Editing Battlefleet Gothic Armada (section)

==Plot==
[[File:Spire gets torture.png|thumb|This is you, Captain Spire, a rookie admiral who is about to go though unimaginable pain just to go fisticuffs with a demonic possessed super human......in a spaceship battle! Got promoted to an admiral after that though so... worth it?]]
Basically the retelling of the Gothic War AKA Failbaddon's 12th Black Crusade, just a rookie admiral fighting Failbaddon's attempts to get the Blackstone fortresses. When you discover the plot unfolding and run to tell the Imperial Navy about the looming Chaos tsunami, the Inquisition immediately shocks your balls to be certain you're Heresy-free before you're promoted to sector fleet command with more promises of continued balls-shocking if you feth up. Grimdark abounds. Essentially, you play as Admiral Spire, who is a stand-in for Admiral Cornelius von Ravensburg (Ravensburg is still there, but has been demoted to an advisory role). What Ravensburg did in fluff (or rather what he didn't, for certain scenarios), Spire did instead in the game.

[[File:The old crone or not.png|200px|thumb|right|not even the champion of chaos is safe....]]
Extra fluff was <strike>added apparently</strike> ported over from the [[Graham McNeill|Iron Warriors novella]] (actually this dates back at least to the original Battlefleet gothic tabletop rulebook, check page 87), like Abaddon got the information about the Blackstone fortresses from some old crone (according to the intro movie).

<s>Other sources suggest that the old crone was</s> This crone is Moriana, according to the subtitles in game. A psyker with a powerful clairvoyance ability, and one of the Emperor's original advisors before falling to Chaos. Because of her ability, she is consulted by Abbadon numerous times on how not to be an armless failure, but has yet to succeed. It is also possible that she got the information of the fortress from the Chaos Gods themselves.

Oh, and it seems they got the same voice filter they used in Retribution to make Abby sound like himself, as well as [[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device|Alfa Legion animation style]] combined with some beautiful 3D graphics which of course is gonna be highly exploitable for Youtube videos and whatnot. These campaign cutscenes provide bits of fanservice such as [[Daemonette|lesser]] and [[Keeper of Secrets|greater]] daemons of [[Slaanesh]] and [[Squig|colossal squigs]] making their first video game appearances.

Anyway. Rookie Spire quickly proves himself to be a highly capable Admiral running from flashpoint to flashpoint across the sub-sectors that make up the Gothic Sector in a giant game of whack-a-mole. Dealing with Heretics with extreme '''BLAM''', Ork boyz eager to get in on the fights -up to and including taking on their space hulk and warboss- and of course those pointy eared xenos assholes known as the Eldar who seem to help and hinder you at the same time. With rarely enough resources to tackle all the problems each turn - so Tuesday for the Imperial Navy.

The main campaign is divided into three sub-campaigns.

First is the Prologue, which doubles as the tutorial. Based around the historical raids of the Chaos fleets looking for the 'Eye of Night' and 'Hand of Darkness'. Artifacts which in canon Failbaddon seized and was able to use eventually to turn on the Blackstone Fortresses because the Eldar are giant dicks leaving this stuff around. I mean this isn't a remote control you lost behind the couch for the TV here, but the keys to the ancient Eldar's WMDs. Nice work fellas! Anyway, Spire CAN with some excellent work keep the artifacts safely out of the hands of Chaos and place them into the theoretically safer hands of the Inquisition, who get them out of the sector to safety. The game however defines them not as the remote controls, but as artifacts that would dramatically increase the power of warp storms and make warp travel harder. Which will have a very big multiplier effect when...

The second campaign is called, appropriately enough, the 12th <strike>Temper Tantrum</strike> Black Crusade. The Chaos attacks kick up in tempo and you're going to have to start making decisions on what missions to take and which ones to leave. Worlds can now be lost forever as Abby starts to nick those Blackstones and turn them against planets and eventually entire stars, something that isn't entirely clear to the Imperium at first, being distracted by his OTHER WMD; the aptly named Planet Killer. Which does give a sweet cutscene of it doing exactly what the name implies. Worlds that fall to the enemy strengthen them and weaken you in terms of keeping your fleet intact and supplied. Certain missions earn you 'favors' from factions within the Imperium consisting of the Navy, the Inquisition, the Space Marines ([[Imperial Fists]] chapter), or the Cult Mechanicus which can be redeemed for bling for your battleships. Priority missions are tied to the fluff of the crusade and ignoring them can quickly lead to Bad Ends. The Ork threat reaches its peak here where, if you play your cards right, things will end with a typically hilarious showdown with the Ork Boss on a mobile Space Hulk in an asteroid field. Once you damage it enough, the Boss shouts he's gonna show ya his hidden superweapon... which turns out to be an ancient Exterminatus level Cyclonic Torpedo. Maybe it expired, maybe the Orks have put it in the launcher backwards, but the Hulk is the only casualty, and without their Boss the Orks no longer represent a threat worthy of your attention.

[[File:Eldar-bfg-hieronymushoefer.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Don't expect too much tactical genius from your Eldar allies.]]The pointy eared annoyances can be turned to your side if you choose to do so and save them a few times which, at the least, free up resources and occasionally even bring them onto the field as an allied force (See image to know how [[Dawn of War 2|advanced and resourceful is the AI player]]). Even as Failbaddon raises the stakes by blowing up star systems. OR you can wipe out the Xenos scum, destroy their webway gate and make sure that they know now and forever that the stars belong to the Imperium alone.

The final campaign, 'The Imperium Resurgent' has the Warp Storms as in canon dissipate and Imperial reinforcements start to arrive, leading to a final showdown. If you have done well, the space lanes should have mostly been cleaned at this point, with a few lost worlds that had to die by canon but otherwise a glut of resources to hammer down on any nails that stick up. If you have done poorly, then between Abbadon blasting planets, capturing planets and the Inquisition cheerfully burning worlds that remained captured too long, lose more of the Blackstones; in short, the Gothic sector will start to look increasingly empty if you fuck up that badly.

Either way, finally you will face down the Blackstones and Planet Killer at the historical Battle of Schindelgheist (with Eldar help if you chose to spare them). Where Captain Abridal on board the ''Flame of Purity'' (who had tagged along with you in a few battles as a support ship) makes his historical sacrifice in a cool cutscene and rams his ship into the convergence point of the three Blackstone warp cannons, causing the energy to feedback and shut them down. While you deal with the Planet Killer and <strike>blow it to all hell</strike> cripple it to the point that it escapes to show up a thousand years later in the 13th temper tantrum, along with two of the Blackstones that retreat.

One Blackstone is boarded, <strike>Abbadon</strike> the Deceiver promptly hits the Self Destruct button causing it to shatter a short time later into a million pieces.