Editing War of Beasts (section)

==Bad Portents, Bad People==

Despite all of this, the general consensus of the population was that things had stabilized enough that the Imperium just ''might'' eke a win, though Calgar was still forced to have Dirkden's civilian population evacuated.

===Raptor Rampage===

[[File:Urban_Conquest_Vigilus.jpg|320px|thumb|right|From Bad, to the Worst]]

Then things really started to go tits up. Reports of disappearances and horrible monsters in the upper spires started to spread, with everyone trying to investigate vanishing without a trace. The Great Rift seemed to darken in the sky and readings of the Emperor's Tarot all produced the same ominous result.

By the time the [[Ordo Malleus]] had deciphered the mumbling of comatose Imperial Psykers as a warning about a "Dark King", the monsters had been identified as a scouting force of [[Black Legion]] [[Chaos Raptor|Raptors]], [[Heldrake]]s, and [[Warp Talons]].

Soon afterward, every vox network on the planet received a message from '''[[Haarken Worldclaimer]]''', the Chaos Raptor Lord leading the Black Legion forces and Herald of the Apocalypse: Vigilus now belonged to '''[[Abaddon]]''' and the Despoiler would soon arrive to oversee its conquest personally. As the Vigilus Senate convened to discuss the alarming turn of events, they were [[Awesome|attacked by a]] [[Heldrake]] [[Awesome|that smashed through the Senate spire's ceiling.]] The Victrix Guard were able to prevent it from harming Calgar, but now they had to deal with the impending arrival of the Warmaster himself.

Meanwhile, [[Thousand Sons]] [[Rubric Marines]] were burning their way through Oteck Hivesprawl, a new Gellerpox outbreak in Mortwald led the nobles to hoard food and water for themselves and inadvertently inspire even ''more'' Chaos and Genestealer Cult uprisings, and the defenses of the planet were being stretched thinner and thinner. And the bulk of the Black Legion's forces hadn't even shown up yet. Haarken had boasted that Vigilus would fall within 80 days of his arrival. Sure enough, after 80 days a massive number of Warp signatures was detected in the Nachmund Gauntlet.

The War of Nightmares had begun.

===Shadowspear At Nemendghast===

During all of this madness, at the outskirts of the Vigilus System a taskforce of Vanguard Primaris led by '''Brother-Captain Archeran''' of the 2nd Company were covertly inserted unto the planet '''Nemendghast''' after receiving a distress call from there. To their horror, they find that the world had already been taken over the Dark Powers and its forges used to churn out Daemon Engines for the [[Black Legion]]. As it turns out, it had been trapped within the Great Rift for a time and Abaddon had taken the opportunity to capture it as a staging area for his planned invasion force.

Although heavily outnumbered by the [[Possessed|Daemonkin]] there, the task force tried to sabotage the forges ruled over by Master of Possession '''Vorash Soulflayer'''. It succeeded but at great cost, with only the task force's Librarian '''Maltis''' escaping to bring word to Calgar of the Black Legion fleet's imminent arrival.

===Clash in the Void===
Having learned of the approaching fleet from Maltis, Calgar called for a double cordon to intercept the Chaos armada. In spite of a torpedo barrage meant to box in the fleet, the Imperials were pushed back after the Chaos forces began summoning daemons onto the Imperial ships. Even Calgar's own flagship ''Laurels of Victory'' was not spared, and he was wounded by the [[Keeper of Secrets]] that manifested onboard. Yeah, normal daemon incursions the Imperials can handle, greater daemons on ships not so much.

Following his return, Calgar had no choice but to abandon Dirkden Hivesprawl and Kaelac's Bane in favor of shoring up the defenses of Mortwald, Megaborealis, Oteck, and Dontoria.

===Vannadan's Legacy===
While Vannadan's plan had been thwarted by the Eldar intervention, the pyroclastic cults of Storvhal soon rallied around Haarken Worldclaimer. After defeating the local Skitarii defenders, they were able to open a Warp portal to summon an army of daemons of Tzeentch; soon even the volcanoes were erupting with warpfire.

The quick thinking of '''Fabricator Vosch''' was able to stop the continent from being swallowed by Chaos by using [[Tectonic Fragdrill]]s to trigger a massive but more conventional eruption that wiped out both Chaos forces and whatever AdMech couldn't get out of the way. Even then, Storvhal remained in Chaos hands, with Worldclaimer's Raptor packs using the ash to conceal their movements.

===Stormclaw Revisited===
Around this time, another detachment of Space Wolves led by '''[[Krom Dragongaze]]''' arrived to reinforce Vigilus. Showing his well-known disregard for little things like "waiting for orders", he immediately led an assault on the Ork-held Space Hulk ''Worldsmasha''. Following the destruction of several smaller hulks by the Wolves' Battle-Barges, Krom's forces were able to teleport directly to the ''Worldsmasha'' and kill its Big Mek commander before sending the Space Hulk on a crash course with an Ork settlement.

Marneus Calgar was less than impressed with Krom's recklessness, but news of a renewed greenskin threat in Hyperia prevented them from coming to blows over the matter.

===Creepy Crawlies===
The arrival of Abaddon's fleet had demoralized the population even further. Looting and rioting were widespread, and many of the despairing populace had turned to the Genestealer Cults or Chaos if they had not simply become Zealots for the Imperial Cult.

However, Abaddon had underestimated the strength of the xenos on Vigilus. Initial attempts at capturing the spires were stymied by Orks and the Pauper Princes, forcing Haarken to change his initial plans. An attack on Dirkden by the [[Night Lords]] and [[The Scourged]] killed millions of cultists but ultimately failed under a massive assault by Metamorphs and Aberrants.

===Sisters of Battle: Not Jobbing This Time===
The Genestealer Cultists had also started to tunnel underneath Dirkden into Oteck in the hopes of spreading their uprising further, but the Sisters of Battle from the Order of the Argent Shroud and the Order of the Last Prioress were able to keep them contained. Exploration of the tunnels revealed that they had already begun infiltrating Hyperia though, and the Sisters' plans to counter-attack through the tunnels had to be put on hold.

The Orders Dialogus had also kept busy by mapping the Ork Speedwaaagh! races, allowing Imperial convoys to be ready for the greenskins' raids. This frustrated the Orks enough to get them to go out of their way to hunt down convoys protected by the Sisters.

===Retaking the Hoist===
To deal with their water problem, the Imperials set out to recapture the Omnissian Hoist from the Genestealers. The cults had already been weakened by a prior skirmish with the Magma Hounds warband, allowing a combined force of Iron Hands and Skitarii to push through the alien hordes.

The Grandsire Wurm itself was forced to lead the counter-attack, eventually sealing itself into the hoist's main control center in a final effort to deny it to the AdMech. But it hadn't counted on the Onager Dunecrawlers that had crawled up the structure, and it was forced to retreat after being wounded. After that, the Dunecrawlers were able to mop up the remaining Purestrains without difficulty.

===Vigilus Ablaze===
Hyperia Hivesprawl had at this point come under heavy attack by the [[Iron Warriors]] and the [[Word Bearers]], the latter of which had taken the time to build Noctilith Crowns to summon even more daemons. After receiving news that the Black Legion had led a major assault into a critical water purification plant on top of another Gellerpox outbreak, Calgar had no choice but to take desperate measures.

On the advice of the Planetary Governor, massive fires were started in each of the major Hivesprawls to prevent their corruption from spreading further. "Calgar's Fires" did manage to eliminate considerable parts of the xenos and Chaos forces but a terrible cost; worse, the ''[[Vengeful Spirit]]'' had arrived on Vigilus and was effortlessly destroying every Imperial vessel sent to repel it.

===The Fallen Angels are Assholes===
Abaddon's first course of action was to pay a visit to the center of the Vhulian Swirl. The great storms were in fact artificial, and intended to conceal the location of a fortress called the Citadel Vigilant that had been occupied by a group of [[Fallen Angels]] that had forged a blood pact with Abaddon during the Pandorax campaign. Their leader, the former Librarian '''Osandus''', had come into possession of a gravitic weapon made of Blackstone dating from a time long before humanity had spread across the galaxy during the Great Crusade, dubbed the Voidclaw. Functioning the same way as the menhir shaped weapon found on the [[Speranza]], it is noted for its alien appearance.

Osandus had originally planned to lure the Dark Angels to Vigilus using hints from Fallen that let themselves be captured as bait; they would bring the Rock with them, and the Voidclaw would then be used to destroy it and wipe out the Dark Angels in the process. Which was stupid from the start as The Rock is never anywhere near any Fallen hunting missions. Abaddon sought to use it on the space between Vigilus and its moon Neo-Vellum, altering the planet's orbit in a way that would reshape the Nachmund Gauntlet if not close it completely, thus ensuring that the Imperium Nihilus was lost for good.

The Fallen Librarian was pleased to help with such a major blow against the Imperium, and the Voidclaw was fired. Needless to say, this royally fucked over just about ''everybody'' on Vigilus. Mercifully, the Dark Angels were later able to find the Citadel Vigilant, destroy the Voidclaw before it could close the Gauntlet, and deal with the Fallen in their usual manner, which might make their abandoning the White Scars (and probably other forces) look like it was a necessary move to the other Imperials. They won't know about the Fallen, but they will know the Dark Angels broke off from their missions to go off and deal with this giant threat.