Editing Gardinaal (section)

==The Fall of the Lords of Gardinaal==
When the [[Great Crusade]] rocketed in with a fleet of [[Ultramarines]] supported by the [[Thousand Sons]]. they noticed the heavy industries of the eleven worlds and wanted it for the Imperium.

First they tried to negotiate; however the High Lords of Gardinaal considered the notion of a galaxy spanning Imperium to be a gross exaggeration and believed that the Expedition Fleet that encountered them numbered the entirety of the invading forces, stalling for time while they readied their military. When the Thousand Sons realised that they were also attempting to use psychic methods to drag out and influence the talks, they immediately withdrew and the Ultramarines invaded by encircling the capital city.

What the Imperial forces did not expect was for the Guardinaal to respond with a massive saturation campaign of nuclear warheads. A demi-legio of Titans was wiped out, 500,000 Imperial army men were killed, and 856 Astartes rendered incapacitated (not to mention the loss of gene-seed) in addition to causing massive collateral damage to their own population (which they inevitably wrote off as inconsequential) and rendering the area irradiated for decades.

Into this arena comes [[Ferrus Manus]], trying to prove himself capable of being named '''Warmaster''' by taking command of the remaining forces as well as bringing a contingent of [[Emperor's Children]] along with him and aiming to complete the compliance before [[Roboute Guilliman]] arrives with an even bigger force.

A more conventional war was fought. Although the Gardinaal had the advantage of numbers and their own technological equivalency, they were mostly untested troops against the mind of a Primarch and the physical superiority of the Astartes. The High Lords of Gardinaal came to the realisation that maybe the Imperium ''was'' as big and as powerful as the envoys had described and once again attempted to sue for peace and offer a surrender.

This is where the various sources differ on the completion of the campaign. The account from Forgeworld in the Horus Heresy rulebooks is perhaps the more sanitised account, where Ferrus Manus refuses the surrender and continues the campaign with the Ultramarines practically begging to reclaim their honour by taking the enemy citadel, which the Primarch grants them.

However, in the more detailed ''Ferrus Manus'' novella, the surrender is just another ruse for a High Lord to get close to the Primarch with an assortment of hidden weapons the Imperium are unable to detect, a psyker consular for influencing the Primarch's mind, ''and'' a willing suicide bomber to clear out any Astartes that attempt to interfere. The assassination attempt on Ferrus Manus was enough for him to get pissed off and take his anger out on '''Akurduana''', the commander of the Emperor's Children contingent who had been consistently one-upping the Iron Hands since his arrival in the expedition. The Primarch challenges him to a duel and breaks his rib plate before announcing that he doesn't ''claim'' worlds, he ''conquers'' them, and readies his forces to give the Emperor ten worlds instead of eleven. When the commander of the Ultramarines contingent protests that this is against orders and the intent of Roboute Guilliman, Ferrus Manus overrules him and [[Troll|commands the Ultramarines to make the first assault]] after he has spent some time blasting the city from orbit.

When the High Lords realise that they are about to lose ''again'' they attempt to revert to their first tactic of nuking the enemy and everything else in the vicinity, aiming directly for Ferrus Manus after he makes landfall. But this time the nukes are stopped as Akurduana performs a suicide run of his own on the Gardinaal command centre, effectively neutering any remaining resistance the Gardinaal have to offer, and the war ends.

The sanitised account indicates that the planet's infrastructure was left intact and that within a few years they were a model of Imperial compliance. However the more detailed account explains that the [[Rage]] of Guilliman was practically volcanic when he finally did arrive the day after compliance was completed, not only for the state of the world that was now going to need rebuilding, but also because of the poor treatment of the Ultramarine contingent that had practically been reduced to nothing. The two brothers barely even spoke to each other at the victory parade, having to go through [[Fulgrim]] to do it. Ferrus Manus then stated that he had no longer any desire to become Warmaster, (totally not because he realised he'd just shown everyone he was the worst possible candidate) but would support [[Horus|whoever]] got the job.

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[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]