The 13th Black Crusade

"Since the time of The Fall, our race has been haunted by, what we, in our reckless pursuit of hedonistic indulgence, gave birth to. Though our dreams once overturned worlds and quenced suns, we are now but fitful shadows clinging to the edge of existence. All the stars in the sky cannot blot out the hateful glare of the Red Moon's Eye. The birthing place of The Great Enemy pulses with all the malice of a daemon that is dreaming, casting its shadow over all we have ever done and all we ever shall. Every twisted strand of Fate and casting of the Runes leads me to this time, to this place, and it is clear that the final battle awaits me at the ancient Crone Worlds. A conflict the likes of which has not been seen since the Mon-Keigh warred among themselves, and the corpse of a seer fell to his traitorous son, is coming and all my steps lead towards it, no matter that I walk other paths. I see the stars stained red with the blood of the Mon-Keigh and, though their wars do not concern me and I would gladly let them destroy one another, I know that to avoid this fight is to condemn my race to inevitable doom. And though all I see is darkness, I know that I will not flinch from my destiny"

– Eldrad, musing on his (now-Retconned) doom.

The 13th Black Crusade
Date	999.M41 - Current
Scale	Multiple Sectors
Theatre	13th Black Crusade
Status	Inconclusive.
Belligerents
Chaos	The Imperium of Man, Eldar
Commanders and Leaders
Abaddon The Despoiler, Typhus, Kossolax the Foresworn	Lord Castellan Ursarkar E. Creed, Saint Celestine, Belisarius Cawl, Necron intervention via Trazyn the Infinite
Strength
Black Legion, Traitor Legions (Alpha Legion, Death Guard, Emperor's Children, Iron Warriors, Night Lords, Thousand Sons, World Eaters, Word Bearers), Astartes Renegades (Crimson Slaughter, Extinction Angels, The Pyre, Violators, Warp Ghosts, Sons of Malice), Traitor Titan Legions (Deaths Heads, Death Stalkers, Fire Masters, Iron Skulls, Legio Vulcanum), Traitor Guard (5th Columnius, 666th Regiment of Foot, Discilian Apostates, Jenen Ironclads, Sentrek Freemenm the Traitor 9th, Ubridius Light Infantry, Volscani Cataphracts), various Fleets of Chaos (an estimated 38 different fleets).	Adeptus Astartes Chapters (Angels of Absolution, Angels of Vigilance, Angels Sanguine, Brazen Claws, Dark Angels, Death Spectres, Doom Eagles, Exorcists, Excoriators, Harbingers, Howling Griffons, Iron Hands, Iron Knights, Iron Snakes, Marines Exemplar, Night Watch, Novamarines, Relictors, Subjugators, Storm Warriors, Space Wolves, Storm Warriors, Ultramarines, White Consuls, White Scars), Adeptus Sororitas Orders (Bloody Rose, Ebon Chalice, Martyred Lady, Ermine Mantle, Wounded Heart), Astra Militarum Regiments (Avelornian Gunners, Bar-El Penal Legions, Cadian Karskin, Cadian Shock, Cadian Whiteshields, Drookian Fen Guard, Finreht Highlanders, Gudrunite Rifles, Jouran Dragoons, Kellersburg Irregulars, Gnovian Gharkas, Mordant Acid Dogs, Narsine Yeomanry, Necromundan 8th, Thracian Guard, Van Demans World Redbacks, Zenonian Free Companies), Adeptus Questoris (House Krast, House Arokon), Titan Legions (Metalica, Ignatum, Gryphonicus, Astorum, Sinister), Adeptus Mechanicus (Skitarii regiments, Ordo Reductor, Ordinatii), Imperial Navy Battlefleets (Cadia, Corona, Gothic, Scarus, Solar).
Losses
High. One Blackstone Fortress is lost, along with unknown number of ships of the Black Fleet.	Extremely High. The Cadian Gate is lost, and the Great Rift tears the Imperium in twain.
Outcome
*Cadia is destroyed, and the Cadian Gate is blown wide open. The Eye of Terror grows into the Great Rift, and cuts the Imperium in half. While the Imperium has managed to stabilize things on the side where Terra is, thanks to the resurrection of Roboute Guilliman, Chaos forces now have free reign over what is now known as Imperium Nihilus.

Launched in what might be considered the final hours of the 41st Millennium, the 13th Black Crusade is Abaddon the Despoiler's latest attempt at trying to bring down the Imperium -- and very nearly did so. As of the current timeline, its still ongoing, with no signs of slowing down.

Signs of the End

A Creeping Doom

In the chaos of the end of the millennium, the first signs that Abby was up to no good was not the appearance of war fleets. Oh no, instead what happened was the sudden jump of sightings of abandoned vessels getting spat out of the warp at in the sectors surrounding Cadia. Though rare, such a large instance hulks showing up at the same time wasn't unheard of either, though their convergence upon the core worlds of the systems merited enough of a response that system defense ships had to be scrambled to deal with them.

Warriors of the Adeptus Astartes were also among those called to intercept these derelicts, but what they found were disease-ridden nightmares filled with toxic filth. When news of this spread to the rest of the Navy, every wreck subsequently encountered were destroyed ASAP with torpedos and macrocannons from afar. However, Abbadon's strategy had already begun to manifest.

Outbreaks of sickness soon broke out among the ranks of the Imperial Navy, which coincided with the sudden sighting of the Chaos warship called the Plagueclaw in the Urthwart system. With more and more navy personnel in the region fallen ill, the number of intercept-capable ships dropped as well, weakening the overall sector. Despite this the caravan of diseased ships continued to drop from the warp, all in direct course for important worlds. Ad-hoc groupings of ships formed to try and destroy the hulks before they reached those planets, and an unofficial fleet under Admiral Quarren assembled in Belis Corona to hunt down the Plagueclaw.

What it encountered instead was far, far, worse. In the Frenerax Dust cloud, the battle group was jumped by the infamous Terminus Est, flagship of Typhus, the Herald of Nurgle. Outgunned, the fleet still managed to fight its way free, but for some reason Typhus deigned not to pursue.

The months that would follow would bear out just why.

Unbelief

Despite barely surviving from the encounter with Typhus, it was not yet over for Admiral Quarren's men. Many would sicken and die from disease on the return trip to Belis Corona, but the fleet still managed to return with it ships still usable.

Compared to Belis Corona though, it was pretty bad. Many plague hulks had slipped through the piecemeal blockades arrayed against them, and the same disease that had infected their crew spread like wildfire through the inhabited worlds of the Cadian and Agripinaa sectors. As the plagues killed millions, panic soon spread, and inter-system traffic was halted to contain the pandemic.

As despair and morale among the local populations fell, apocalyptic cults began to appear on every benighted world, and preached that the Emperor's wrath had descended upon everyone as punishment for their wickedness. Only the faithful would be spared the Curse of Unbelief, and masses of self-flagellating devotees began to fill the streets of these worlds, attracted by both their fiery rhetoric as well as their surprising health.

Just at a time when the Imperial Guard forces were begining to have to deal with local mobs killing people left and right, the dead came back as servants of Chaos, the infections of Nurgle clearly serving as a time-delayed invasion tool.

Within months millions of plague zombies clawed themselves out from the makeshift graves they had been buried in among the dozens of worlds in the Belis Corona and Agripinaa sectors, and threw themselves on their still-living relatives. The Guard are pushed to the breaking point trying to contain both the zombie outbreak and the mobs of zealots running amok, while the Navy was still recovering from the initial plagues, and thus in no position to either defend these worlds or bring in orbital support.

The Terminus Est at the head of a Chaos fleet entered the sector, to begin running amok against the defenseless Imperial worlds.

Echoes of War

Faith and Zealotry

The Curse of Unbelief had a radical affect on the population of the outlying worlds of Belis Corona and Agrappinna, causing civil disorder so widespread that local government mandates were incapable of stopping mob rule, which largely broke down into violently killing whoever was thought to be a heretic. This further destabalized the sector, and even resulted in damage to important military infrastructure from rioters.

The Warp responded to such an outflowing of zeal and bloodletting in many places. Warp Storm Baphomael widened to engulf the edges of the Cadian system, while the Choir Chamber of Astropaths in Belisar (and the top nine layers of the hive spire it was on) was consumed in a massive psychic explosion. But that was not all, because the signs that something bad was still planned. Even the strategically inept normies could tell that there was a greater plan at play here, and the civilian populace was terrified that they'd be next.

The Ecclessiarchy attempted to respond to the disorder by dispatching clergy, confessors, preachers, and holy people in efforts to calm the people down, but it had little effect. Why the Ecclesiarchy didn't just deploy Sisters of Battle is a mystery that only the writers could make clear to us, but in any case people were scared out of their wits.

I certainly didn't help the situation when unknown raiders violently assaulted the Agri-world of Dentor, and butchered entire communities, before burning their homes down to the ground. Not only reducing the inflow of food to the main system, they also managed to cause substantial harm to the morale of civilians in the sector.

Back in Cadia, Adepts monitoring the mysterious Pylons noted that they seemed to be vibrating on a frequency similar to a ship's Gellar Field, leading them to theorize that it was keeping the Warp Storm at bay somehow. Microscopic stress fractures were beginning to show however, which led many to worry that the Pylons might break themselves apart if things continue long enough.

Tumbling Down

Word of the aftermath of brutal raids similar to what happened to Dentor eventually filtered back to Segmentum command, but with its forces stretched by pague zombies, armed mobs, and Chaos Warfleets, there was little it could do. The settlements on Sarlax and Amistel fell, and video recordings confirmed that Heretic Marine forces were indeed in the area. A discernable pattern emerged of the direction of the attacks, and all information seemed to indicate they were heading in the direction of Cadia. In preparation, the Imperial Navy slowly pulled all available ships and not dead/zombified/hospitalized personnell to prepare a defence.

While Imperial forces consolidated, they were by no means finished. On Lelithar, a figure calling himself The Voice of the Emperor was causing unrest and dissent. With his powerful speeches, he stirred the restless populations into open sedition, and his followers quickly overran vital Imperial facilities like bases and stockpiles. Once he and his followers had taken the space ports, the rebellion spread uncontrolled across the sector, with his cults appearing on the worlds of Yayor, Amistel, Albitern, and Bar-El. This not only caused a substantial loss of material and manpower, but also created a secondary front that would benefit the forces of Chaos in the long run.

The disruption the Voice's followers had caused spurred an immediate intellectual response form the Imperials: call him a heretic and fight for the sector. Civilian and military forces in the sector rallied around this cause, especially the promise of being able to avenge some of the worlds that had been devastated. In an effort to shorten the war, Command ordered Kill-Teams and assassins to try and kill the Voice, but these efforts all failed.

The Main Event

Should Have Been More Obvious

TACTICAL GENIUS (and a bit of luck too)

While the surrounding regions began to feel the pressure from the increasing frequency of Chaos-related attacks, Cadia remained a bastion of order and stability. Command expected that a massive attack was imminent, the planet recalled all of its deployed regiments back home; everything from Kasrkins and Whiteshields to children with rocks, sticks, and pails of shit were rallied on the planet surface. Hundreds of extra landing fields were made ready, as well as infrastructure to house and support hundreds of thousands of troopers prepared at Kasr Holn, Helotas, and Fremas.

Preperations were going well, and the arrival of an elite host of Imperial Guardsmen known as the Volscani Cataphracts was eagerly anticipated by Cadia command and the men already on the planet. Cadian command waited for the new arrivals to present themselves, but unknown to them, the Volscani had turned traitor, and were in the perfect place to do extreme damage to the Imperium: vulnerable landing fields with thousands of unsuspecting and poorly armed men, vehicles, and transports.

The Volscani opened fire, and in those first few minutes of confusion caused unimaginable damage. Governor Primus Marus Porelska was an early casualty of the fighting, and the rest of the Cadian High Command soon followed. After the initial shock, an immediate counterattack was made to control the damage. The Battle of Tyrok Fields, was over, and the Volscani were driven off and scattered.

Despite this victory, Abbadon had achieved precisely what he had wanted. Cadian Leadership had been utterly destroyed. There was only a single survivng officer of high rank, which is the good news. The bad news is that this officer turned out to be Ursakar E. Creed, who was immediately named Lord Castellan.

Fortress Cadia, Once More

A man of great charisma and [[Creed|strategic knowledge], Creed set about organizing and the Cadian forces that were already on-world. Defenses were strengthened, munitions were stockpiled, and food and water kept in ready. With his new influence as Lord Castellan and acting Governor Primus, Creed sent out politely asked everyone to quit fucking around and get over to help defend the real target of the Black Crusade. The Space Wolves arrived with fleets and men to defend the planet, while more aid from nearby systems of Imperial Guard and Navy forces would arrive as soon as the Administratum got off its ass and made itself useful for once.

The Navy arrived in enough strength to send out patrols and scout parties, and even managed to intercept several raiding parties. These soon reported on a massive force of ships headed towards Cadia, a force that would later be called the Black Fleet. In preparation, the Navy withdrew to the protection of Port Aurent.

Curiously, there were sightings of Eldar fleeing the Cadian Gate, but given that Eldar are giant pussies no one really thought much of it except for a couple of nerds in the Inquisition.

Opening Moves

The Kasrkin had not been idle, and had been making probing raids into the edges of their system. Urthwart was identified as the primary muster point for the forces of the Despoiler. The Cadians found nothing but death and plague zombies on that planet, but as they withdrew to their drop ships and carriers, Abaddon sprung his trap; the Imperial Fleet that had carried them there had been forced to flee before the massive Chaos armada that was coming in hot on the system, led by the Planet Killer.

Abbadon ordered the destruction of the planet to prevent a possible rescue effort and eliminate the Imperial Guard regiments already stationed. The destruction was so total that smaller warp storms completely disappeared and Astropaths far from the planet felt it.

The Black Fleet swept through the system in an atempt to catch the fleeing Imperial Fleet. The Plagueclaw and Terminus Est was among them, as well as the two missing Blackstone Fortresses from the Gothic War. Naval patrols fell back before the tide of corrupted warships, but an informal fleet formed under the command of Admiral Pulaski and mustered in the Ormantep system. Their goal was to perform a delaying action so that more troops could be sent to Cadia.

Abbadon had been reading up on Stalin lately, and decided to use numbers to try and overwhelm the Navy. This backfired spectatularly when the Imperials decided to actually use their fucking brain, resuting in higher casualties than were really necessary for Chaos forces. However, his strategy id kinda work, and they managed to rbeak through the Agrapinaa sector.

When Pulaski's flagship The Honour and Duty, exploded in a cloud of plasma, the remaining Navy ships prepared to make one last stand. But Admiral Quarren arrived, and together the combined ragtag fleet fought its way through back to safety at Demios Binary.

Nurgle and Khorne give their Blessings

With the Imperial Fleets driven off, the Agripinaa sector was left open for the diseased followers of the Plague God. It didn't take long for the worlds there to become visions of Nurgle's Garden, even as the Imperial defenders tried to fight the invaders off. On Amistel Majoris Plague Marines decimated the local PDF, before the Drookian Fen Guard made planetfall and aided in the defense. Someone clearly decided that World War 1 tactics were absolutely genius on the offensive, and so both sides decided to dig trenches and engage in siege warfare.

The Howling Griffons fought through the Chaos blockade, enabling the ships of the Legio Astorum to deploy their titans on the front lines, and dropping in to support the Titans with their own forces. They were met by Titans of Chaos, and this ensured that the planet would probably be utterly fucked until the next time GW decides to advance the plot.

On Lelithar, Militarum forces as well as the Titans of Legio Ignatum laid siege on the Imperial palace, where the Voice of the Emperor was said to have turned into his headquarters. Millions of fatalities occurred when the city's population threw themselves against the Imperial Guard. The siege is still ongoing, and the Astartes of the Death Spectres pledged their support in bringing the city to heel. Worse than that, the Guard was in no position to comfortably siege the enemy, as sickness still spread through most of the Guard, causing casualties.

The void war was not going any better, and Admiral Quarren had to pull his battered fleet back to Cadia as the wave of Chaos ships continued their inexorable advance. On the way, Abbadon took a moment to glass Demios Binary to satisfy his anger management issues with the Blackstone Fortress, and then the orbital defences of Solar Mariatus was quickly overwhelmed by an unending tide of traitor drop ships, which disgorged regiment upon regiment of surviving Volscani Cataphracts unto its surface.

The world was turned into a forward base for the Chaos forces, with which further attacks into the Cadian system were made, and the ore and mining value that the planet provided were probably not a coincidence either. The inmates of St. Josmane's Hope rose up in bloody rebellion, just as the Violators renegade Astartes attacked. The traitors were welcomed as liberators, and had their gratitude returned with conscription into the Chaos Army.

Blacken The Skies

Meanwhile, Admiral Quarren and his fleet held the line, but after three days its force was spent. He ordered those ships still capable to do so to make for the Forge World of Kantrael for repairs and rearming. Three Ramilies-class star forts made up Cadia's orbital defenses, and while one fell to the invaders, the other two were self-destructed to deny their enemy naval assets. With orbit around Cadia secure, the Chaos ships began to disgorge countless landing craft, each filled to the brim with traitor forces.

The Cadians predicatably fought tooth an nail for every worthless scrap of ground on the planet's surface. If you haven't read the Cadia article, the short version is this: the moment you step inside a Cadian city, there is probably 3 buildings in which a whole regiment of Guardsmen are waiting to fill you with flashlight fire, not counting the dozen or so Melta and Plasma weapons that'll cook anything short of a Chaos lord into Chaos McNuggets instantly.

Predictably, the traitors decided to settle into an agonizing Siege, though why the Death Guard weren't used here and not some not important nothing of a world is beyond us.

Bad Times Everywhere Else

While the Cadian Gate was the focal point of the Black Crusade, Chaos was also busy making things miserable for other places as well.

The Battle of Medusa

In order to keep the Iron Hands busy, Abaddon ordered several battlegroups to attack the Chapter homeworld of Medusa. All ten of the Chapter's Land Behemoth Fortress-Monasteries were deployed, and with the support of the heavily-mechanized planetary defense force, intercepted the ten-thousand tank strong Chaos invaders. In a running battle that played out over the course of five days, the Iron Hands Behemoths threw back their attackers, with their Ordinatus-grade weaponry destroying hundreds of tanks per volley.

Eventually, someone got the bright idea to not try and zerg rush the front of the Fortresses with big fuckoff guns and outflank the giant vehicles. With their mobile bases' vulnerable rear housing exposed, the Iron Hands desperately countrerstruck with Assault Squads, taking serious casualties but blunting the traitor attack. The remaining forces were mopped up by Chapter Predators, and thus concluded the battle of Medusa

Chaos All Around The Gate

The world of Belisar was paid an unwelcome visit by Lucius the Eternal and his Emperor's Children groupies, bringing untold slaughter upon that world, while the Night Lords introduced the people of the Scarus sector to an up close and personal kind of terror. At Thracian Primaris Governor Thybault Helican XXIII fought against a rising tide of deviant cultists, while the Arbites under his command struggled to maintain order.

In Segmentum Obscurus, Alpha Legion sleeper cells went active, and did their part in delaying the arrival of Loyalist Astartes reinforcements across the segmentum. In the wake of this disruption came the forces of the Dark Mechanicum and Traitor Titan legions, as well as the usual wave of mutants, heretics, and daemons.

Every world within a thousand light years of the Cadian Gate found itself fighting for its survival. And the worse was yet to come.

Keeping the Space Elves Busy

The Imperium was not alone in battling the Chaos tide washing over the worlds around the Eye of Terror, as the Eldar had their own part to play in the proceedings. As he foresaw the dire ramifications of letting the Imperium collapse under the Chaos onslaught, Eldrad spurred his Craftworld into action. Ulthwe's Storm Guardians were deployed in strength, with each task force given a Waystone that contained a fragment of Eldrad's psyche to safely guide them to the warzones where they could make a difference.

At Belial IV, a strike force led by the Phoenix Lords would disrupt the raising of a dark cathedral by the Word Bearers to the Ruinous Powers. Even the Webway was not free from conflict, as the Harlequins fought a running battle with the Thousand Sons sorcerer Ahriman to prevent him from breaching the Black Library and pillaging it of its secrets.

Dorn's Regal Daughter, Assaulted

In its moorings in geosynchronous orbit above Terra, the Phalanx, Fortress-Monastery and home of the Imperial Fists Chapter, found itself under attack, as daemons and Chaos Space Marines started to stream through the warp gate at its ancient engine's core. Led by the Iron Warriors Warsmith Shon'tu and the undivided Daemon Prince Be'lakor, these unlikely allies wanted to upstage Abaddon's galactic bar crawl by conquering the venerable battle fortress, before they turned its powerful weaponry on the Imperial Palace itself.

It could not have come at a worst timing, as the bulk of the Chapter was away on other missions. The only thing standing between the invaders and defeat was thirty veterans of the First Company, as well as the entirety of the 3rd Company, which had just returned to combat readiness. Led by Brother-Captain Tor Garadon, and supported by the bond-serfs of the station, the Chapter had the home advantage for knowing every hall and choke point, and many a daemonic charge was stopped cold by measured bolter fire. The armored castellum within the space fort kept firing until their ammo reserves ran dry and their positions overrun by Iron Warriors war machines.

Such dogged resistance by the Sons of Dorn was not enough, as Chaos corruption (helped along by Warpsmiths) soon turned the superstructure itself on the defenders. Whole decks now looked like reflections of Medrengard instead of the elegant but ancient stone and gold paneling that had been in place since Dorn walked the halls. The infestation spread rapidly, and even though the Fists held fast this was not a foe that they could fight directly. Scrap code was eroding loyal machine spirits, and soon even the dorsal batteries would fall under Chaos control.

Garadon had to do the unthinkable -- turn the venerable fortress' weapons against itself to cut out the infestation. After he withdrew his forces to yet-uninfected sections, he purged ten percent of the Phalanx's own superstructure. It was painful, but the sacrifice was worth it, as the hold of the corrupt machine virus on the fortress was broken. He then took the opportunity to order the Phalanx into the Warp -- wherever the fortress went, it would no longer be a threat to Terra. With that, Garadon rallied his battle-brothers to scour Shon'tu's presence permanently from the Phalanx's halls.

While the Iron Warriors were soon dealt with, and Shon'tu given a permanent Imperial Fisting care of Terminator Squad Furan, Garadon still had to contend with Be'lakor's daemons, who were much more deadlier now that the Phalanx was in the Warp. The diminished Fists were driven back to the Chamber of Storms in what looked to be the Company's final stand.

Sure of his inevitable success, Be'lakor sent his hordes against the Imperial Fists, and again and again they were driven back. Soon the first-dammned himself joined the battle, but he had over-estimated his command over the forces in the Warp, as the Legion of the Damned started to manifest in force to aid the Fists in their fight. What had initially been a sure victory turned into a rout, and the daemon prince himself saw his physical form torn asunder by Garadon himself.

As the Fists and Legion mopped up, Garadon took stock of his situation. Of the Astartes he started with, about half of the 3rd Company and 1st Company Veterans remained, and a tenth of the Phalanx's superstructure was simply gone, with the fortress itself severely damaged in countless other places. As for the Legion of the Damned itself, the spectral marines didn't dematerialize as was their usual habit, and instead stood at attention, as if waiting for something. Needless to say, aside from Garadon himself, everyone else gave the Legion a wide berth.

Sergeant Furan and Commodore Trevaux advised Garadon to make haste for the Iron Ring of Mars, so that repairs to the Phalanx could be made, but as fate had other ideas: garbled signals coming from Cadia were received by the Librarians on duty, desperate for any kind of aid. Garadon's course was clear: Cadia needed reinforcement, and reinforcements it would get. The Phalanx's ancient plasma drives flared, on course to the fortress world, and destiny.

The Fruits of Defiance

The battle on Cadia had become a bloody stalemate, but it had done its job in pinning down the Chaos invaders there for the time being. The Imperium would definitely capitalize on this in a big way.

A Flicker of Hope

Admiral Quarren's fleet would receive much-needed reinforcements from Cypra Mundi, with the hope that it would eventually drive the Chaos ships back from the Cadian Gate. The extra ships made the difference, and Quarren was able to eke victories against fleets much larger than his own. These created holes in the Chaos Fleet's blockade of the Cadian and Scelus systems, which Imperial reinforcements eagerly streamed through. Meanwhile at Belis Corona, the entirety of Battlefleet Gothic was deployed, in an all-or-nothing attack that would either drive Abaddon's minions out, or leave Battlefleet Obscurus permanently crippled.

Dozens of Astartes Chapters would be part of the reinforcements heading to Cadia, including the Blood Angels and the Dark Angels. The Sons of Sanguinius would strike at the largest World Eaters horde in recent memory at the world of Kasr Partox, and would go on to defeat a Bloodthirster on Agripinaa. The Dark Angels in the meantime would team up with their rivals in the Space Wolves, and battled Typhus' forces on Macharia, Kasr Sonnen and Korolis.

The Black Templars and Imperial Fists would also make their presence known, while Inquisitor Coteaz led Grey Knight strike forces against daemonic foces on Agripinaa, Xersia, and Kasr Holn. Meanwhile White Scars brotherhoods would strike out from Cadia itself, disrupting what little cohesion the Chaos forces had remaining.

Erebus: Party Pooper

The Word Bearers however, and Dark Apostle Erebus in particular, were not idle, and prepared to enact a terrible ritual on the worlds they had conquered. As Imperial reinforcements began streaming into the Cadian sector, the ritual hit its peak, and suffice to say things went to Hell very quickly. As a million innocent lives were sacrificed, massive Warp Storms hit the areas around the Eye of Terror. So intense was the result that it stopped inter-sector transit in its tracks and effectively isolated each sector from each other. What's worse, the Warp Storms made it easier for daemons to manifest, so the embattled worlds now had to deal with hordes of Daemons wanting to party as well.

Typhus took advantage of the isolation wrought on the Agripinaa sector, and unleased the full strength of the Death Guard Plague Marines under his command, and reduced the already ravaged worlds further into ruin. The Imperial defense would somehow hold despite this, but its surviving population risked starvation as the Agri-Worlds of Yayor, Dentor, and Ulthor had already been lost.

And word spread that the Planet Killer was slowly making its way to Cadia. Despite this, the Imperial Navy would swear that it would keep the space lanes around the Cadian Gate clear, and in many actions since would see Admiral Quarren hailed as a hero.

Although Cadian High command would be forced to relocate to Kasr Gallan, Cadia still held against all odds, so dogged was its defenders in giving up its lives to defend it. Millions had already died, but it was close to a year and the Despoiler had still not conquered it. If it could only hold on longer, then even more reinforcements would come, until Abaddon's forces were drowned in the sheer numerical might of the Imperium's armies.

Sadly these hopes were all too easily crushed, as a new, more terrifying phase was about to come.

Round 2: The Eye of the Storm

Taking Stock of Things

Through the tireless efforts of Creed and his command, as well as the countless weary defenders, Cadia somehow held on, if barely. The massive Chaos invasion had been pushed back, but as Artificers tried to restore humbled defenses, battles still raged with those invaders still on-world. What's more, there was no way of contacting the outer worlds of the system, as the comm relays had been damaged in the fighting. Creed did still have means to contact the battered Imperial Fleet in orbit, and asked what ships were still capable moving on their own power to do some recon at the system's outer edges.

One thing bothered him immensely: in all the months of fighting, not once did he get a report of the Despoiler personally leading the traitors. Something was afoot, but he wasn't quite sure what yet. Was the Despoiler planning on bypassing Cadia entirely, and make a run for the inner Segmentum? That was a real possibility, and if Abaddon had a mind to do so, there wasn't anything Creed could do to stop him. Of the ships left in orbit, only the Space Wolves battle barge Firemane's Fang could still move and fight, and only due to the ministrations of its Iron Priests. Also, surely Abaddon's pride wouldn't allow him to not personally oversee the destruction of this world that had defied him for so long? While Creed was sure that it would truly be the end of them should Abaddon deign to make an appearance, at least it would buy the Imperium time to build up the forces needed to banish the Despoiler back to the Warp. Permanently. And so, he planned to give Abaddon a target that was simply too tasty to ignore.

The Last Minute Build-Up

Creed moved the entirety of his command to Kasr Kraf, the last bastion still left in one piece after months of fighting. Located in Cadia Secundus, the fortress overlooked the Elysion Fields, where the towering Cadian Pylons have stood standing in their quiet vigil for time immemorial. The defenders began strengthening the already-formidable structure, with combat engineers further expanded the existing archeologist tunnel networks and caverns beneath and turned them into fallback points and other defenses, while Mechanicus Adepts scoured the many fallen bastions in the region for parts and materials to bring back to life the fortress' aegis and weapons emplacements.

Everywhere else in Cadia Secundus it was the same story, with Shock Trooper regiments frantically trying to restore ravaged defenses with whatever they could scrounge. Beside them the remnants of the initial Astartes deployments labored as well, survivors from what initially started as proud Battle Companies, now reduced to scattered squads of determined warriors.

The Space Wolves of Orven Highfell 's Great Company took residence north of Kasr Kraf, in the remains of Kasr Jark, and only ranged out to hunt for manifested daemons still haunting those desolate plains. Further north from that, the Dark Angels the 4th Company under Brother-Captain Korahael worked to turn their grounded Strike Cruiser Sword of Defiance into a mighty bastion, as enough of its naval-grade weaponry survived its crash landing. Finally, south of Kasr Kraf, the warriors of Marshall Marius Amalrich's Black Templars spread themselves among the lines of Guardsmen to bolster their confidence.

The battle sisters of the Order of the Martyred Lady garrisoned themselves across the valley, in the massive Shrine of Saint Morrican. When the winds blew from the east, it brought with it the scent of incense, which strengthened the faith and determination of the troops of Kasr Kraf.

Worst. News. Ever.

Creed kept the defenders busy with drills and even more drills, but the Lord Castellan was busy with other pursuits as well. Working with Magos Klarn, he had parts from the ruined psychic choir at Kasr Luten salvaged to make a make-shift beacon that he hoped would create a signal powerful enough to get a call for reinforcement out. Despite grave misgivings from many under his command, Creed ordered a message to be sent, but it came at the cost of most of the lives of the remaining Astropaths and sanctioned psykers he had left, and no one was sure if anyone managed to receive it.

It was then that the defense monitor Pyrax Orchades, its superstructure damaged and its crew mostly dead, returned as the sole survivor of the recon fleet that left several weeks earlier. It came with terrible news -- the true bulk of the Black Fleet was inbound, with the Blackstone Fortress finally confirmed to be among its vast number.

Creed's worst fear had come to pass. Round two was about to begin.

The Storm Breaks

Not Stopping For Nothing

Like a school of angry and evil space fish.

Abaddon's Black Fleet was as massive as it was implacable. It was made up of countless ships of all types, from Great Crusade-era survivors aligned to each of the Traitor Legions, to mutated Daemon Ships, to foetid Plague husks, to Space Hulks and cargo and bulk haulers with their holds filled to the brim with recent converts to Chaos. Each Chaos warlord had differing reasons for joining this massive armada, but what was plain to see was that they were all heading straight for Cadia.

Despite being devastated during the start of the Black Crusade, the remnants of the Imperial Navy tried to hinder the passage of the Black Fleet twice. The first time was at Vigilatum by the ships of Battlefleets Scarus and Corona, while the second time was an ambush led by Admiral Dostov's Victory-class battleships at the Iron Graveyard. Both were brave, if fruitless attempts to buy time, as the ships of the Black Fleet plowed through barely without being slowed down.

Back at Cadia, the news of the Blackstone Fortress was inbound put Creed and his subordinates into a flurry of preparations. On its own, the Fortress could scour all life off the planet, but Cadia still had one more ace in its sleeve. In the wake of the Gothic War, the Adeptus Mechanicus had worked to find a counter to the Warp Beam that the fortress was infamous for. Their solution was the Null-Array, a hybrid of a void shield and Gellar field large enough to cover Cadia itself, which would in theory dissipate the energy weapon's fury.

Cadia's network of null-array projectors were barely finished when the initial attacks of the Black Crusade began. Months later, none of them remained intact. Tech-Priests tirelessly busy with restoring conventional defenses were re-tasked to bringing back the Null-Array network back to life. What Cadia needed was time, but time was a resource that was very quickly running out for the planet.

One Final Roll of the Dice

Yiff in defiance.

The Black Fleet was within a day's travel from Cadia, and the Null-Array was not even remotely close to ready, with even Magos Klarn morosely noting that even partial effective coverage was not possible in the time that they had left.

Sven Bloodhowl came forward with a bold suggestion. He and his Great Company, the Firehowlers, would take the Firemane's Fang and use it to board the Blackstone Fortress, and do everything that they could to slow down its transit. The Firehowlers would not go on this suicide mission alone, and nearly two hundred Space Marines of the various Chapters already on-world joined them on the warship, along with the Cadian 13th regiment and a full maniple of Skitarii. The cheers of the defenders accompanied the daring raiders off, but these soon grew quiet when the battle barge finally broke orbit, and all communication was lost.

A day of uncomfortable waiting followed, and Creed did his best to ease his soldiers' doubts and shore up their morale in every way that he could. Whatever doubts and fears he personally felt he kept to himself, though his aide and lifetime friend Jarran Kell could easily read his darkening mood.

The first ships of the Black Fleet arrived on schedule, the crippled fleet that held orbit around the planet opened up with whatever weapons they still had functioning, while planetary batteries threw up their own withering fire in support. The skies were filled with brief, miniature suns, signaling the ends of martyred defender or traitor alike.

But this was merely the precursor, as the death glow of the last Imperial ship faded away a new moon was soon visible in the sky, made of blackest material and shaped like an eight-pointed star. The Will of Eternity had come, which meant that Bloodhowl's brave and ragtag strike force had failed.

Everyone held their breath, and expected the Fortress to vent its wrath on Cadia. They did not have to wait long, as from what looked like an angry red eye on its surface, a massive beam of searing Warp energy burst forth towards the planet...

Except the beam dispersed harmlessly before it even hit the planet's atmosphere. The Null-Array network had worked! The defenders of Kasr Kraf all cheered, none more loudly and enthusiastically than Creed himself. Only Magos Klarn stayed quiet, as barely an hour ago he had made a last-minute inspection of the projection grid. There he found most of his adepts slain, and xenos technology buttressing the null-array's circuitry, which increased its efficiency to the point that a single projector could protect the whole planet. Cadia had been saved yes, but by whose hand?

It was a mystery that had to wait for another time. The cheers faded, and the skies started to blacken with countless Traitor transports and drop ships. They may have disabled his knockout punch, but it was still the middle of the round, and Abaddon held every advantage.

Business As Usual

We will fight in the shade!

The bombardment weaponry of the Black Fleet opened up first, with macro cannon and melta torpedo alike pouring down a deluge of fiery death upon Cadia's already ravaged earth and rock. The void shields of the fortresses buckled and flared under that deadly downpour, and though most held there were a few that failed. These fizzled away in short-lived bursts of bright light, and were soon followed by explosions as the fleet's barrage broke through, and scoured those ramparts clear of life.

Return fire burst forth from the bastions of Kasr Kraf, as defense lasers and skyfire batteries sought out targets. Most blind-fired, but it accuracy didn't matter in this case, as the skies were filled with what seemed to be an endless swarm of drop-ships and transports.

To the west the macro-cannons of Kasr Stark roared one last time, before disappearing in a massive explosion as its ammunition bunker was penetrated by a melta torpedo, while up north the ground Sworded of Defiance semt up a broadside that destroyed an incoming drop-ship and sent its Helldrake escorts scrambling. The Valkyrie gunships of Clavin Surekka 's Howling 119th rose up to hunt, and quickly picked off targets before they darted back to the safety of friendly covering fire. Some hoped that the war would we won in the skies this time, that the Traitors would not have the chance to set foot on Cadian soil, but it was in vain, as there invaders outnumbered the defensive guns by a hundredfold.

The void shields of Martyr's Rampart finally gave out, and follow-up salvoes shattered its superstructure, dislodging guns the size of hab blocks and burying countless soliders in the debris. As Creed saw its undoing, he ordered the survivors back to Kasr Kraf, unwilling to waste lives in the wilderness when there were intact walls that needed defenders. These risked the fury of the bombardment to reach the fortress, and though many perished in the attempt, roughly eighty percent reached the safety of the curtain walls. Only the Black Templars stood their ground, determined to defend their positions to the last.

Close And Personal

It never ends.

As the drop-ships closed, the defenders of Kasr Kraf were suddenly given something more to worry about, as Dreadclaw drop pods came shrieking down unto the ramparts. There they disgorged their deadly cargo of Word Bearers and Alpha Legion Traitor Astartes, but while the Shock Troopers rallied to drive these unwelcome arrivals back, the Legionnaires played their trump card, and as they raised blasphemous icons reality tore asunder. Shrieking hordes of Daemons poured through, and what was an already tough fight became a battle for survival.

It was the same everywhere, as redoubt and gun emplacements fell from within, their defenders overwhelmed by the tide of Daemonkin. Many fled, only to be cut down by hellblade and claw, but many more still fought to the last, their defiance spurred on by the fiery sermons of their Ministorum priests.

Nowhere was the fighting harder than at the Shrine of Saint Morrican, as the blazing faith of the Sisters of Battle goaded the Daemons into attacking that sacred ground time and again. The surviving sisters of the many Orders there never took a step back, and under the determined gazes of their Canonesses Eleanor and Genevieve, threw back the ravening hordes with bolter and holy flame.

The first drop-ships to make it planetside landed on the east of Kasr Kraf, and from their holds rumbled forth innumerable Daemon-engines unto the cratered valleys, with the aim of reaching the eastern curtain wall. From their hidden positions the tanks of the Cadian 252nd fired their battle cannons, and the first wave of invaders were reduced to burning hulks of corrupted metal. The Chaos Baneblades that followed however were not even slowed, and their counter-barrage brought down part of the curtain wall, which buried three squadrons of Leman Russ tanks in return. Skull-decorated Rhino transports roared from behind the Baneblades and eagerly rushed toward the newly-made breach.

The makeshift defenses of Kasr Jark shook from Iron Warriors bombardment, and not one to wait, Orven Highfell ordered his brothers into their transports for an assault. Warsmith Krom Gat had expected this, and had fortified the approach to his location with drop-bastions and cursed aegis, all to slow down would-be attackers. But this did not deter the Sons of Russ, as they swept away all opposition in their way, and used Krom's own trenches as cover against his artillery barrages.

No Rest for the Virtuous

Cracks in the Facade

Hours turned into days, and still the traitors did not let up in their attack. The defenders took what rest they could, but many would push the limits of their bodies and sanity, if only to avoid the nightmares such fitful sleep would bring.

The walls would be swept clear of daemonspawn, only to be under attack anew. Kasr Jask finally fell to the spells of Elek Stane's Cyclopia Cabal, while three times did Master Korahael and his Dark Angels hurl back assaults from the berserkers of the World Eaters. And at the eastern curtain wall, the bravery and courage of the knights of House Raven were still not enough to keep it from collapsing entirely.

Through this breach came the Night Lords and Chaos Raptors hungry for new prey. Despite this the defenders fell back in good order, and took turns providing covering fire or withdrawing, but the Raptors were too swift. The stragglers were soon overwhelmed, and the rearguard followed not too long afterward.

On Creed's order the gates of the second curtain wall were sealed, as the Lord Castellan decided to sacrifice thousands to preserve ten times that number. Untold numbers died at their posts, some in despair, while others with stoic acceptance, as their line of retreat was cut off, but while eight of these great gates slammed shut as planned, two remained open.

Faltering Faith, Faltering Defenses

At the east gate the commander waited too long for stragglers, and when the gates finally tried to close, Chaos Hellbrutes were there waiting, and held the passage open with daemon-infused strength. Desperate defenders poured fired into them, and while they were able to take them down, a large warband made up of Possessed had managed to slip through before the gates ground shut.

Before the warband could do any damage, the remains of the Novamarines 2nd Company and Cadian 403rd intercepted them, and under the shadow of the Jorus Redoubt made their stand. It bought time for the tanks of 185th to turn their battle cannons on the traitors, but while the traitors were annihilated, scarcely a hundred of the 403rd remained, and none of the Novamarines survived the encounter.

The west gate, on the other hand, could not at all, as its locking mechanisms failed due to supernatural decay. The commander there ordered the 113rd Death's Head Baneblade company to use their tanks to block the opening, but it was too late; wave after wave of deranged Chaos Cultists streamed through. The traitor Astartes of the Black Legion followed, but by this point it was far beyond what the weary defenders could throw off. The gate was lost, and with it the second curtain wall.

Snuffing Out the Candles

The seventh day of the siege saw the Dark Angels under attack once more, but this time it was no normal bombardment pounding the Sword of Defiance's superstructure. The Terminus Est was its source, and each shell brought contagions virulent enough to fully liquefy an Astartes in their own armor. With annihilation as the alternative, Korahael ordered the 4th Company to evacuate the downed warship, but they were not out of danger yet, as the plains outside were still teeming with World Eaters eager to spill their blood.

There was no respite at the Shrine of Saint Morrican either, having been hit by ceaseless attacks since the siege started. Everyone inside was bone-weary, and while the structure had held admirably against attacks it had not been designed to defend against, there were limits to what it could endure. Its end came at the hands of a trio of Lord of Skulls, as their warp-forged cannons rained down boiling blood on the Sisters sheltering there. Many Sororitas were boiled alive in their armor, while others swept away, all while the Daemon Engines ground the structure to rubble under their massive tracks.

Canoness Genevieve led the counter-attack, as Seraphim Squads swept aside daemons to give their Retributor Squads clear lines of fire for their melta weaponry. One Daemon Engine's reactor was soon breached, and its detonation consumed its two siblings, as well as the entire north-east corner of the shrine. But that was the end for the basilica, and as its stones split apart and arches collapsed, the Sisters made preparations to withdraw back to Kasr Kraf.

Orven Highfell's Space Wolves finally triumphed against Krom Gat after days of trench warfare. The warsmith was torn apart, and his body was left to burn in his citadel, but the victory came at the cost of half the Ironwolves number. But the Wolves could not savor this victory, as Wolf Scouts came with news of the traitor Titans of Legio Vulcanum on the move. At his Wolf Guard's advice, Orven ordered his men to recover their fallen, and board their transports to make for Kasr Kraf. By nightfall, they were joined by Master Korahael and the remnants of his 4th company, whom they had assisted from being encircled by the Berserkers that hounded them.

One after another, the outposts surrounding Kasr Kraf fell, but in the south defiance still burned brightly. Martyr's Rampart still stood thanks to the bullheaded defense by Marshall Amalrich's Black Templars. Despite being outnumbered at times two-to-one, the Templars fury and zeal threw back Black Legion and Word Bearer alike, even as attrition was slowly grounding down their numbers.

Too Much, Even for Faith

By the eight day the walls of Kasr Kraf came under bombardment from the wastelands, and by this point whatever defiance the defenders had was nearly spent. Dark rumors spread amongst the ranks, and despite the best efforts of the Commissars and the regimental preachers, morale dropped like a rock.

If not for Creed, the fortress would have long fallen, and the Lord Castellan quelled the fears of the men and women under his command not with mere words, but by example -- he fought with them on the ramparts, ate with them, stole what furtive sleep he could with them. And where Creed went, Kell went as well, with the tattered colors of the Cadian 8th held high. Under the Lord Castellan's watchful eye, the Kriegan gates held firm, but at the eastern defenses, the situation teetered on a razor's edge.

There was no end to the defenders' resolve, at least. The surviving Valkyrie gunships of the Howling 118th ferried the remnants of the northern and eastern garrisons ceaselessly behind Kasr Kraf's walls, and soon Battle Sisters joined the guardsmen on the ramparts. These were soon joined by the Ironwolves and Korahael's 4th Company survivors, though not all of the Ironwolves apparently deigned to join the airlift. Rumors began to spread of feral warriors stalking the killing zones outside the wall, with their howls echoing in the wind, but whatever truth to this, Orven offered no answer.

The Howling 119th's Last Ride

The traitor Titans of the Legio Vulcanum continued with their implacable advance, and its princeps Malas Tiron was a veteran of the Long War. Thanks to a gift of the Dark Gods, his mind commanded the God-Machines directly, and the Titans moved as if part of one body. When a foe was found, they didn't last under the combined fire of the whole formation, and when the void shields of some of his units vanished under fire from the defenders, he deftly moved them back and allowed the less-damaged Titans take their place in the line. And so despite the furious fire of the defenders, the corrupted machines came closer and closer to the walls of Kasr Kraf.

The eastern defenses were saved once more through the efforts of the Howling 119th. With munitions low, its surviving Valkyries took to the skies one last time to intercept the giant machines. With the skies above the Titans swarming with Helldrakes, the 119th knew that it was a suicide mission, but after days of observing Legio Vulcanum they figured out that if they could some how take down the Warlord Titan Vessel of Damnation in command, the others would fall as well.

The void shields of the Warlord faltered, but it took the sacrifice of the majority of the 119th, and by then they were out of munitions. With a prayer commending his soul to the Emperor, Strekka drove his Valkyrie hard into the traitor machine's helm. The ensuing explosion that marked his martyrdom could be seen from the ramparts, and soon the Warlord shuddered to a halt. Its slaved machines spent a precious few moments in confusion, which the defenders took advantage of, as one more Warhound was blown to scrap by macro batteries.

Soldiers cheered, but those soon faded as the subordinate Titans seemed to have come to their senses, and recommenced their march. Only the Warlord remained unmoving for now, its head obscured by billowing black smoke.

The End of Defiance

Unwelcome Company

Urkanthos comes knocking

A black bolt fell from the skies, as one of the bigger players of the siege of Cadia had decided to take a direct hand in its proceedings. But this was not the Despoiler himself, but rather one of his lackeys -- Urkanthos, who until very recently was simply the Commander of the Black Fleet, but because of his victory against three Imperial Battleships in the void battles leading to the attack on the planet, had earned his ascension to Daemon Prince. The Scourgemaster was instructed by Abbadon to ensure the destruction of the fortress-world, and he intended to do it before the Despoiler lost his patience.

The Daemon Prince was soon joined by the Hounds of Abaddon, who hurled themselves at the Kriegan Gates, uncaring of their losses. Creed bellowed orders from the top of the barbican, and his soldiers slaughtered countless Traitors, but the Hounds kept up the assault. Orbital bombardment from the Black Fleet pounded the Gate indiscriminately, and slaughtered Imperial defender and Chaos cultist alike.

The Hounds were slowly making headway however, but eventually they were able to reach the gates. Demolition charges were placed, and the Kriegan Gates blew wide open in the explosions that followed. Urkanthos gave a roar of victory, and swept into the open gates, with the Hounds following close on his heels.

All or Nothing

When the Gates finally fell, it was up to the Kasrkin to shore up the defenses. Creed had three whole regiments in reserve, and he now sent them forth to hold the line. Battle cannons roared, lasguns flared, and the leading elements of the Hounds of Abaddon simply crumpled under the greatest single volley seen thus far on Cadia Secundus.

The Hounds however were undeterred by their losses, and slammed hard into the first line of bayonets. Urkanthos led them as they clawed at the defenders, with the mighty Daemon Prince's talons scything down a squad with each backhand swipe. With each kill, he felt himself grew stronger, as the blessings of the Blood God made themselves manifest.

As the Kasrkin battled at the gates, Creed sent out a call for all available soldiers to join them there. Conscripts fought beside scarred veterans, Mordians rubbed shoulders with Vostroyans, Cadian and off-worlder alike bled and died in the defense. But the numbers were not enough to hold back Urkanthos and his forces' daemon-fueled might, and wave after wave of daemonspawn, cultists, and traitor Legionnaires threw themselves at the ruins of the gates.

The Kasrkin of the 2nd died where they stood, but had given no ground in return. Others were less valorous -- the 33rd's morale broke once its Colonel was torn apart by Chaos Raptors, and with their retreat went all hope of possibly holding the Kriegan Gates.

Outside, the Knights of House Raven fought an equally desperate battle against the remaining titans of Legio Vulcanum. Baroness Vardus and her fellow Nobles were simply outgunned and outnumbered, and while they had destroyed one Reaver and crippled another, it cost them four Nobles in return. What's more, they were soon running out of places to maneuver, which took away their single advantage to the bigger Titans. But the worse news was yet to come, as the Vessel of Damnation had rejoined the fight.

A Change of Priorities

Further south, Marshall Amalrichs Black Templars still continued their fight, despite being literally knee-deep in bodies. And yet their numbers were less than from the massed waves of the previous days. The marshall looked north, towards the embattled bastion and the storm gathering there, and finally experienced clarity. His peers were right in the end, and the might of the Templars could have made much more of a difference on the ramparts of Kasr Kraf.

Amalrich swallowed the last of his pride. It was still not too late to make amends. He ordered his surviving men aboard the Cruxis Crusade's remaining Thunderhawk Gunship, and finally abandoned the Martyr's Rampart.

Back at Kasr Kraf, the Hounds of Abaddon ran down the fleeing Guardsmen, and Urkanthos roared in delight at the slaughter. He had been tasked to destroy the Null Array so that the Will of Eternity could vent its fury upon the world, but he saw now an opportunity to claim even more glory. Maybe he can even one-up Abaddon and conquer Cadia itself in the name of his dark patrons!

Those pleasant thoughts were cut short however, as a massive volley stopped the advance of the Hounds cold. Where there had been fleeing rabble, Urkanthos now beheld a manned Aegis line as well as a wall of formed bayonets, and the grim and determined faces of the Cadian 8th. Cadia stands! came the lone battle cry, and it was soon followed by more voices. Cadia Stands! the assembled soldiers shouted, as defiance found footing once more in their souls.

And at the epicenter of all of this stood Lord Castellan Creed, with Jarren Kell still proudly holding up the regimental colors. One with their men, they bellowed the same mantra of defiance back at their daemonic foes. Cadia stands!

Delaying An Irresistible Force

The Hounds of Abaddon slammed into the prepared ranks of the Cadian 8th, but found the resistance much tougher compared to that of the 33rd. Chaos Raptors screamed into the air and dropped straight into Creed's command line, thinking to repeat their prior success, but the veterans of the 8th were ready for them, and while scores died to take down every Raptor, Creed still survived to lead the fight.

The fight at the muster field ground into a bloody stalemate, but for once things were in the defenders favor. Creed directed his soldiers as if they were his own weapons, and struck at revealed weaknesses while at the same time withdrawing when the odds were not in his favor. He spent hundreds, sometimes thousands, of lives, but never carelessly, and with the blood of his Shock Troopers he bought precious time. Creed had already abandoned any idea that aid would arrive, but he also knew that every moment he fought on was a prize without price, and a wound on the Despoiler's pride.

Cadia still stood, but only because Creed was there with it.

And it was not just the Cadian 8th that showed their defiance. The Dark Angels 4th Company under Korahael fought side by side with the Ironwolves, while the scattered remnants of other Astartes Chapters put aside rivalries to fight as one demi-company. The Sisters of the Martyred Lady marched with the conscripts of the 111st. But the greatest and most welcome surprise came when the Thunderhawk of the Cruxis Crusade, its sides bellowing smoke and fire, plowed into the muster field, and disgorged its warriors unto the heart of the heretics. The Sons of Dorn had a lot to make up for, but each foe laid low was a step in the right direction.

More Damage To Be Done

As resistance stiffened once more, Urkanthos thoughts returned to Abaddon's orders: destroy the Null Array. He gathered the remains of the Hounds, and made cut their way towards the command bastion. There was little that Creed could do to delay the Daemon Prince, as another threat had made itself an immediate priority -- the traitor Baneblade Vicanthrus and the armored column it lead had just cleared the rubble of the Kriegan Gates. As the lead lines of Creed's men disintegrated from Demolisher Cannon fire, the Lord Castellan ordered every available heavy weapon to target the super-heavy tank.

In front of the command bastion, the conscripts of the 111st where barely a speedbump to the Daemon Prince, but they held the line to the last. The Sisters of the Martyred Lady were much more of a threat, but while the Sisters smote the last Hound with zeal and bolter fire, Urkanthos could not be denied, and he soon reached the Egressium Gate. Canonness Genevieve and Eleanor was there waiting, along with a host of Seraphim. The remaining Sisters fought hard, and the twin Canonnesses were able to gravely wound the Daemon, but it wasn't enough, and as they fell lifeless, nothing left stood in the way of Urkanthos destroying the Null Array.

Back at the muster field, Marshall Amalrich tried to muster another assault at the traitor Baneblade, but as the tank's massive guns turned toward the Cadian 8th's Aegis line, it suddenly froze in place. Its weapons suddenly opened fire, but not at the Imperials. Instead it cut down its escorting Chaos Havocs, as well as the Alpha Legion predator beside it.

For a moment, neither side could make heads or tails of the Baneblade's sudden turn, and no one certainly noticed the cloaked figure from whose hands flowed a stream of nanomachines that seeped into the Vicanthrus. But that was all Creed needed, and he ordered led his troopers in the direction of the command bastion. On the way they passed through the bloody ruin that were scant hours before fellow soldiers and Battle Sisters. That was not a good sign, no matter how one sliced it.

Inside the command bastion, Urkanthos had just finished off Magos Klarn and his Skitarii maniple. With nothing in his way, the Daemon Prince dove down into the depths of the arcane technology keeping the Null Array functioning.

Important Stuff That *SHOULD* Have Followed

• Eldrad leads an ill-fated raid on one of the Blackstone Fortresses, only to learn too late that it wasn't just any Slaaneshi Daemon waiting for him there, but Slaanesh itself. His soul is dragged screaming into the Warp, but there's enough ambiguity left due to the fact that the not all of the Waystones he left the Storm Guardian squads he had sent to reinforce the Imperium had not gone dead.

• The Planet Killer is taken for a joyride by a Chaos Lord named Malifica Arkham while Abbadon was busy in Cadia, but was eventually jumped by four Lunar-class Cruisers and destroyed for good.

• The Voice of the Emperor is revealed to have been Cypher all along, and was captured by the Black Templars... Who then got conveniently "lost with all hands" with the only other ship in the area being a Dark Angels strike cruiser. Hmm...

• Maugan-Ra successfully frees the Craftworld of Altansar from the grip of the Eye of Terror.

• The lost Space Wolves 13th Company comes roaring out of the Eye of Terror chasing Abaddon's forces, with many of them fully in the grips of the Curse of the Wulfen. Leman Russ was said to be leading them personally, though in reality nothing came of this plot thread.

• The Relictors go full-Renegade after making off with Chaos artifacts taken from the Inquisition.

Meta

The 13th Black Crusade is literally where the "clock" stopped in the Warhammer 40,000 for more than two decades and several editions, before a new management decided to move things forward finally for 8th Edition.

There have been two differing outcomes for this Black Crusade as far as lore goes -- one from the Eye of Terror Campaign, and the one for Gathering Storm, the latter of which became the new status quo for the setting.

Humorously, the latter actually still treats many of the beats of the Eye of Terror campaign as canon, just as long as it doesn't contradict things outright.

The Eye of Terror Campaign

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 (so a lot of people thought it never ended). 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 could just virus bomb the captured worlds.

Codex: Eye of Terror

Also around this time was a codex supplement based on this war. While the lore was a pretty basic recap of the opening acts, it did offer some variant armies. While all of them lacked quite a bit compared to the official codices, they offered a nice little variant theme.

• 13th Company Warband: A variant Space Wolves army focused around the rumored Wulfen. While you lack any of the vehicles aside from bikes, you get a hyper-mobile army that can wade through cover in order to approach the enemy and rip them to pieces with their claws.
• Cadian Shock Troops: A variant Imperial Guard army based on the Cadians. This introduces Sanctioned Psykers and Conscripts (here fluffed as the Youth Army corps used by the planet) as well as giving Kasrkin their time to shine. This would also be the first time Creed and Colour Sergeant Kell would be statted, being the biggest heroes of this war.
• Lost and the Damned: The forces of mutants and heretic guardsmen led by daemons and chaos marines, an army that wouldn't see any further support until Forge World made their crack at it. This gave a dizzying amount of possibilities merely by being the blend of two different armies, complete with extra markings, rather than just being a variation of an existing army with a few different rules.
• Ulthwé Strike Force: A variant Eldar army made for deep-striking by emerging from small rifts in the Webway. This meant that the army couldn't use any vehicles bigger than Vypers and War Walkers. That said, their guardians are a bit better than their common kin and their Seer Councils (which took the place of a typical Warlock bodyguard for both a Farseer AND the Avatar of Khaine) were required to keep at least a few of their number to protect their heroes. This also meant that you couldn't take Autarchs or Phoenix Lords as HQ choices.

The Gathering Storm

To herald the end of 7th Edition and welcome in 8th, Games Workshop did something unthinkable and decided that it was time to shake things up and finally move the plot forward. To do this, the company decided to return to Abaddon's 13th temper tantrum, and make it less fail than what happened during the Eye of Terror campaign (admittedly not that hard). To accomplish this, it did the following:

• Stress the fact that Cadia was not the goal of the Black Crusade, but merely step 1 in a much broader campaign of general nastiness for the Imperium.
• Tighten the narrative, focusing less on the entire battlefront, and instead on a select few but crucial battles that could decide the campaign.
• Make the conflict much more personal, and introduce characters who had actual stakes on the fate of Cadia.
• Blow up Cadia, just to show that Abby was not messing around anymore.

Suffice to say the end result was much more well received by the fanbase, and while Cadia eventually was destroyed in the end, the stagnation that had settled upon the setting for years was finally shaken off. While it hasn't been a hundred percent perfect (what big change is), the narrative figuratively hit the floor running, and hasn't stopped since then.