Editing Devastation of Baal (section)

==Prelude==
===The Cryptus Campaign===
In 998.M41, the [[Blood Angels]] led a spirited defense of the Cryptus System during a grueling campaign against the onslaught of Hive Fleet Leviathan. With the reputable defenses of the Cryptan Shield having been severely [[Anal circumference|fucked]] by the Hive Fleet, [[Chapter Master]] [[Dante]] quickly gathered an alliance of his own chapter, the [[Flesh Tearers]] Chapter, dozens of [[Imperial Guard]] regiments, the [[Sisters of Battle|Order of the Sacred Rose]], an entire [[Imperial Navy]] Battlefleet, and even a force of [[Tempestus Scions]].

Despite this massive Imperial presence, the Cryptus System [[Fail|fell anyways in just two days]]. In the ensuing Imperial counterattack, Dante forged an alliance with none other than the [[Necrons]] of [[Anrakyr the Traveller]], who happened to have been in the system awakening legions of the Mephrit Dynasty. <s>Who the hell let [[Matt Ward|Ward]] get his hands on this narrative!?</s> Together, the Blood Angels and the Necrons managed to activate an ancient Necrontyr doomsday weapon called the Magnovitrium, which ignited the core of the gas giant Aeros to send a massive pillar of flame across the system, incinerating the Tyranid fleet as well as some unfortunate Imperial soldiers, citizens, Sisters of Battle, and Space Marines ([[Troll|of course]], the Necrons phased out [[Just as planned|right before the weapon activated]]).

With Hive Fleet Leviathan having been dealt a huge blow, as well as all of the biomass in the Cryptus System having been burnt to a cinder, the Imperial forces (or what was left of them) withdrew. However, the Cryptus Campaign only delayed Leviathan's inevitable advance towards Baal.

===Imperial Preparations===
Realizing the incoming threat, Dante forged yet another alliance of Imperial forces. This time, he gathered the support almost all the active and loyal Blood Angels Successor Chapters, barring the [[Lamenters]] (even Dante notes you can't hold it against those poor bastards; by this point they're severely mauled, and they couldn't reach Baal in time even if they were at fighting strength to begin with) and the [[Angels Vermillion]] (due to a deep-seated grudge between Dante and the Chapter over their practices, though a few of them came anyway in defiance of their Chapter Master's orders). Even the renegade [[Knights of Blood]] Chapter answered the call for aid, but they wisely decided to fight separately from their brethren.

Dante launched pre-emptive attacks against Leviathan, and managed to inflict losses against hundreds of splinter fleets. When the main Hive Fleet reached Baal, a mixed fleet of the assembled Chapters' Battle Barges and cruisers launched salvos of nuclear-tipped warheads directly into the mass of organic ships, causing extensive losses amongst the vanguard of the Tyranid onslaught. But eventually, all of the Space Marines' vessels were overwhelmed by the sheer amount of Hive Ships filling the space around Baal and its moons, and the Imperial forces on the ground could only watch as millions of living missiles began raining down on them past the wreckage of once-mighty Imperial ships.

As if the above wasn't enough, some time before this this time our favourite Psychic Vampire Marine, Mephiston, had been getting some visions - daemons wreaking havoc on Baal, literal mountains of skulls filling the landscape, and the Blood Angels' [[Ka%27bandha|oldest nemesis]] fighting his way toward a portal. After a final vision in which an Eldar [[Harlequin]] led the Librarian on a merry mental chase into the realm of Khorne itself and warned him that the Bloodthirster was about to breach into the Materium, Mephiston was rightly paranoid. So, after talking to an old buddy and interrogating a foul xeno prisoner (as well as conferencing with Dante), Mephiston decides it's time to take drastic action.

Roughly concurrent to the initial Tyranid landings, Mephiston assembles a team of each Chapter's strongest Librarians and takes them into the wastes of Baal, leading them to a cave filled with psychically-resonant crystals. He reveals what he's seen to them, and declares that since the BA's can't take on the Alien Space Locusts and that [[/a/|yandere]] fuckhead of a [[Bloodthirster]] simultaneously, they're going to have to dial up Ka'Bandha and tell him to fuck off.

Big surprise, it just makes him angrier.

Courtesy of [[That Guy|one Librarian nearly losing faith and disrupting their ritual]], Ka'Bandha actually breaks through into the Materium for a moment, slaughtering several Librarians and collapsing the entrance to the cave before they can drive him back into the space between worlds. Mephiston and his crew of Librarians (mostly) survive, though the rubble blocking the way out stops them from taking any further part in the battle.