to the 5th and 6th armies after two weeks of preparation rearmament and deployment the main assault began the fast mobile armies of pequin and vern setter struck deep at the southern side of the ancillary hives Peck wins forces succeeded in destroying all the mass transit and cable links with the main hive in a space of about a single day and then turned West on the approaches of zenyk and by then ferocious Navy airstrike said reduce the power farms to a molten crater lifting a 20 kilometer wide pall of splack smoke into the atmosphere Verne setters 6th army broke into the southern side of Zevon and then ground to a halt as it encountered formidable resistance for the first time since the start of the invasion the Imperial Guard was to come face-to-face with significant numbers of Blood Pact Don's large fall farmer had been on the moon for the better part of three days and swung around to assault the northeastern periphery of the main hive before they were within shelling range of the hive itself they were met by enemy Armour in huge numbers again these forces were principally units of the notorious Blood Pact armed with captured and customised imperial battle tanks an enormous armored battle began on the northeastern plains meanwhile the Third Army the largest force was digging a path for itself up through the crude but lethal defensive system erected by the archenemy southwest of the hive they had been under fire and shelling for the moments they began and but the strengths of the mechanicus titans served them well the giant machines would destroy and clear the kind of defenses that would stop a tank or an armored carrier two titans were lost in this phase during the huge set-piece onslaught but by the end of the first day Khan Hyde had the outer walls of the main hive inside then he heard that in seven verne Setters men were being fought to a standstill by the merciless Blood Pact worse was to come north east of the main hive Dawn's for farmy was being pushed back and slaughtered both commanders pleaded with card hide for support from the reserves he refused much has been made of car hides cold and heartless refusal of aid but the matter has been over egged he clearly wanted to support the efforts of his beleaguered officers but it was a matter of commitment can hide new wealth at the reserves represented by the first and more particularly the second army groups would be vital to reinforce the main assault within a day or two he could not spare them or redirect them from this role or risk losing the entire war car Hyder also still had faith in the notion that an officer usually strives the hardest to accomplish a plan if it is his plan he had confidence in both Dasha and Vern setter they had claimed to be capable of accomplishing their individual objectives he had to trust them at their word in less than 24 hours his confidence was rewarded Vern Setter managed to maneuver the large part of his sixth army into an attacking lunge that drove the Blood Pact back about free kilometres into seven Paquin skimming the hive at 7 had moved with admirable speed to support the sixth in a counter strike and brought the fifth army into clothes like a pincer on the blood packs left flank the fifth and six armies were then heavily supported by the Navy wings which attacked both the blood tucked in 7th and strategic targets in zamak hive it would be a further nine days before the fierce warfare in the ancillary hives resulted in a conclusive Imperial victory and losses were high including vinsetta himself but the word was out fueled by the news that the Blood Pact was not as invincible as their reputation and demeanour suggested da Shan redoubled his efforts on the northeast front and ran their heavy armor and Titans in his command in a long tight angle of attack across the hidroelectric valleys of the east lai of river simultaneously he redirected battalions of light support and anti-tank units around the north in a circling maneuver a second hellish tank battle developed blotting out the sunlight with its smoke and dust but Don's gambit was successful battered by the advancing barrage of the armored mechanicus machines the formidable hosts Blood Pact war machines recoiled north of that hydroelectric valleys and attempted to reform in squadron strength many became easy targets for the advancing anti-tank units and were destroyed before they could reassemble the blood packed armor broke into two distinct elements both forced to retreat towards the flanks of the main hive outside the main east gate one element was overtaken by a rapidly advancing force of war hounds and tank destroyers and systematically annihilated the other element attempted to push out against the encircling light support battalions which punished it severely and broke its cohesion as Dawn's main force advanced to assault the outer defences of libe of high proper this light support and tank destroyer force proud they charred hinterland picking off the last of the blood packs struggling machines cut off and rogue like wild animals by that time as words that Darshan's first proper assault on the main hive had begun in earnest reached him Khan Hyde had broken the Third Army past the defense systems and crossed the outer road networks into the shadow of the hive itself the trooper Emre Garcia Colts tech infantryman with the Third Army who recorded this chilling and articulate account of what confronted them there the hive itself lie by five as it his name appeared to us like a black cliff rising from the cracked grey ground it was plated in giant sections like a beetle like the lustrous wing cases of a great beetle and Stax inspires rows like spines above their towering plating high into the sky where the smoke and cloud fogged them the wing was cold and sharper and there were all sorts of sense on that wing blood and dirt and - we were ascending along the road network that once had led into the base of the vast hive many of these were great Rock Creek bridges and spans supported on stilts and pylons of stone all the while we were under fire from the emplacements and hardpoints studying the hives black plating cannon fire batteries Laz flamers they use the flamers closest to with a range of fire bird men off the roadways and blissed at the surface of the bridges until they bubbled and blistered the barrage filled the air with Sparks and darts of fire denser sleet we were told to advance but we dared not as to advance was to advance into death and even our commissar bulked at the option but the state put was death also as the myriad shots and shows dropped in amongst us and blew us bone from bone so we charged the hive and it was not death it was very like it and it was death for many but it was not death for me for I'm here writing of it it was just like death very like it general Khan hides Third Army penetrated the southwestern perimeter of live of hive in the early hours of the campaign 17th day intense block warfare began as the Imperial invaders poured in and up through the hive shelf stacks well-orchestrated resistance met them every step of the way and karnad was quickly forced to call in the secondary army to support him as he had anticipated the fighting continued unabated for 80 hours 46 hours into that period news came that Dawn's force had also breached the main hive perimeter in the Northeast and was also driving in towards the hives core can hide spirits lifted but were quickly dashed again as other Force commanders had discovered before him and as many again afterwards can hide found in the blood packed a serious and respectable foe that understands with curiously human insight the scolding game that is city fighting I find I could not section and rout the foe as I would against the Confederacy of mindless cultists the Blood Pact how I am coming to love that name lay traps said ambushes mine tenements and even entire stacks as they retreat they fight cleverly and with stealth and guile employing snipers and booby traps and even suicide attacks a chamber is cleared then the guardsmen within a slain by blood packed lurking in wait on the other side of the wall I've lost too many good men too many and too many of them I would have shaken by the hand and thanks before death claim them after 80 hours can hide called a halt and allowed the frontline to retire and be replaced fighting dulled for a while though all at the main assault line could hear the distant thump of Dawn's northeastern attack a tower 85 can hide pressed on again with a sudden furious lunge through the multiple levels of the wounded hive causing a sudden stung withdrawal on the part of the enemy they were encountering fewer Blood Pact at this stage and more and more levies and cultists a great fire and possibly the result of stream you nisshin's but most probably due to enemy sabotage broke out in the main hives northern sectors and burned unchecked it would later claim and destroy approximately one-fifth of the hive Conn hides mind was now focused on one goal to locate and destroy Eric Edgar the charismatic focus of lie Bob's resistance on several occasions rumors had circulated the data gur had been found and slain but each one was false Kanhaiya drove his forces into the heart of the hive relentlessly realizing that victory however painful was now in his grasp late on the 73rd day of the live of campaign three fire teams of specialists from the 82nd carnelian lightfoot commanded by Lieutenant Victor GaN fell finally ran the air tagore to the ground the fire teams comprised 18 infantry with two crews of light supporter and specialized in city block clearance gone fell was a veteran officer driving ahead of the main advance through the now burning Habs of northern lie bhav gone fellas man encountered unexpected resistance from a squad of Blood Pact warriors the firefight was inconclusive though it drove the enemy back down a stack way into a vandalized sensorium and left free of the foe dead on the causeway outside checking the bodies for life signs con Hyde's men had learned to their cost to that wounded Blood Pact often played dead whilst palming grenades GaN fells medic noticed that the corpses wore black Garland's and had gold leaf rubbed upon their masks GaN fur was at once alert to the notion that these troopers were somehow special raised up he sent signals to general command for support before any support could arrive Gahan fells squads found themselves under renewed fire from the precincts of the old sensorium GaN fell elected to move and ordered his mortar teams to shell the facade and the inner yards after 20 minutes of sustained bombing which expanded most of the group's shell munitions and gone fell ran his troops Ford through the shelled out ruins of the sensorium front they met fierce resistance Blood Pact troopers came out of cover a most spent using their bayonets trench axes and hands to repel the attackers the GaN felt killed six of them personally and in his memoirs suggest that many of his men accomplished a similar feat the Imperials had charged Laos rifles at their disposal and made slaughter of the federal brethren of the pact fighting continued deep into the sensorium quad and beyond into their Holy Sepulcher which gone fell relates as being heinous ly spoiled and smeared about in all treason by this time a squad of Kazik in specialists had closed on the area to support GaN Phil however GaN fell himself had cited an enemy he believed to be the road a Tagore we have two of his men he pursued him through the lower quad and out towards the west door of the sensorium turning as if cornered the enemy drew a barbed chain sword and snarled into the attack both of GaN Phil's men died in terrible ways the gone felt himself fired twice and missed he had one last charge left in his power pack and he expended it into the enemy's snarling face a Kia Etta Gor was dead it later transpired that GaN fell had missed and the head shot was claimed by one of the Kazakh in marksman in an adjacent building and but in spirit the work was done though sporadic fighting continued for weeks afterwards lai bhav was taken and Karan hide was victorious can hide expected glory for his achievement he did not get it doubts were cast on his strength of character and even his ability to command deeply wounded by criticism he published his account of the action at lie above and retired from the crusade eighteen months later he was dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound gan Hyde's actions on lie above and the nature of his disgrace and death is an object lesson to all scholars of Imperial tactics there he achieved his goals can hide was accused of wavering and indecision and of muddling his focus Ty borne himself berated can hide for allowing the parts of your command to do as they will only history and the persuasive voice of the tactical imperialist can amend that slide and rails can hide understood his duty and his function and poorly supplied and equipped he accomplished what his seniors did not believe to be feasible they accused him of ill focus against focused foe but he understood the true nature of the crusade animal in all its various parts and allowed them to function at their best in concert rather than cohesion ironic then that against mankind's newest and most United folk on high chose to play to the strengths of the Imperial Guard Navy and mechanicus at its most divided and make that and even with his officers with their disparate plans and schemes he sought triumph allowing each one his head though driven to suicide end disgrace by his contemporaries can hide remains an example to all commanders who find the divided wings of the Aquila at his or her disposal Carnot saw strength and success in disunity and just as the archenemy realized the opposite his example should be followed wisely Ruffin on administration chartered world nine-nine om4 out in the year of our glorious Emperor's most beneficent rule 9 9 o m4o the domain of rough anon did reject the rule of the Adept estera woe unto the souls of those who turn from the light of the master of mankind for truly they reside now with the Restless shades of outer night the battles fought to cast out the traitors and to restore the packs Imperialis raged for free local years and a multitude of loyal warriors martyred themselves on the accursed bullets and bayonets of those that should have called them brothers Ruffin improved only the opening engagement in a series of costly Wars that devoured the entire length of the protein air the sorry era saw the death of a saint cassia slow the Sundering of the 3rd convocation of Nephilim and the total destruction of Task Force 1 2 9 3 it was only the intervention of Lord al Sal Abad and his disciples that save the entire region from slipping for all time beyond the light of the Emperor he dug unto the lessons those bold servants my teachers for some duty does not end in death and though they rest now at the right side of the Emperor their actions echo down the ages enriching and enlightening those who would listen until the end the whole things from a history of the later Crusades much has been written on the walls that engulf the protea Neb but the account that follows is the only known description of the fate of the roughening system other authors have focused on the dramatic death of saint-lo to the detriment some feel of the wider picture and to date there in this text penned by the personal Historics of the Lord general blithe is the only version in circulation it has been put forward by many of Blythe's contemporaries as the definitive account of the law generals most celebrated action at the outset of the 39th millennium ravanan was world ruled directly by the Adept Asit minister autumn a world under charter the planet was entirely given over to the servicing of the vast sprawling bureaucracy known as the priesthood of terror its cities were home to a million dusty archives and its skies were pierced by soaring silicon spires of its killing me to hide data repositories but Rafa nan was more than this for the planet had long been classed a garden world a place of exceptional beauty that had been preserved and usually in a galaxy so shattered by war for its own sake the most highly ranked of the adaptive terror would come to roughen on to see out their days these were the favoured few who are allowed to die not tethered to a data station or amalgamated into an archive iam retrieval point they were allowed the staggeringly rare privilege of seeing out their days with the Sun upon their face walking the Paradiso chol Gardens and conversing with peers who had served like them at the highest echelons of the Imperium it was said that free High Lords had seen out their days thus strolling the vine lined arboreum zuv ravanan having walked the vaulted corridors of the Imperial Palace for so long the population of Raffin on were divided into two classes the administrator men their servants the constituted one-third of the population while the planets indigenous people accounted for the remainder millions scraped and bowed seeing to the every whim of their masters or serve them indirectly maintaining the weaving green lanes laboring at the docks or any Warner of a billion other tasks below the Masters notice the indigenous raffinose for so they called themselves were invisible for the world's masters having no rights no claim to the land and little hope of ever bettering themselves so it was for the vast majority of the Imperium but upon rafen on it was not always so Ruffin on city once known as Ortiz reference it II was the seat of the administration's power upon the planet it was situated at the point of the Isthmus Liberata s-- and was surrounded on three points of the compass by ancient to delicate glades and by the tranquil artyom sea and its coral forests to the north the city was visible from many kilometres around its towering data stacks glittering in the violet tinged sky its tree-lined walkways crowded with bustling scribes those gifted the privilege of their own sweeping cell rather than a space beneath their workstation hurrying about the repositories and archives all hours of the day the city was home to five million scribes and fully twice as many menials in addition a planetary defense force garrison the region from its barracks around the city and a further million or more servants of the administration might be passing through at any one time engaged upon errands of the utmost import to the priesthood of Terra where a felon was not always an administrator and fiefdom the priesthood of Terror had not always ruled it and its people had not always served servants of the administration it's people were once free masters of their own world with their own rulers who reigned in the name of the emperor as with all the major worlds along the protein Abe Ruffin on had been settled during the dark hit times long before the age of the Imperium when the colonists at first set foot upon the world's surface they had looked upon the beauty of the world and determined that they would settle there for all time but as they explored their new world they discovered towering silicate spires clustered together at numerous points across its surface they had no inkling who might have built these strange structures and found no of a sign of intelligent life sharing their world the settlers so Ruffin on sagas told resolved to avoid the spire cities seeking to make their homes instead beneath the delicate canopies of the low growing trees that covered vast tracts of the world's land mass and so it was throughout the centuries Ruffin Arnot a prospered taking its place in the Imperium when the Great Crusade reached the air its sons and daughters went off to fight in the Emperor's armies and many great servants of the Imperium of man were birthed there that was until the last decade of the 38th millennium when a quorum of the high masters of the administration and declared ravanan under charter strategic planning instigated many centuries before had identified rafa known as the ideal location for a massive data processing and archival operation required to assimilate and to act upon the vast amounts of information generated by the everyday task of luminous trottin every day billions upon billions of reports messages and dispatches and communicate must be received processed and acted upon and eventually filed away Rapha none was to provide the archival facilities for a segment UM's worth of data its data Mills would process a sea of information a surging ocean of data that had acted upon sometimes centuries before and was required no more but nothing was ever discarded and so the administration determined that ravanan should be the graveyard the final resting place for the galaxy's unwanted data the administration shipped millions of scribes serfs and menials to roughen on and within the space of a single generation completely transforming its society the indigenous population were declared subjects of the priesthood of terror and their hereditary governors relegated to leaders in name only the so-called High Council of Rafah nan chaired by the hereditary Imperial commander provides the visible face of governance but it holds no real power the administration rules supreme upon Rafah naught and every man woman and child upon the world surface is ultimately subjugated to its will well general Artemis Blythe the Lord Journal Artemis Blythe the so called hero of the are Lani massacres was a proud servant of the administration having risen through the ranks of the officio minister and staff corps he took a command rank at the Battle of Aristarchus v where he was chief of operations to the infamous Lord militant Wilfred Berk when Burke was slain by an infiltrator sent by his rival Lord Herald or the unsane it was brave that took control of the army 17 an averted disaster in the face of overwhelming enemy forces Bligh went on to lead army 17 in a series of stunning victories ultimately securing the entire expanse of the dragon reach and scouring its systems of rebels and pirates in a series of pogroms but which he was highly decorated Artemis blyve is a taciturn an individual not given to the fits of histrionics for which his former commander Orphic burke who was well known his manner betrays his background as a staff officer he is methodical and meticulous in his approach to or but he is known to display a spark of genius when overs would fall back on rigid doctrine he requires of those officers under him the same painstaking approach to war believing only one has the right to innovate when one has thorough grounding in dr. e Blythe is on Rother on recovering from wounds suffered when his command vessel the pride of East Light was ambushed at the height of the Dragon reach campaign despite his wounds but I have refused to stand down until the campaign was declared complete literally collapsing with exhaustion at the point of his victory though the Council of Rafah non maintained a public face of coexistence and cooperation with the administration it fostered dissent within its ranks made up as it was by individuals who were proud to trace their family roots to pre Imperium times the council became a secret hotbed of recidivism its members sat in open Congress by day debating the matters of import with their peers but by night they met him ones or twos and spoke of a time before the administration reduced them to me at puppets and they were not alone for the indigenous people of Rafah not long for the time when they labored not under the yoke of the administration but were masters of their own fate servants of the Imperium at large not slaves to a petty bureaucracy the councilmembers went forth amongst their erstwhile subjects planting the seeds of rebellion amongst them who did figures whispered a freedom of casting off the shackles of the priesthood of Rufford on taking its place once more amongst the Imperium of man surely they reasoned the Emperor would will it thus the roots of heresy took many years to spread but spread they did until the indigenous people of ravanan nurtured treason in secret though they maintain the illusion of faceless Drudge bowing and scraping to their superiors the rough honours grew to hate their lot and he was the agents of the council that steered this hatred controlling it from afar with a serf in every Bureau our of an officio the council knew every secret of its enemy until one day it enacted its long prepared for plan it issued the order to its followers arise cast off the shackles of the priesthood of terror and take back that which is yours Crocker for the chair of the Council of Rafah not a crook a fool can trace his ancestry back many millennia his line includes over 100 imperial commanders of ruff and on and he is secretly utterly consumed with hatred for the administration that robbed his family of its position as rulers of the world and as youth bore served in the armies of the Imperium commanding the Ruffin on a third in a series of minor wars against the orcish incursions along the northern reaches of the protein air but it was only when he returned to the world of his birth that his hatred really began to blossom for though he was allowed to return thanks to his position on the Council of his own world none of his men were permitted to return to the planet of their birth despite the fact that the war against the orcs was won with honor the Ruffin all units were shipped out to serve and to die in whatever conflict required them first war was disgusted for he had seen his fellow Ruffin oars fight and die for the imperium name when they thought their task done they will add no rest he saw that no amount of sacrifice of courage or glory would satiate the Imperium unending thirst for blood the ponies returned to Ruffin or war assumed the position of chair of the Council of Ruffin on and from his very first day he determined to cast off the rule of the adaptive terror he knew of course that even thinking such a sword made him traitor but he reasoned to himself that he was never a traitor against the Emperor nor mankind NOLA Imperium he focused his hatred entirely upon the administration and their exalted governors who ruled his world and so for nurtured similar notions held by his peers and by his people he plotted and planned and his influence grew until one long planful day he brought rebellion and war to the world of his own birth in order he believed to make it free when four ordered his uprising upon the world of Roth or not he put into action a plan several decades in the making for years the council had been insinuating its agents into every workplace and every dormitory on the planet spreading its Sedition and preparing covertly for the day when the Rafah nose would rise up as one and slaughter their masters taking power for themselves and forcefully reclaiming their world these agents were primed with their tasks though each was allowed to know only a fraction of the overall plan lest they be suspected by their masters and dragged off to the interrogation cells of the are biteys at sunrise on what would become known as the day of returning these agents received the word and led their fellows in rebellion the first that many administrative officials knew of the rebellion was when their former servants previously docile and faceless turned upon them thousands of administrative officials were killed in their sleep as Houseman and menial slipped the threats of their despised masters many more hurt precious little more warning than that the last thing they saw their servants massacring entire halls of scribes the rebellion soon spread from the first key locations in which it had been instigated soon the roughen was required no goading to rise up against their masters the archives and library ax were put to the torch by baying mobs the Sun scarcely having risen before it was obscured by choking ash fragments of burning parchment falling from the skies and touching off secondary fires all over the city an hour after sunrise a rebel placed a melted charge against the base of one of the silicate towers of rough and old city and within seconds it was burning with a white light so intense that ten thousand were incinerated in heat and 100,000 more blinded by the very sight of it without a key raining all over their formerly idyllic world the administration was thrown into a blind panic many senior governors had been lost in the opening phase of the operating and the remainder were paralyzed with indecision and outright shock nothing had prepared the administrators for such an occurrence and the rebellion looked like it would succeed entirely within those first few hours of bloodshed fortunately one man had the experience and the courage to step forward and to take control Artemus supplies burst in upon the Conclave of the surviving administrators as they screamed and argued in effectively with a voice made icy and deadly by all he had witnessed that morning Lord Blythe declared himself the acting commander in chief of all surviving military assets and invited any in the chamber to disagree with him nan did and Blythe went about the business of imposing some form of control over the rapidly degenerating situation Lord lives first action as commander in chief was to order immediate counter-attacks across those concentrations of rebel forces that could be located he saw all that he did not even have time to establish the full scope of his own forces and so he simply ordered all units to converge upon a series of objectives and waited to see which obeyed and which did not it soon became apparent that only around a third of Rafah Knorr defense militia remained loyal and these they were soon established were those whose personnel were entirely made up of offworld scribes judged surplus to requirements or mentally unfit to serve as such having been ejected from the archives and workplaces these men and women had been packed off to the PDF Garrison's where they would contribute to the world's defense by providing a paper strength far larger than their real military were two-thirds of the PDF those drawn from the indigenous population had rebelled having established what forces he could draw upon blyve almost despaired of the task ahead of him he saw within hours that he had no choice but to call for aid from offworld he would use his rank in his connections to instigate a massive counter-attack in such situations Imperial commanders or as in this case their proxies are required to issue an astro Pathak plea transmitted in increasingly wider circles until a response is received either a task force from an existing unit will be diverted or an entirely new regiment will be raised from the first world to receive the plea Bly of cipher carried great weights with those receiving his transmissions and so her response was forthcoming within days the crew safely free mums out offered to detach an element of its ground forces for bribes use these you its word muster at alguien on Ruffin ins neighboring system and its members would form the cadre of a larger force to be raised from the world's planetary defense forces within 20 days a staggeringly short period of time and one only possible given Bligh's rank a substantial force was inbound to begin the arduous task of re-establishing order on Ruffin on the force sent to Clive's aid was given the title 1 RI eg or the first Rafa non-intervention group it was initially commanded by high colonel augustine the highest ranked officer of the force detached to roughen ons aid command was formally transferred to Lord General Clive as the fleet crossed into rough and on space blyve remained upon the planet's surface and the forces staff transferred to his base of operations in the elfin on mountains 300 kilometers southeast of Rafah nan city in the months between the uprising and the arrival of the intervention group blyve had consolidated what few forces he could rely upon organizing them into units approximating an Imperial Guard regiment led by any he could find with military experience these units were committed to containing the rebels who had taken RUF an all-city and in disrupting any efforts aimed at consolidating control of the routes between the major cities blyve ensured that his forces aggressively patrolled the dense arboreal terrain between the cities intercepting any organized enemies and engaging them before they could link up with larger forces and despite initial successes Blythe was painfully aware that time was running out he had scant resources and the unit's under his command we're only as good as a few veterans he had installed to lead them the troopers of his units were the dregs of the administration though he later admitted a grudging affection for them when the intervention force arrived arrived later admitted his force had no more than ten days fight left in it the first Rafa non-intervention group was configured as a formation referred to amongst the staff Corps as a heavy planetary assault group such formations have been fielded with success throughout the latter half of the 37th millennium and although intensive in material had found favor as a means of deploying large numbers of Imperial Guard units into heavily contested enemy positions during a planetary assault the first read began its assault operations three days after its arrival in the system blithe having transmitted his orders and briefed the regimental commanders as soon as they arrived he had spent weeks planning the operation and it is testament to his skills that he was able to instill in officers he had never before met the courage and confidence to undertake such an operation with so little notice the first phase of the assault consisted of the insertion of a number of highly elite kill teams each tasked with eliminating planetary defense assets identified by blyve as able to contest the landings they consisted of ground missile silos and defense laser batteries able to engage capital vessels in orbit and all were destroyed according to blyve schedule the next phase was the insertion of the intervention group's first wave which was made up of mass dropped infantry the method of insertion chosen was an unusual one only used in this type of operation each company of the free regiments committed to the mast were embarked onto a low orbit carrier each of which was equipped with a massive antigrav generator that projected a cone beneath the carrier extending to the ground into which the drop troops would step to fall at a speed at which they could land without sustaining injury such an insertion method is extremely rare at least in part because the construction and maintenance of the antigrav generators precludes their common use it also asks a lot of even the most disciplined and well trained warrior to step out of a carrier at 50,000 feet equipped with now drop equipment whatsoever finally the carriers are extremely vulnerable during the operation as they must hold station while the drop takes place and even the smallest movement in their station can result in the antigrav cone swinging wildly out of position should that happen the troops within the cone will find themselves free-falling from tens of thousands of feet and in all likelihood they will be lost nonetheless the first wave was deployed with little incident the three regiments reigning troops from the skies over a wide area the fast-moving light infantry were trained to link up as soon as possible and to move out on their objectives before the enemy could react the first wave secured their airhead within an hour of their drop engaging a number of rebel strong points and capturing them in short order the airhead declared secure and the enemy judged to have knowledge of the situation the second wave was deployed this consisted of free mechanised infantry regiments and an Armored Engineer Company these would perform a lightning break out using their manoeuvrability to swiftly locate and engage units that sought to counter attacked the aired these units were deployed via heavy Lander each company being delivered from orbit aboard a Tetrarch an armored interphase vessel designed to carry heavy units such as these into a contested warzone and despite the heavy armor and banks of point defense weapons carried by each Tet rock this wave was only possible because the first had neutralized any possible opposition to it in destroying heavy anti-aircraft batteries and observation points from which fire might have been cooled down upon the heavy Landers during the most vulnerable stage of their landing is the final approach the second wave encountered heavy opposition along the settlements to the south of Rafah nan city the bird mounted a series of counter-attacks that saw them buy time for the third wave to land this was made up of free armored regiments carried once more upon heavy tetrarch's these took longer to deploy for the heavy Landers were loaded to capacity and therefore only able to approach the air head and minimum speed nonetheless the second held the massing rebel forces at bay and - the first of the free armored regiments the algún on 720 second arrived and wiped out a rebel column moving along the main highway for stalling any further resistance for the remainder of the day overnight the first free waves consolidated their positions occupying a ring of strong points radiating out from the air for 20 kilometres a overnight the fourth wave was landed consisting of super-heavy tanks and around midnight Lord general blyve awry by Valkyrie taking over the lead super-heavy tank a storm hammer by the name of iron tyrant the tank would serve as Braves command vehicle for the next phase of the war the Lord general choosing to lead his forces from the front we first light the 4th wave rolled out Artemis blyve stood upon the upper turret of iron tyrunt his steely gaze fixed firmly upon the distant charred black towers of Rafah non-city the first wave of his plan for a blitzkrieg upon the rebel High Command had gone well little did he know how differently from his plans the war would turn out crooked war had not watched on idly as the reports of the Imperials landings flooded in he had planned his uprising in great detail for many years and immediately set into motion a series of countermeasures it was his intention to Miya the Imperials forces in the dense arboreal terrain surrounding rafa non-city to spring ambush after ambush upon them and ultimately to grind them down in a war of attrition he knew only he had the numbers to win he had convinced himself history states that the Imperium would not be drawn into dispatching a second intervention force to roughen on and would instead suit for peace which he would grant on condition of the return of his family's position as rulers of Rafah non war allowed live to advance his forces to within 100 kilometers of his city before springing his trap as one infiltrating teams of dedicated tank hunters revealed themselves and put crack missile after crack missile into the flanks of the passing Imperium tanks at the close quarters dictated by the terrain the ambushes were devastating accounting for scores of Lehmann Rus battle tanks upon receiving reports of the attacks by have issued an order typical of his command style it did not pull his tanks out instead he ordered them on to run the gauntlet to flush out the enemy ambushes so the mechanized infantry following hot on their heels could destroy them but once again Vall proved a cunning foe he counted bribes tactic by way of his and his troops Superion nollie their terrain under the comforter of the low canopies over the dense ornamental gardens of all moved huge numbers of rebel troops into positions from which they could assault blyve at point-blank range the adil ik gardens became the scene of bitter hand-to-hand fighting and within hours the intervention force had entirely lost the momentum gained in the first hours of its advance war had succeeded in his plan to halt the imperial forces he had arrested the initiative from lord vive who was now faced with fighting a battle for which his forces were in no way prepared a bloody and brutal battle of attrition as the Sun set upon the second day of the intervention Blythe's column was beset by enemy assaults along its length he had no choice but to order his units to withdraw in a series of pre-registered rally points his forces fought a bloody fighting withdraw for warriors keeping the pressure on the Imperial Guard units all the way the fighting continued all that night and throughout the next day only lightning as infantry gained defensible positions from which they could mount localized counter-attacks against the pursuing rebels over the next three days it became obvious to blyve that in crooked war he was facing a cunning enemy commander he saw they had no choice but to alter his plan completely if he was to best this foe his forces established in their positions Lord Blythe called his senior officers to a command conference and began planning for the next stage of the intervention Lord general Blythe soon saw that a war of maneuver would fail against as cunning affair was crooked war for the rebel leader had the advantage of his warriors intimate knowledge of the dense terrain blithe however was a scion of the official minute autumn staff Corps and well versed in every possible variation of war he had the flexibility of mind to see that he would only succeed by discarding his previous plan and improvising an entirely new one Blythe sent out a second call for aid asking that any and all nearby worlds dispatch what forces they could he had no need of specialized units for he had all the armor he could ever need what he would need he saw were men hundreds of thousands of warriors would be required if he were to clear the arbors of the masses of rebels swarming through them only then could he resumed his advance on Ruffin on city and crush the rebellion entirely hey it was forthcoming in the form of several hundred hurriedly raised regiments from a dozen nearby worlds from their strong points blyve ordered his forces to carve out a solid defense line to be manned by the freshly arrived reinforcements once established these lines were rolled for the massed guns of the intervention forces tanks and self-propelled artillery regiments literally flattening the landscape as they advanced move in weeks the add/edit gardens were reduced to a scorched wasteland and the heavily fortified line of each side facing each other across the ashen ground daily men swarmed across no-man's land the war transformed into a grinding campaign of attrition with thousands of casualties being suffered each day and all the while the massed tank formations of bribes force waited for the day on which they would enact their breakout planning the assault upon the rebel capital that would bring the war to an end in a single fell swoop but the long fall breakout slipped for from the Lord general as the war ground on war brought in forces from all over RAF anon to bolster his lines and so the Imperium was forced to react by throwing up still more defense lines shipping in yet more regiments to man them the week's turned to months and the trench lines grew longer and more extensive by the day all too soon a year had passed since the successes of the first days of the intervention and thousands of miles of fortifications criss-crossed sir often ins primary continent the formerly Dilek our wars were long gone a bitter memory to those warriors who had been ambushed under the green canopy so long before those troopers brought into man the trenches refused to believe the descriptions of the terrain that had greeted the men and women of the first action on Baffin on for all they saw when they looked from their positions was blackened ground and at most the odd scorched stump of what might once have been a tree as the war dragged on the officio minute autumn was forced to raise new Imperial Guard units from further and further afield Lord general blithe came to see that RAF anon would not be taken by conventional means for forward appeared capable of countering every strategy used against him despite the odds of winning the war in his own lifetime Lord general Artemus Blythe never once faltered in his faith and never abandoned the belief that he would find a way of defeating Crooker for three years after the initial landings blyve found his answer in a most unexpected place the cold void of interstellar space is not as empty nor as devoid of life as man would prefer this he had learned on two occasions when the vast high fleets of the tyranids rose from the ghostly void and devoured entire star systems on the distant eastern rim a race of slathering biological engineered predators these individually - alien beasts were united in a terrible guest of consciousness known as the hive mind the hive mind had been been twice first at macragge and ha for though billions of humanity's finest warriors gave their lives to repulse this most ferocious of foes at the closing of the 41st millennium the hive mind changed its tack instead of closing its light years wide jaws upon the sectors of the eastern rim it shows an entirely different target for a third assault on the galaxy this attack by a fleet of the aliens the Imperium later codified - live - rose from below the Galactic plane as a shark rising from the deeps of the Seas of ancient terror at first the Imperium was ignorant of this new threat until an untimely migration of orcs was noted its origins linked to a new threat devouring their worlds way below the galaxy's core investigations proved the worst possible event was occurring the orcs were fleeing something the race rarely did a new hive fleet the Imperium dispatched forces to investigate this new threat and reports soon flooded back warning of a great darkness approaching in no time at all contact was lost with outlying worlds but from this the Imperium seers plotted the high fleet's course they saw that it was headed straight towards the protean em straight towards rough anon when Artemus Blythe and his staff were informed of this new development by a hooded representative of the Ordos eNOS the alien hunting arm of the Inquisition it is said that a shadow passed across the Lord generals face his staff recoiled in horror at the inquisitors message but blyve merely grinned a lopsided and grim smile now have them both then he said for Ana's eNOS at once they can spend themselves in their bloody embrace and the hooded Inquisitor is said to have nodded once and simply left Bly then called his Chiefs to attend him and retreat it to his command bunker three days later he emerged and announced his plan to his the Imperium would draw the high fleet on to roughen on their it could expend its energies assaulting the world but the Imperium would not oppose it instead blyve would pull his entire army off Ruffin on leaving the rebellious populace to fight that tyranids alone and then once the aliens had consumed the world's biomass as he knew they would he would enact the ultimate doom of Rafah non and of the tyranids he would declare exterminate us destroying the world in every last biological organism upon its surface he would as he had promised destroy wars rebels and the tyranids in one fell swoop exterminators is the last resort in war used by the Imperium when all of our options are exhausted to declared exterminators upon a world is to visit total and utter destruction upon it it is to sign the death warrant of every living creature upon it and to render its surface a blasted wasteland inimical to life for millennia there are many forms of exterminators and many ways of delivering it one method uses a biological agent that renders all living matter to a decaying sludge within hours releasing a staggering amount of oxygen into the atmosphere as it does so this oxygen is then burnt off igniting the entire atmosphere and incinerating everything on the surface another method involves the use of psychotic torpedoes a category of weapon that uses various means of scouring the world's surface with nucleonic fire raw plasma or deadly radiation some worlds might be virus pond sometimes the viral agents might be keyed to a specific gene code so as to target aliens mutated humans or simply rebels with a predominant hair color exterminators may only be ordered by the highest levels of authority and any who enacted will be answerable to the High Lords of terror while raw man power remains the imperials greatest asset worlds are not so easily replaced and those who squander such resources seldom remain in power long enough to make the same mistake a second time the death of Rafa nan was brought about in two stages the first was a simple case of the Imperial Navy intercepting the high flight as it penetrated the lower reaches of the protean ever engaging it in a series of escalating actions that saw the aliens commit more and more of their biological ships to the fight the Imperium used hit-and-run tactics to draw the enemy on including a number of boarding actions fought by Death Watch kill teams within three weeks it was judged that the tyranids had committed the bulk of the fleet in pursuing the Imperial Navy two wards were often on and the operation was judged a success meanwhile life was engaged upon the gargantuan task of extra cating his forces without the enemy discovering his purpose and seeking to disrupt him it is widely acknowledged that an orderly withdrawal is one of the most arduous operations to command but it is nonetheless a skill in which officers of the Imperial card must study for use commissary of permitting in such a situation as that faced by private ravanan fortunately as a product of the Minotaur and staff Corps Blythe was well schooled in their artistic sub such an operation the Lord generals first act was to order a massive attack along the lemp's of the fortifications facing off and on City the easy intended as diversionary attacks to draw the enemy's attention away from the far larger operations being carried out in the rear echelon here blithe was pulling units out mustering them at the site of the original rough and on landings where they were embarked upon super heavy orbital conveyances to a shoal of walk capable transport vessels waiting in orbit as the frontline assaults crashed into the enemy lines hundreds of thousands of men and their machines were being directed towards the landing site packed on to the conveyances and shipped out the assault ground on four days than a week and more units were evacuated all the while deyrnas live at plan the attacks began to lose their momentum they petered out with no reinforcements to keep them moving war then ordered a massive counter-attack committing the entirety of his rebel army and leading it from the front in person the exhausted Imperial Guard units were simply rolled over and vores forces swept through them penetrating deep into the rear areas before the impasse was broken leading his armies from the rear of his salamander command vehicle all he saw or aired was empty fortifications in abandoned equipment convinced of his impending victory war threw caution to the wind and ordered every single rebel soldier on Rafah nan to rise from their trench and attack millions of rebel was obeyed vol was order the screaming with a mixture of joy and bloodlust as they burst from their hated trenches to advance across the crater pocked no-man's land astonished that no enemy fire answered their charge they pressed on and on until after days of advancing they bore witness to the site of the last super-heavy conveyancer departing Rafa nan atop a kilometre high pillar of atomic fire for and his million strong rebel army stood gaping at the sheer scope of their victory they had they rejoiced finally repulsed the Imperium from their world after years of conflict war saw that his nemesis Lord general Blythe had overextended himself in his final assault and the rebels planet-wide counter-attack had smashed his armies so convincingly that he had been unable to halt the route of his entire army then at the very moment of war's victory he looked up to the skies a wind was rising in the cloud stirring into a mighty vortex the skies grew dark as he watched and the light grew dim an acrid stink carried upon the rising winds met his nostrils and he coughed realizing that the air was thick with microscopic particulates he had never seen the like as lightning fractured the heaving skies voor looked up to see a thousand objects plummeting to the ground greasy black contrails billowing in their wake the turn aids had come to roughen on and with them came the death of wars rebellion and fools people in an orgy of killing against which the rebels could scarcely stand let alone fight the alien swarmed across the world the tyrannies are predators rather than fighters and hold no concept of mercy or honor they know only hunger and they slaughter their prey that the hive mind might gorge itself upon the harvested genetic material and thus continue its harvesting of the entire galaxy and every last living thing in it within scant weeks Rafa nan was reduced to a lifeless husk the tune its feeder organisms having sucked up and processed every last scrap of biomass at the last a single vessel equipped with the fastest drives and the most arcane of shielding devices slipped undetected from the lis of Rafa Nan's third moon in a past that lasted 32 minutes before it used the gravity of the second moon to slingshot itself clear the vessel launched its deadly payload towards the dead world the torpedo slipped past the tyranny Picard ships diving from orbit to the world below 300 kilometers from the surface the torpedo detonated Rafah nan was scoured by the cleansing nucleonic fires of exterminators billions of tyranny organisms were reduced to ashes on the atomic winds by some arcane process known only to the highest-ranking tech priests of the adaptors mechanicus of mars raw matter was converted into energy feeding the nuclear fires to a raging inferno that soon engulf the entire planet to the optic Ahn's of the receding kill ship Ruffin on became a small star the alien bioships silhouetted against its dying light Rafa nan died as the psychotic fires gutted with its parish not only evolves rebellion but his people and with them a billion and more tyranny to organisms what price the death of a world is it murder to sell the lives of those who have rejected the rule of the Emperor thus only the Emperor himself can truly judge the actions of law general Blythe but history provides a footnote history for what it is worth records that bribes action cost the lives of two billion souls but it saved the lives of thirty billion more for the tyranny to high flees would have consumed every world in the protein head had had been allowed to penetrate further office tactics and strategies too much has been written for in the opening phases of his invasion Blythe commanded the first successful heavy planetary assault of its kind for free millenia the order in which he deployed each stage of her landing has become a standard prescribed model for this type of operation but in the end strategy and tactics serve a greater master the seeds of Rafah Knorr heresy was death but in death they were blessed beyond measure but they served their Emperor even as they died the Black Crusade of jaha the lacerate ur five nine nine m37 some of you who are entrusted with the lives of men may one day find their very souls entrusted to your care too though non may speak of such things openly you will by now be aware that there are forces at large in the universe far more terrifying than any xenos far more pernicious than any traitor but before you read of such things you must turn to your confessor for counsel and cleanse your heart of every stain you may be called to serve against the most terrible foe facing mankind you may be required to fight an enemy against which you will we've all certainty fail even should you beat him upon the field of battle proceeded then with your confessors blessing and read of what a small part of the threat presented by mankind's nemesis learn from the deaths of those who have gone before you and pray that you may serve the emperor as well as they heed unto the lesson of the thirteenth mordant this account of the Black Crusade of jihad the lacerate er was compiled by the celebrated administration field notary Corvin quill quill who traveled widely throughout this sector oculus and visited a number of the localities mentioned in the original text though precious little physical evidence of the battle he described it remains the quote was required to seek special dispensation to write on the subject and his original text was not published for many years after its writing for the audio heretic is required it and indeed the author be rigorously examined before they would allow it even the highly limited dissemination it received perhaps once or twice in a millennia a truly great champion of the unnameable gods will arise in the eye of terror through the power of his implacable will in the favour of dark powers this champion can well together and unsteady alliance between the infernal regions of the eye how the champion brings the crusade together depends on his nature and his patron God some use manipulation others extortion others domination others intimidation most simply use all of the considerable powers at their disposal preparations for a Black Crusade can take years or weeks depending on the whims of the gods the forges of the hell worlds belch out Armour weapons for the chosen ones followers dark engines are aroused from their slumber with blood sacrifices factions vie for command of the massed ranks of Crusaders or are crushed into obedience when the Black Crusade is launched the eye of terror vomits four of the diabolical hordes armies of abominations rank upon rank of huge twisted monsters numberless masses of cultists wild tribes of mutants ancient and terrifying traitor Titans spearheading it all other traitor legions United in their lust for booty and the desire to bring destruction upon the hated Imperium the Imperium keeps strong forces stationed around the eye of terror to fend off these invasions entire titan legions Space Marine chapters and masked regiments of Imperial Guard defend the most vital systems in close proximity to the eye but even powerful fighting formations like these cannot guarantee victory over the infernal throng all too often the back tide expands and recedes leaving entire systems ravaged and burn old planetary populations are irrecoverably tainted cities and industries are crushed by the thunderous pounding of diabolical engines of destruction uncounted citizens are dragged away to serve as slaves and playthings to the damned souls and their demonic masters at the edge of reality each city ruined every planet burns brings the Imperium a little closer to dissolution in an Imperium of a million worlds how much can a single world matter enough to have to defend each one against the infernal hosts enough to bring the curse of exterminators upon those that bend the knee and bow down to the Dark One's a Black Crusade may come crashing for from the eye only once in a thousand years but the damage it inflicts can never be jahar the lacerate err few beings brought such grief upon the domains of man in the mid centuries of the 38 millennium as did the embalmer nation known as jihadi lacerate er it is believed that jaha served as an officer in the ranks of the treacherous Emperor's children a former a starties legion that fell from the Emperor's grace at the very dawn of the age of the Imperium jaha the lacerate er is known to follow those powers that may not be named and in particular that power known to revel in excess in all things his service of these powers has seen him swore to countless millions of the Emperor's servants and raised entire worlds to ashes by the end of the 6th century of the 38th millennium Johar's power was approaching its zenith fetid by powers beyond the Ken of mortal men he preached his message far and wide growing ever more followers to him until his armies numbered untold millions jahar the lacerate er led not only his followers drawn from a so-called emperor's children region but a vast multitude of the most faced scum cast out by humanity those were reviled for bearing the mark of the mutants those who would cavort with fel powers and those who simply refused to call the Emperor Master flocked to his banner until the aether he was said wailed in the prospect of his coming Johar was reputed to be possessed of the most terrible of gifts granted on to him by his fell master so dark was jaha's soul so utterly twisted was he that the souls of the warp whale in angry Sherry's passing wherever he treads he is accompanied by a woeful cacophony the dead who should by rights fear naught fear above all what evils he might visit upon them and scream at for deliverance so King me that their voices bleed into the world of men so terrible as this sound that it is said that to hear it is to have one sanity shattered completely and irrecoverably and thereby to enter the service of Johar and his patron for all time jihadi lacerate er was known to covers a cluster of worlds to the galactic southwest of the kadian gate this region known as Adriana's gloomy was sparsely populated unlike many other areas surrounding the kadian gated was for this hellish region at least relatively untouched by war in the previous decades the gloom was as its name suggests a veiled region locals face thick with particles that gave its stars a pallid sickly aspect superstition told that the region was so benighted because the emperor refused to shine his light upon it as punishment for some terrible deed committed there many millennia before the truth was perhaps worse for the void borne matter that obscured the region was believed to have been created at the very instant the eye of Terror was created and as such was believed to be saturated with contaminants both physical and spiritual suddenly the 30 or so populated worlds of the gloom sported an unusually high number of AB humans now humans are human descended creatures such as rattling z' and ogron's whose physical appearance and mental capabilities are quite different from those of their human testers though they represent the descendants of the first wave of exploration into the galaxy over tens of thousands of years of isolation they have evolved into creatures capable of living in high gravity worlds in deep space and in all kinds of polluted or dangerous environments it is generally accepted that app humans are a part of the human race and not aliens many thousands of years ago the Inquisition led Wars of destruction against human descended creatures which its masters deemed unworthy of full human status when humans settled worlds were discovered the Inquisition would conduct a lengthy process of DNA analysis to determine if the population was still fully human by the Inquisition's as a result the population of many planets were eradicated and their worlds resettled in time the Imperium developed a much broader definition of humanity all grins rattling z' and other strains came to be regarded as human other individual ab humor mutations were treated with comparative toleration however even today the Inquisition is distrustful of the newly evolved races and of those in the Adept astera who advocate the integration of newly discovered up human races into the Imperium of man the app humans that lived upon the gloom worlds as the region's planets were called and constituted a relatively stable strain despite this they were shunned by the great mass of humanity and for they were afflicted with a range of mutations that set them apart from normal men and women not least amongst these were their disturbing facial features for some sported tiny sucking leech like mouths others had small slit like an entirely black eyes while some were missing their nose we've just a pair of hissing nostrils visible they're not all mutants of the gloom world suffered from every one of these mutations all were pallid of color their skin ranging from a sickly pinkish gray to a translucent albino white their veins visible just beneath the skin the imperials response to the impending Black Crusade of jihad a lacerated was Swift inefficient but a great many protocols and contingencies had long been in place to react to an invasion originating from the eye of terror ordinarily any Black Crusade would need to engage the fortress worlds of the kadian system if it were to engulf the sector surrounding the eye of terror on this occasion however the element of the crusade originating from beyond the kadian gate was relatively small and quite capable of avoiding any counter-attack cemented against it the Imperium high commanders saw that jihad was not seeking to commit massed forces against the fortress worlds has had many warlords before him but was instead seeking to raise the bulk of his armies from the mutant populations of the gloom world's Johar's own forces to reverse the cady engage without opposition the Imperium having decided to allow him to reach the glowing worlds unmolested his small fleet bearing a company of the dreaded emperor's children traitor Legion was briefly detected by an Imperial Navy deep-space picket squadron before it vanished on a heading as predicted for the gloom worlds meanwhile the imperious response was mastered 43 regiments a tiny fraction of the total long held at the ready for just such an event were dispatched for the gloom worlds with all haste and arrived in the region two reports of widespread mutant uprisings they were deployed with all haste the High Command keen to ensure they engaged the mutant forces before Johar could make his move one amongst the 43 regiments of the first phase was the thirteenth mordant the so called lucky 13 this regiment had been raised three years as part of a large muster brought about by a particularly portentous reading of the Emperor's tariffs this reading carried out by senior siker attached to the staff of the kadian high command spoke of the coming of one whom the dead feared above all else so it was that the thirteenth were trained intensely for the day they would be dispatched to fight one of humanity's most deadly foes of course non amongst the thirteenth mordant or the other regiments of the first phase assault had any clue what they might be facing the truth of what lurks beyond the kayvyun gate is simply too awful to contemplate for the average man only the very highest ranking members of the Inquisition having any real inkling into the threat posed and despite this the thirteenth were well versed in the ways of the mutant and had participated in a number of purges verging the Sentinel worlds gaining invaluable combat experience in the process the thirteenth were shipped from their garrison on Messina in a Thracian primary sector sharing their transport vessels with a number of specialized units attached to them for the duration of the action this included a tank company of the ninth Messina armored regiment a self-propelled artillery company of the angel Saar militia and a light infantry detachment raised from the primitive but highly proficient Scouts of Bayern nine the thirteenth were trained and equipped as assault pioneers proficient in the use of such engineering stores as breaching charges stomach flamethrowers and the like then the battle group was therefore put together in order to complement this utility the voyage from the scanner sector to the gloom worlds was comparatively a short one but the proximity of the eye of terror to the Galactic East made traversing the warp even more perilous than normal it was only through the skill of the varying best navigators the novice nobility could provide that allowed the thirteenth to reach the gloom worlds ahead of Johar's Black Crusade the thirteenth destination was High Rock 5 a world from which reports of mutant uprisings had already begun to flare the native planetary defense forces were ill prepare to deal with the uprisings although they had fought against mutant outlaws on countless occasions there never before faced the mutants as a cohesive force United the mutants had swiftly overcome the hayek 5 PDF and had reportedly committed numerous acts of revenge against their erstwhile oppressors the wastelands of hayek 5 were quite literally swarming with armed mutants and the settlements within which the stable humans lived were in danger of being entirely overrun the 13th unattached units deployed from orbit an operation that went smoothly and took three days to complete three other regiments had arrived by the end of the week and the combined force codified Brigade a0 readied itself for offensive actions against the mutant hordes running wild throughout the wastes meanwhile and only known to the high command jaha the lacerate er was out there somewhere in the void inbound for one planet amongst the gloom worlds which one he would choose was yet to be revealed a highly experienced officer called Colonel Bane commanded the thirteenth mordant Bane had served in the Morden pdf for many years and was proficient in small unit actions across the private armies maintained by the smugglers and criminal syndicates of his world furthermore while detached from the 13th he had served in an assault group that put down a mutant uprising in the scaris sub sector leading the attack on the mutant overlords hive lair and ending the uprising Bane was therefore judge the ideal commander to lead an assault against the mutants of the gloom worlds and his superiors briefed him to seek out and engage the enemy leadership as his highest priority Morden prime is a world situated in the galactic north of the eye of Terror and is known for the mining and bioluminescent bacteria from which a unique highly corrosive acid is extracted mordant is classed by the adept estera as a night world and its surface is a barren wasteland totally unfit for human habitation the only reason humanity exists at all on the world is to mine the strains of luminescent bacteria that grow beneath the surface these strains live off of the phosphite content in the rock secreting a corrosive acid that breaks down the rock into a digestible form over the millennia this process has formed a vast chain of caverns and tunnels that connect across the entire world within these tunnels mining clans extract the bacterial culture ingots in vast cavern vats to bleed off the most corrosive acids known to the Imperium these extracts are shipped to forge worlds across the sector where they find use in all manner of esoteric processes the people of mordant can be split into two broad categories the acid miners than everyone else the miners are organized into an ancient clan structure and have total control over their business they exploit cheap local labour paying the workers barely enough to survive in the run-down shanty cabins they call home many of the disenfranchised citizens of mordant turn to a life of organized crime and gang violence is the only Authority acknowledged - amongst many of the deeper settlements the imperial guard regiments drawn from mordant are raised from amongst those citizens disaffected with life on their world they cannot live on the pittance paid by the mining clans and they will not sink so low as to leech off their own people as the gangs do mordant regiments are often fielded on night worlds and are known to make excellent tunnel fighters when the need arises the fur teams first engagement against the Black Crusade of jihad the lacerated came only nine days after their arrival on world the regiment and attached units were stationed 5 kilometres south of the mutant settlement of Graves Ville a stinking ramshackle city of around 300,000 situated at the very edges of the wastes in which the mutant armies leave to be operating colonel Bain was briefed on an army wide advance to be made across the wastes in which five entire regiments would seek to encircle the mutant horde and bring it to battle the 13 were to advance through Graves ville neutralizing any mutant forces they might find there in order to safeguard the rear areas and line of communication of the advancing army the regiment was transported to the outskirts of Graves Vale by a departmento unit or a mass conveyance squadron the infantry embarked on huge flatbed crawlers each able to carry an entire company and its equipment the regiment's sentinels scouted ahead of the column whilst the attached tanks and assault guns of the Messina an angel saw armored units followed and a cover of an artillery barrage laid down by the angel sir units xiii advanced into the mutant settlement they initially met with little opposition only the occasional sniper engaging the infantry from the tallest structures each time they were shot at the infantry would call down well-aimed artillery fire from the angel Saab basilisks silencing the sniper and devastating entire buildings after three hours the infantry reached the center of the shantytown and linked up with the attached Scouts from the buyer ninth the tribesman come imperial guard infiltrators were spooked but they had trouble communicating to the mordant officers exactly what had rattled them as the two groups spoke very different dialects of low gothic and experienced great difficulty in communicating any more than basic messages eventually the decision was made to press on though those troops of the 13th in contact with the bayern scouts were greeted by an ominous feeling of impending threat advancing beyond the city center the lead platoon came upon the first real sign of the enemy a large thoroughfare that led northwards out of the city and lay before them and along its length suspended from rusty iron poles were strung up the bodies of several hundred troopers of the Hayek PDF the lead squads went to cut down the closest of the bodies determined that such blasphemy should not go unchallenged when the Bayern Scouts cried out waving their hands frantically and attempting to stop the Morden from doing so too late the modern troopers saw why the bodies had been mutilated but not in such a way as might be considered normal in such a conflict instead the bodies of each PDF trooper had an intricate web of cuts inflicted upon it and the Moore and troopers recoiled in horror as they saw that the cuts formed symbols runes so foul to look upon that men vomited or collapsed to their knees upon reading them Colonel Bain made plans to keep up the momentum of his attack he knew that the mutants must surely have some centre of power out there in the wastes and so dispatch that byun Scouts to located his Sentinel Scout units leading the way his regiment and attached units began a long march into the unknown of the wastelands the landscape north of Graves Ville was a polluted expanse littered with industrial wastes and used as the dumping ground of an entire world for millennia in places the ground was so thick with garbage that progress was slowed to a crawl but the Bayern Scouts were able to pick a clear path through it eventually allowing the infantry to make some progress the armored vehicles of the attached angel Saad and Medina units were able to plow through the worst of the terrain but soon discovered a further hazard the ground in many places was dangerously unstable prone to collapse three tanks and a self-propelled artillery piece were immobilized trapped in the collapsing ground and had to be crippled with breaching charges lest they be claimed and put to use by the enemy the trek into the wastes went on for a further three days before the Bayon Scouts brought back news of a large concentration of enemy up Colonel Bain went Ford with the scouts and soon saw for himself what his regiment was up against the scouts had led the Morden to a major enemy base of operations and Colonel Bain resolved to assault it while he had the chance the mutant position was set into the side of a mountain of industrial waste and consisted of a large crudely fortified command bunker surrounded by tiers of smaller fortifications and fire points for several hundred metres around this were laid belts of razor wire as well as areas Bain suspected to be minefields but most disturbing of all was a mighty structure perched atop the waste mountain a wide flat area had been cleared and around it were all manner of twisted forms fashion from rusted ironworks these forms echoed the sigils itched into the skin of the mutilated pdf troopers Bane's men had encountered a graves Ville and the very sight of them filled the colonel with dread he knew that he would be exposing his troops to a weapon they had never before encountered and had very few ways of combating he passed back the order that the gaggle of priests attached to his headquarters should be put to work a preacher would accompany each platoon and guard the souls of his men as they assaulted the mutant stronghold Bain have finalized his plan for the assault that evening and briefed his company commanders at midnight the assaults was one for which his regiment had trained repeatedly and he believed that the tactical advantage was his his officers briefed and the orders passed on Konoe Bain settled down for a few hours of nightmare haunted sleep before the dawn came and with it the battle the mordant units moved out just before the one Sun rose infiltrating deep into the enemy's outer defenses before the first shots were fired moving quickly the lead companies used their assault pioneer training to the full using their stomach to detect and neutralize enemy mines and breaching charges to assault fortified positions soon the battle was joined in earnest the attached armored units adding the weight of their firepower to the assault initially the attack went entirely as planned but the 13 soon found themselves bogged down as they reached the base of the waste mountain atop which the enemy command bunker was positioned the lead company for this phase C Company was mauled by a furious mutant counter-attack and the front quickly degenerated into a sprawling mass of close quarter battle at one point in the mid morning it looked like C company might be pushed back entirely and so Colonel Bain personally led a counter push at the head of E and F and G companies successfully stabilizing the situation by noon six companies were pushing deep into the enemy positions assaulting bunker after bunker and slowly a meter at a time taking the mountain it was during this phase of the battle that the mordant experienced the true hatred that the mutants felt towards the greater mass of humanity after-action reports tell that the mutants were utterly fearless refusing to take a single step backwards even in the face of overwhelming odds instead they would rise from their positions and charge towards their lamprey mouths voicing an eerie cry of hatred and loathing because of the mutants utter refusal to accept that they were beaten the battle wore on late into the day it was only when I company gained a foothold on the enemy command bunker that the defense began to truly collapse as the Sun set on a long day Colonel Bain led an assault on the inner sanctum of the enemy command bunker the priests that accompanied his command section beheading the enemy leader with his huge eviscerated chainsawed Bain had won but he soon saw that the stubborn defense the mutants had put up had taken a fearsome toll on his regiment C Company had all but ceased to exist in every other unit had taken substantial casualties furthermore many of the platoon leaders were reporting extreme combat stress reactions amongst their men particularly those who had fought closest to the top of the mountain in close proximity to the twisted metal forms at its peak with a heavy heart Colonel Bain ordered his regiment to pull back from the catcher position rigging it with explosives and blowing it apart completely as the modern 13th began the long trek south black smoke filled the northern skies the funeral pyre of several hundred brave Guardsmen and several thousand twisted mutants the 13th spent the next three weeks recovering from their battles in the wastes the time spent reorganizing its units to cover the loss of C Company and to account for the numerous losses suffered by the other units of greater concern to Colonel Bain and his advisors however was a far subtler problem the men and women of the 13th continued to exhibit combat stress reactions even sometime after their return to base these reactions were said to range from insubordination to outright mutiny from surliness amongst the ranks to frequent brawling even more disturbingly many troops had taken to the wearing of trophies body parts ripped from the enemy dead during the latter phases of their last battle such a practice was not unusual on many worlds of the Imperium but was almost unheard of amongst units raised on mordant in consultation with the regiment's attached commerce ours being ordered his troops to attend Mass twice per day and ensured that there were plenty of preachers on hand to lift the warriors spirits however it appeared that the malaise was too deeply rooted and bane began to fear that the commissariat would soon deem it necessary to carry out some ireri executions as an example to the rest of the regiment on top of all this Bane received word that the war was going poorly as a whole and that the Imperium had been pushed back across a dozen worlds jahar the lacerate had yet to reveal his hand and thus far no imperial unit had succeeded in drawing him to battle it almost appeared to Colonel Bane that the Black Crusade was achieving its ends perfectly successfully with only the mutants contributing towards its efforts and he feared what devastation might be unleashed if for rather the lacerated did commit his efforts to the war they need not have worried however for the very next day Johar the lacerate er made his attack hayek v was the target xiii mordant received precious little in the way of warning of the lacerate his attack the first many heard of it was when the sirens began to wail and the gloomy skies became criss crossed with the fiery contrails of the enemy's drop pods as the regiment hurriedly mustered sergeants and Provost's bellowing the troopers to gather their weapons and prepare for battle the drop pods hammered to earth a hundred kilometers or so northwest of the regiment's position they knew that another regiment the 17th kadian was encamped in almost the very spot the drop pods were impacting he ordered his staff to contact the 17th but all he heard over the Vox horns was panicked pleas for aid followed by pitiful begging for mercy at the last an artillery spotter attached to the 17th transmitted a desperate request for an artillery barrage to be targeted in his exact position and Bain immediately routed this to the self-propelled artillery units attached to his regiment even as the spotters transmission degenerated into incoherent screaming bein heard the rush of incoming ordnance over the Vox channel and said a silent prayer when he was abruptly cut off as mushroom clouds blossomed on the distant Norfolk western horizon as the colonel gathered his company commanders he was interrupted by an incoming communication from High Command he was to break camp and move out with immediate effect his orders were simple jahar the lacerated had come to hayek five and the mordant fir team were to make every effort possible to slow his advance whilst the defense was mustered the battle that ensued was one written in no official history of the Imperium but it was fought against powers that may not be named or even described all that is known is that the so-called lucky 13th advance directly towards a foe that had reduced entire planetary populations to gibbering slaves it is said that the very air screamed with the plaintive wailing of the dead as the regiment advanced voices from beyond in treating the 13th to turn back lest they to be enslaved for all eternity but the 13th did not turn back they marched on into the mutant infested wastelands into the wailing cyclone thrown up by the unquiet dead what horrors were called fall from the realms beyond the physical few may ever know what terrors and temptations the servants of the unnamed ones visited upon the 13th perhaps best not imagined what is known is that somehow the lucky 13 stood in the face of those terrors and temptations they marched on laying down such a torrent of fire that the beasts of the walk were cast back at the last the regiment Colonel Bain at its head descended upon jaha the lacerate as a vengeful force of destruction non who witnessed the battle committed its details to record and only accounts of witnesses many kilometres distant may be read the dark skies it is said were torn asunder by fire and lightning the heavy weapons of the 13th contesting with the sorceress blasts unleashed by the lacerate ER against them at the height of the battle on lockers ten kilometres distant were forced to turn away lest the conflagration blind them so intense was the fury unleashed and somehow throughout all this the thirteenth were victorious as the womb rose a column of scorched and blasted men and women staggered from the smoke engulfing the entire northern horizon jahar the lacerated was dead his Black Crusade halted how might the instructor or the student learn from the final act of the lucky 13th what lesson might be drawn what example might be followed what strategy more rules might they emulate when their time to face such an enemy arrives surely when faced with such a foe all notions of strategies and tactics must be cast upon the wind instead the commander must look not on to the fighting strengths of his forces the capacities of his lines of communication or any such concern instead he must reach deep into his soul and the souls of his men and he will find there the greatest most terrible and potent weapon in his arsenal utter devotion to die in the service of the Emperor even as death itself reaches out to claim him in the face of such a weapon what possible defense can the enemies of mankind mount their ends the first volume of the tactical Imperialis those who truly aim to honor the works of the past and carry the glory of the immortal god emperor of man Ford should study the Wars described herein honor the names of your predecessors study their deeds meditate on their sacrifices and seek at all times to emulate their example seek first to identify the essential wisdom the eternal truth at the heart of each account for each has much to teach one might look to can hide for an object lesson in a vital principle for any high commander your effort should be entirely focused upon reinforcing success not wasted on shoring up failure they're not recognized at the time of his greatest battles can't hide new this well and his deeds are now taught in every staff khaleja in the Imperium for that reason alone he was afforded a place in this volume of work look to to the actions of the iron snakes on Naxos for they displayed the detached wisdom with which every commander no matter his posting must learn to plan captain trochus displayed a keen sense of timing allied to a ruthless determination to sacrifice all in the prosecution of his mission many suffered yet that mission was successful Lord Blythe teaches us a similar lesson but on an entirely different scale his command style also married the methodical approach so typical of one reason for the staff ranks as he did we're a propensity to change plans and surprises fair this alone should form a salutary lesson against becoming hidebound and predictable in one strategy for when the enemy will be able to predict your actions and you will be forced onto the defensive such as a sin against the emperor the waste of his ammunition and of the lives in your charge lastly look to the fall of Johar the lacerate er one my question why such an account has been included in this volume for surely tactics and strategy played little in the conclusion of that terrible war and this is entirely the points of its inclusion for that war was won when the 13th gave themselves wholly onto the will of the Emperor they became the vessels of His divine judgement and through them the Emperor brought lo the heretic johar the lesson here is simple learn your tactics and your strategies but never forget that it is not the caliber of your ordnance nor the thickness of your armor nor the capacity of your logistics train that will ensure your victory it is the will of the emperor embrace it and victory shall be yours of this you can be assured a gudge soldier obeys about question a good officer commands without doubt there you go everybody I hope you enjoyed that it's an awesome the attack ticket Imperialis was an awesome book and it's a shame they don't do more of this stuff and really love this stuff the dumb one recently with Gaunt's ghost it's a sort of a rehash and an update of the old sabot world crusade campaign book but I really like these campaign books and they don't seem to make them like they used to you know that this this hasn't got rules and it hasn't got a page where you can see paint how to paint your armies this is just solid law set in the world spoken as it would be spoken in the law you know in the universe it's it's brilliant I want that I want these these big campaign histories I think that they're missing out JW not doing these things because they would sell massively because there's so much fun and they really get you into the into the mindset into the world and just the law and the ability for them to make little jokes is is there's so much potential there they need to do more of it I want them to see I want to see them do more of it they used to do a fair amount and I've just stopped and the quality of the writing is really good as well but yeah I mean if they're just released with a couple of the easier you know just tomes with a couple of like campaign histories campaigns we know and you could just go going to full mag detail about them be so cool anyway I hope more of that comes now I hope you enjoyed this anyway thank you to everybody supporting the channel you can see your name scrolling up as I speak it really means a lot that's I've really really appreciate it it's fantastic and really me it just really helps more stuff is coming up soon I'm working on a bunch of different videos they're all coming so stay tuned if you're not subscribed to the channel please subscribe I bring that stuff regular of this quality such as it is but I hope you enjoyed it and please do like the video if you could that'll mean a lot and let me know in the comments what you thought I'll try and reply to the comments when I can so yeah I will see you again next time stay well I'll see you all again soon Cheers bye bye thanks you you

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Keywords: warhammer, warhammer 40k lore, warhammer 40k, IMPERIAL GUARD, astra militarum battle report, tactica imperialis, warhammer campaign, warhammer 40k history, warhammer 40k history of the imperium, 40k astartes history, iron snakes 40k, dark eldar lore, sabbat worlds crusade, black crusades 40k, imperial commissar, 40K AUDIO, WARHAMMER AUDIO, 40K AUDIOBOOK, 40K NARRATION, sci fi story asmr, sci fi military audiobook, 40K LORE, warhammer for beginners, 40k stories

Id: n0yLFyazoeA

Length: 188min 25sec (11305 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 03 2020