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Black Crusade

2016-10-11T01:24:10Z

2602:306:8011:A970:2402:EAA5:610:5F88: /* A new perspective */

{{heresy}}

[[File:13th Black Crusade.jpg|thumb|right|480px|You gone done it now, [[Imperium of Man|corpse worshippers]].]]

''This article is about the crusades waged by the forces of [[Chaos]] in [[Warhammer 40,000]]. For the role-playing game by [[Fantasy Flight Games]], see [[Black Crusade (RPG)]].''

Just as the [[Imperium of Man]] wages Crusades against [[Xenos]] and [[Chaos]], starting with the [[Great Crusade]], led by the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emperor of Mankind]] Himself, the minions of the [[Chaos Gods|Ruinous Powers]] have launched several Black Crusades against the civilizations of the galaxy.

== Horus Heresy ==

The [[Horus Heresy]] might be thought of as first and the biggest Black Crusade of all, when Warmaster [[Horus]], [[Primarch]] of the soon-to-be [[Black Legion]], led his Legion and eight others, the very first [[Chaos Space Marines]], to try and overthrow the Emperor. They left the Imperium in ruins, but were narrowly defeated in orbit around [[Terra]].

==Abaddon's Black Crusades==

[[Abaddon|Ezekyle Abaddon]], Warmaster of Chaos, is the most prolific Black Crusader. He has launched thirteen Black Crusades in his ten millennia of serving [[Chaos]], and he opens each one with the same words [[Horus]] used to launch his [[Horus Heresy|Heresy]] (which, since Abaddon is hinted to be a clone of Horus, might be retroactively called the Zeroth Black Crusade): "Let the galaxy burn!" His Black Crusades also end in the same way that the Horus Heresy did: failure. The Black Legion gains and loses ground in and around the Eye of Terror, but Abaddon hasn't gotten anywhere close to conquering Terra in the ten thousand years since the Horus Heresy.
===A new perspective===
These constant failures have not escaped the eyes of the fanbase, and so Games Workshop (read: [[Aaron Dembski-Bowden]]) has rewritten the first twelve Black Crusades, now explaining that the first twelve were ''not'' for the purpose of conquering Cadia or Terra: they were simply aimed at gathering various superweapons, undermining the Imperium, and generally preparing for the "main event" of the thirteenth. Regardless, /tg/ tends to continue to mock Abaddon and his failures, because memes are fun and/or everything Games Workshop does is to be mocked.

A full list of what he actually did is as follows:

*{{anchor|1st Black Crusade}}'''1st Black Crusade''': Abaddon cemented the dominance of the [[Black Legion]] - and his rule over it by scouring hundreds of worlds in Segmentum Obscuras even though his fleet eventually had to retreat, it took Rogal Dorn's life to stop the crusade. He also acquired Drach'nyen from the Tower of Silence on Uralan.
*{{anchor|2nd Black Crusade}}'''2nd Black Crusade''': Abaddon destroyed an Imperial Navy base and the shipyards on Belis Corona and cursed the planet's moon to unleash a mutagenic plague upon the planet's inhabitants in the future. Later sacked the Inquisitorial vaults on Nemesis Tessera – butchering the Imperials and freeing all the Daemons imprisoned in the fortress.
*{{anchor|3rd Black Crusade}}'''3rd Black Crusade''': The Daemon Prince Tallomin is unleashed on the Cadian Gate. Tallomin is banished by a dozen Chapters of Astartes, after slaughtering many millions of Imperial soldiers. [[DISTRACTION CARNIFEX|It was all a distraction]], as Abaddon could now desecrate the tomb of Saint Gersthal on the shrine world of the same name without any resistance, [[Just as planned|thereby preventing a prophecy of ultimate Imperial victory from coming true]].
*{{anchor|4th Black Crusade}}'''4th Black Crusade''': Abaddon assaulted the world of El'Phanor, a stronghold of the Cadian Gate. The planet was left a dead wasteland, leaving Cadia vulnerable to later attack.
*{{anchor|5th Black Crusade}}'''5th Black Crusade''': The one where Abaddon summoned [[Doombreed]].
*{{anchor|6th Black Crusade}}'''6th Black Crusade''': Acting on a tip-off from [[Be'lakor]] (yes, the same guy from Fantasy), Abaddon allies with the Sons of the Eye, a splinter faction that had broken off from the [[Sons of Horus]] shortly after the [[Siege of Terra]]. After annihilating a Forge World with their help, Abaddon executes the Sons' warlord and forces him to watch his men pledge their loyalty to the Black Legion as he dies.
*{{anchor|7th Black Crusade}}'''7th Black Crusade''': Abaddon steals some Eldar artifacts from the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] and leaves before the Imperium can muster a response. The Blood Angels try to cut off his escape but are routed. Their [[geneseed]] is used to bolster the Black Legion's numbers, courtesy of [[Fabius Bile|Fabulous Bile]].
*{{anchor|8th Black Crusade}}'''8th Black Crusade''': The Black Legion engages in a ritual sacrifice known as the Skullgather. They slaughter specific numbers of people on specific worlds, and arrange the dead in specific patterns. Hundreds of adepts of the Inquisition are driven insane in trying to break the cipher, while Imperial forces are too busy pursuing Abaddon's fleet to realize what he's doing. It ends with the council of Tech-Magi being sacrificed in the gears of the Forge World Rithcarn, completing the sequence of death and pleasing Tzeentch.
*{{anchor|9th Black Crusade}}'''9th Black Crusade''': Abaddon musters several Traitor Legions for the purpose of strangling the power of Cancephalus, a naval fortress that acted as a base for Imperial ships patrolling the Eye of Terror for any activity. Abaddon proceeds to massacre and mutate the people of Antecanis, a heavily populated world that provided most recruits and officers for Cancephalus. The Traitors depart after having annihilated the response fleet from Cancephalus, thereby crippling the Imperial Navy's power and opening up new routes for Chaos Space Marines to exit the Eye of Terror.
*{{anchor|10th Black Crusade}}'''10th Black Crusade''': Abaddon assaults the Helica Subsector (of [[Eisenhorn]] fame) with the aid of the [[Iron Warriors]], sending out some of his minor warlords as a distraction while he and [[Perturabo]] attack the [[Iron Hands]]' homeworld of [[Medusa]]. The Iron Hands barely hold on, and Abaddon and Perturabo leave after they are satisfied with what they have learned about Medusa's defenses. While technically victorious, the Iron Hands have suffered severe casualties and many of the worlds in their system have been destroyed.
*{{anchor|11th Black Crusade}}'''11th Black Crusade''': After binding a Daemon of Tzeentch within the oculus of his vessel in the hope that it may find new routes through the Warp storms, Abaddon gets caught in a warp storm and ends up in orbit over the planet Relorria. There the Traitor Marines encounter Orks, and a three-sided war breaks out. Abaddon takes many Orks as prisoners, after which he departs and leaves the humans of Relorria to deal with the remaining Xenos. He later discovers their connection to the warp and begins experimenting with them to see if they could be used to create Ork-Daemon hybrids.
*{{anchor|12th Black Crusade}}'''12th Black Crusade''': The one where he got the [[Blackstone Fortress]]es. See [[Battlefleet Gothic]].
*{{anchor|13th Black Crusade}}'''13th Black Crusade''': The last event in Games Workshop's official 40K timeline, beginning on 995999.M41. Back in Third Edition, GW ran the "Eye of Terror" worldwide campaign to determine the outcome of the war. Going by the numbers of the battles sent in (admittedly not a tamper-proof measure), the forces of Chaos actually won the ground war, and the Imperium won the space war, since this was before GW had the "fuck our customers" mindset, they actually did wrap up the 13th Black Crusade... In the 18th issue of their Battlefleet Gothic Magazine. Yep, the major event that the whole setting stops at was wrapped up in an issue nobody bought. Abaddon's fleets (including the Planet Killer and a Blackstone Fortress) were crippled and he and his generals were stranded on a dozen worlds. They continued to win the ground war on most planets, including Cadia, but even if they did capture those they'd be left stuck without any way of proceeding whereas the Imperium [[Exterminatus|could just virus bomb the captured worlds]]. Eventually GW decided that change was both terrible and terrifying, so they retconned it away. As things stand (perpetually frozen at the brink of M42), Abaddon has just launched the Crusade, overrun most of Cadia and Segmentum Obscuras and is trying to solidify his gains and rumor has it that the Daemon Primarchs are going to intervene personally, but of course we'll never know since they'll never move past it, and even if they do some sort of event, they'll just retcon it back again. (13th Black Crusade book series, beginning soon)

==Necrons!?==
Considering that the Necrons are getting the spotlight in Imperial Armor Volume 12, expect for the Necrons to become more involved in the 13th Black Crusade as Abaddon tries to overload the pylons maintaining the Cadian Gate. Before you scream deus ex machina (or perhaps merely deus machina), recall that early battle reports from the background material of the Eye of Terror campaign mentioned a Necron expeditionary force operating in Segmentum Obscurus almost exclusively against the Forces of Chaos (The Imperium figured this out as well and official Imperial policy was to keep their distance and let the necrons just do their thing). Furthermore it should also be recognized that the Necrons almost certainly built the Cadian pylons and would have the most to lose after the Imperium and the Eldar should the Eye of Terror expand.

7th Edition Codex has indeed shown there are a large amount of Active Necrons Tomb Worlds around the Eye.

==14th Black Crusade==
[[/tg/]] has gotten tired of the so-called "Failbaddon's" antics, and so somebody decided to take matters into his own hands and launched Abaddon Quest, in which /tg/ controls [[Abaddon's 14th Black Crusade]]. He's doing much better this time around (baring a few acts of sexual deviancy that even Chaos Marines found unsettling).

==Other Daemon Princes==

Abaddon is not the only favored son of [[Chaos]]; other Daemon Princes have launched their own Black Crusades now and then. <s>Obviously, they haven't done any better than Abaddon did, or we would have heard more about them!</s> lol, they've actually managed to succeed at their Crusades. Thus making them superior to Abaddon. Granted their ultimate goals aren't as grandiose, but hey, wins are wins.

{{Template:40k-Timeline}}
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Chaos]]

Black Crusade

2016-10-11T01:21:41Z

2602:306:8011:A970:2402:EAA5:610:5F88: /* Abaddon's Black Crusades */

{{heresy}}

[[File:13th Black Crusade.jpg|thumb|right|480px|You gone done it now, [[Imperium of Man|corpse worshippers]].]]

''This article is about the crusades waged by the forces of [[Chaos]] in [[Warhammer 40,000]]. For the role-playing game by [[Fantasy Flight Games]], see [[Black Crusade (RPG)]].''

Just as the [[Imperium of Man]] wages Crusades against [[Xenos]] and [[Chaos]], starting with the [[Great Crusade]], led by the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emperor of Mankind]] Himself, the minions of the [[Chaos Gods|Ruinous Powers]] have launched several Black Crusades against the civilizations of the galaxy.

== Horus Heresy ==

The [[Horus Heresy]] might be thought of as first and the biggest Black Crusade of all, when Warmaster [[Horus]], [[Primarch]] of the soon-to-be [[Black Legion]], led his Legion and eight others, the very first [[Chaos Space Marines]], to try and overthrow the Emperor. They left the Imperium in ruins, but were narrowly defeated in orbit around [[Terra]].

==Abaddon's Black Crusades==

[[Abaddon|Ezekyle Abaddon]], Warmaster of Chaos, is the most prolific Black Crusader. He has launched thirteen Black Crusades in his ten millennia of serving [[Chaos]], and he opens each one with the same words [[Horus]] used to launch his [[Horus Heresy|Heresy]] (which, since Abaddon is hinted to be a clone of Horus, might be retroactively called the Zeroth Black Crusade): "Let the galaxy burn!" His Black Crusades also end in the same way that the Horus Heresy did: failure. The Black Legion gains and loses ground in and around the Eye of Terror, but Abaddon hasn't gotten anywhere close to conquering Terra in the ten thousand years since the Horus Heresy.
===A new perspective===
These constant failures have not escaped the eyes of the fanbase, and so Games Workshop (read: [[Aaron Dembski-Bowden]]) has rewritten the first twelve Black Crusades, now explaining that the first twelve were ''not'' for the purpose of conquering Cadia or Terra: they were simply aimed at gathering various superweapons, undermining the Imperium, and generally preparing for the "main event" of the thirteenth. Regardless, /tg/ tends to continue to mock Abaddon and his failures, because memes are fun and/or everything Games Workshop does is to be mocked.

A full list of what he actually did is as follows:

*{{anchor|1st Black Crusade}}'''1st Black Crusade''': Abaddon cemented the dominance of the [[Black Legion]] - and his rule over it by scouring hundreds of worlds in Segmentum Obscuras even though his fleet eventually had to retreat, it took Rogal Dorn's life to stop the crusade. He also acquired Drach'nyen from the Tower of Silence on Uralan.
*{{anchor|2nd Black Crusade}}'''2nd Black Crusade''': Abaddon destroyed an Imperial Navy base and the shipyards on Belis Corona and cursed the planet's moon to unleash a mutagenic plague upon the planet's inhabitants in the future. Later sacked the Inquisitorial vaults on Nemesis Tessera – butchering the Imperials and freeing all the Daemons imprisoned in the fortress.
*{{anchor|3rd Black Crusade}}'''3rd Black Crusade''': The Daemon Prince Tallomin is unleashed on the Cadian Gate. Tallomin is banished by a dozen Chapters of Astartes, after slaughtering many millions of Imperial soldiers. [[DISTRACTION CARNIFEX|It was all a distraction]], as Abaddon could now desecrate the tomb of Saint Gersthal on the shrine world of the same name without any resistance, [[Just as planned|thereby preventing a prophecy of ultimate Imperial victory from coming true]].
*{{anchor|4th Black Crusade}}'''4th Black Crusade''': Abaddon assaulted the world of El'Phanor, a stronghold of the Cadian Gate. The planet was left a dead wasteland, leaving Cadia vulnerable to later attack.
*{{anchor|5th Black Crusade}}'''5th Black Crusade''': The one where Abaddon summoned [[Doombreed]].
*{{anchor|6th Black Crusade}}'''6th Black Crusade''': Acting on a tip-off from [[Be'lakor]] (yes, the same guy from Fantasy), Abaddon allies with the Sons of the Eye, a splinter faction that had broken off from the [[Sons of Horus]] shortly after the [[Siege of Terra]]. After annihilating a Forge World with their help, Abaddon executes the Sons' warlord and forces him to watch his men pledge their loyalty to the Black Legion as he dies.
*{{anchor|7th Black Crusade}}'''7th Black Crusade''': Abaddon steals some Eldar artifacts from the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] and leaves before the Imperium can muster a response. The Blood Angels try to cut off his escape but are routed. Their [[geneseed]] is used to bolster the Black Legion's numbers, courtesy of [[Fabius Bile|Fabulous Bile]].
*{{anchor|8th Black Crusade}}'''8th Black Crusade''': The Black Legion engages in a ritual sacrifice known as the Skullgather. They slaughter specific numbers of people on specific worlds, and arrange the dead in specific patterns. Hundreds of adepts of the Inquisition are driven insane in trying to break the cipher, while Imperial forces are too busy pursuing Abaddon's fleet to realize what he's doing. It ends with the council of Tech-Magi being sacrificed in the gears of the Forge World Rithcarn, completing the sequence of death and pleasing Tzeentch.
*{{anchor|9th Black Crusade}}'''9th Black Crusade''': Abaddon musters several Traitor Legions for the purpose of strangling the power of Cancephalus, a naval fortress that acted as a base for Imperial ships patrolling the Eye of Terror for any activity. Abaddon proceeds to massacre and mutate the people of Antecanis, a heavily populated world that provided most recruits and officers for Cancephalus. The Traitors depart after having annihilated the response fleet from Cancephalus, thereby crippling the Imperial Navy's power and opening up new routes for Chaos Space Marines to exit the Eye of Terror.
*{{anchor|10th Black Crusade}}'''10th Black Crusade''': Abbadon assaults the Helica Subsector (of [[Eisenhorn]] fame) with the aid of the [[Iron Warriors]], sending out some of his minor warlords as a distraction while he and [[Perturabo]] attack the [[Iron Hands]]' homeworld of [[Medusa]]. The Iron Hands barely hold on, and Abbadon and Perturabo leave after they are satisfied with what they have learned about Medusa's defenses. While technically victorious, the Iron Hands have suffered severe casualties and many of the worlds in their system have been destroyed.
*{{anchor|11th Black Crusade}}'''11th Black Crusade''': After binding a Daemon of Tzeentch within the oculus of his vessel in the hope that it may find new routes through the Warp storms, Abbadon gets caught in a warp storm and ends up in orbit over the planet Relorria. There the Traitor Marines encounter Orks, and a three-sided war breaks out. Abaddon takes many Orks as prisoners, after which he departs and leaves the humans of Relorria to deal with the remaining Xenos. He later discovers their connection to the warp and begins experimenting with them to see if they could be used to create Ork-Daemon hybrids.
*{{anchor|12th Black Crusade}}'''12th Black Crusade''': The one where he got the [[Blackstone Fortress]]es. See [[Battlefleet Gothic]].
*{{anchor|13th Black Crusade}}'''13th Black Crusade''': The last event in Games Workshop's official 40K timeline, beginning on 995999.M41. Back in Third Edition, GW ran the "Eye of Terror" worldwide campaign to determine the outcome of the war. Going by the numbers of the battles sent in (admittedly not a tamper-proof measure), the forces of Chaos actually won the ground war, and the Imperium won the space war, since this was before GW had the "fuck our customers" mindset, they actually did wrap up the 13th Black Crusade... In the 18th issue of their Battlefleet Gothic Magazine. Yep, the major event that the whole setting stops at was wrapped up in an issue nobody bought. Abaddon's fleets (including the Planet Killer and a Blackstone Fortress) were crippled and he and his generals were stranded on a dozen worlds. They continued to win the ground war on most planets, including Cadia, but even if they did capture those they'd be left stuck without any way of proceeding whereas the Imperium [[Exterminatus|could just virus bomb the captured worlds]]. Eventually GW decided that change was both terrible and terrifying, so they retconned it away. As things stand (perpetually frozen at the brink of M42), Abaddon has just launched the Crusade, overrun most of Cadia and Segmentum Obscuras and is trying to solidify his gains and rumor has it that the Daemon Primarchs are going to intervene personally, but of course we'll never know since they'll never move past it, and even if they do some sort of event, they'll just retcon it back again. (13th Black Crusade book series, beginning soon)

==Necrons!?==
Considering that the Necrons are getting the spotlight in Imperial Armor Volume 12, expect for the Necrons to become more involved in the 13th Black Crusade as Abaddon tries to overload the pylons maintaining the Cadian Gate. Before you scream deus ex machina (or perhaps merely deus machina), recall that early battle reports from the background material of the Eye of Terror campaign mentioned a Necron expeditionary force operating in Segmentum Obscurus almost exclusively against the Forces of Chaos (The Imperium figured this out as well and official Imperial policy was to keep their distance and let the necrons just do their thing). Furthermore it should also be recognized that the Necrons almost certainly built the Cadian pylons and would have the most to lose after the Imperium and the Eldar should the Eye of Terror expand.

7th Edition Codex has indeed shown there are a large amount of Active Necrons Tomb Worlds around the Eye.

==14th Black Crusade==
[[/tg/]] has gotten tired of the so-called "Failbaddon's" antics, and so somebody decided to take matters into his own hands and launched Abaddon Quest, in which /tg/ controls [[Abaddon's 14th Black Crusade]]. He's doing much better this time around (baring a few acts of sexual deviancy that even Chaos Marines found unsettling).

==Other Daemon Princes==

Abaddon is not the only favored son of [[Chaos]]; other Daemon Princes have launched their own Black Crusades now and then. <s>Obviously, they haven't done any better than Abaddon did, or we would have heard more about them!</s> lol, they've actually managed to succeed at their Crusades. Thus making them superior to Abaddon. Granted their ultimate goals aren't as grandiose, but hey, wins are wins.

{{Template:40k-Timeline}}
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Chaos]]

Blackstone Fortress

2016-10-10T20:39:46Z

2602:306:8011:A970:2402:EAA5:610:5F88:

[[File:Blackstone.png|thumb|left|An example of an Eldar Blackstone Fortress; the Egyptians were wondering what happened to the pyramids after the Emperor flattened Egypt to make into his own private beach resort... Also, they look like the stars of Chaos when looked at from above.]]

The '''Blackstone Fortresses''' are six ancient space-based super weapons said to have been forged by the [[Eldar]] smith god [[Vaul]] to destroy the [[Necron]] star gods, the [[C'tan]]. For this reason, they are sometimes called (especially by Eldar) the '''Talismans of Vaul'''. The C'tan were basically all-powerful in the material realm, but they were extremely vulnerable to the [[warp]], so the Blackstone Fortresses were given a massive warp cannon as their primary weapon. During the Gothic War one Fortress scoured a planet; three of them combining their beams destabilized a star, causing it to go supernova a month later and destroy the system.

It seems Vaul had a particular rival in the [[Void Dragon]], a powerful C'Tan who possessed control over material machinery. With these weapons, Vaul went to confront the Dragon and although the outcome is unrecorded, the Dragon still lives (although sealed away) so we can guess Vaul suffered [[FAIL|epic failure]]. It is also possible that the combined fire of these fortresses made the Void Dragon weak enough to retreat to ancient earth and start eating virgins, though even these things could not kill it. To add insult to injury, taking codices literally would mean that rather than the Void Dragon himself, it was just a shard of him that was blasted away.

After the [[Fall of the Eldar]], the Fortresses were left adrift in the Gothic sector, where they were found by the [[Imperial Navy]]. The Navy moved in and turned them into naval bastions for Battlefleet Gothic, despite being unable to activate most of its armament. However, [[Abaddon]] found some artifacts that allowed him to assume direct control of them and managed to swipe three of them, kicking off the twelfth [[Black Crusade]], before the Navy and the [[Eldar]] stopped him. The Imperial and Eldar navies then chased after the fortresses and managed to take one back, but then Abaddon caused it and the three still in Imperial control to self-destruct.

The Blackstone Fortresses were mentioned during the 13th Black Crusade, one was damaged and retreated during the space battle over Cadia (It annihilated an Imperial Navy battlegroup as well as Eldar and Necron fleets and only retreated after reinforcements from Segmentum Solar rushed in) while the other was rumored to be destroyed in transit by the Necron fleet. However, this was retconned and now the current fate of the Blackstone Fortresses is unknown. The two unaccounted-for fortresses were not present when the other four self-destructed, so they might be lurking around still...

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category:Battlefleet Gothic]]