Editing Black Crusade (section)

==[[The 13th Black Crusade]] Ver 2.0: The Gathering Storm==
Four game editions and twenty-odd real world years later, Games Workshop decides to revisit Abby's 13th temper tantrum, as new company policy [[Advancing the Storyline|dictated that the timeline would ''finally'' advance]].

While it followed the same general beats of the Eye of Terror campaign, the massive Chaos force that broke upon the Cadian system was no longer the bulk of Abbadon's forces... but its ''vanguard''. A much larger Chaos fleet was inbound, led by the ''Vengeful Spirit'' itself, with the Blackstone Fortress ''Will of Eternity'' now as the Black Fleet's ace-in-the hole (which begs the question where the Planet Killer went to).

Despite all of this Abaddon wasn't going to get a victory handed to him on a golden platter, as the Imperials fought back as hard as anyone with their backs to the wall could. Battered battlefleets harried Abaddon's ships as they pushed through to Cadia, trying to buy as much time as they could for the defenders on the ground to shore up their fortifications.

And ''then'' when no one was expecting it, the '''Phalanx''' transitioned into the midst of the Black Fleet, and with its mighty bow guns, [[Awesome|crippled the Blackstone Fortress and a sizeable portion of the Black Fleet as a whole]]. So much for that ace in the hole.

The ground war fared much better for Abby's forces, but here again the Imperial forces fought tooth and nail, and although they were gradually pushed back from their ramparts and trenches, they made the Despoiler's lackeys pay for every bloody foot they took. Kasr Kraf, the last bastion, eventually fell, but the fight continued under the shadows of the Elysion Pylon fields, where Abaddon himself finally deigned to make an appearance to try and take out [[Creed]] and his command. The Lord Castellan escaped to fight another day, but not before losing his BFF Kell in the process.

When the Pylon Fields suddenly came to life (the results of a collaboration between Archmagos [[Belisarius Cawl]] and the [[Necron]] [[Trazyn the Infinite]]), Abaddon was forced to make a tactical withdrawal back to his flagship. Having enough of all this nonsense, Abaddon triggered his Plan B: '''throw the Blackstone Fortress at the planet.''' Which he accomplished by ordering his lackeys to ram the intact hulk of the fortress with their ships, straight into Cadia.

Cadia burned, and with its ancient pylon fields toppled, the Eye of Terror could no longer be contained. The [[Great Rift]] was born, and the Imperium of Mankind suddenly found itself effectively cut in half.

Despite a predictable amount of fragmentation among the constituent warbands occurring after Cadia's fall, the Black Crusade is still ongoing.