Armageddon

Ghazghkull's favourite playground.

Armageddon is a perpetual clusterfuck an Imperial (barely) Hive World in Segmentum Solar. It is one of the most well-known Hive Worlds in the galaxy, with an industrial output surpassing that of many Forge Worlds. As it supplies dozens of worlds with materials and protection, Armageddon is a strategically vital world and is heavily garrisoned. Climate-wise, Armageddon is an ash-filled polluted hellhole. On the main continent there is little more than ash-filled deserts, though its southern regions and the secondary continent have jungles home to carnivorous plants like the Helsrich Monsters. It is home to the Steel Legion, one of the most recognized Imperial Guard Regiments in the galaxy. Armageddon was also the location of some of the largest wars in the history of the galaxy, including the Third War for Armageddon (the largest land and space battle in the history of the Imperium of Man bar none), and the subject of numerous failed Imperial Assaults during a *small* occurrence called The War of The Beast. Notably it was also the largest gathering of Space Marine ships in history, including the Siege of Terra or the Ullanor Crusade (the latter of which was what led The Emperor to declare Horus his Warmaster).

Speaking of which, it turns out there's a reason for why the place is an Ork magnet. A "special" CS Goto-level retcon made Armageddon into the teleported Ullanor itself, ancestral home of two of the greatest Ork Empires to have ever existed. So, perhaps unknowingly, the Orks aren't invading - they're coming home.

First War for Armageddon

A typical Tuesday on Armageddon

The Beginning

The first war for Armageddon began with a series of Chaos rebellions in the hive populace as the Daemon Space Hulk Devourer of Souls came out of the warp above the planet. Much of the World Eaters legion was aboard the hulk, and they made planetfall amid the bloody rebellions, slaughtering all resistance on the main continent. Realizing that the main hives were lost, what was left of the loyalist populations retreated to the smaller continent across the sea to regroup and resupply at the small military bases and outposts located there. For a few short weeks the Khornate hordes busied themselves with sacrificing civilians to summon daemons to bolster their ranks, and the Loyalists used this time to fortify as well as they could, but they had little more to offer their foes than flashlights and insults. The Blood God's hordes turned their eyes to the last defenders, now bolstered by daemons and the Daemon Primarch Angron himself. The ragged refugees and soldiers could do little more than pray for deliverance when...

The Cavalry Arrives

Out of the fucking blue with no real lore explanation the Vlka Fenryka showed up, led by the Old Wolf himself! The wolves blast the fuck out of the Devourer of Souls and make planetfall to help the remaining Planetary Defense Force and Steel Legion forces defend the remaining civilians while they awaited the help that Logan had called for. They actually started gaining ground against the World Eaters until Angron and his Cruor Praetoria, his bodyguard of twelve Bloodthirsters, charged the Imperial line and started chopping up everything that stood between them and Armageddon's south pole. The Grey Knights fucking finally show up to the party and this 'ragged brotherhood' fight Angron and his Bloodthirster posse and win when their brotherhood's Grandmaster was able to banish Angron after Hyperion shattered the daemon Primarch's blade. Of the 109 Grey Knights who took to the field, 13 survived. Following Angron's banishment the Wolves and Steel Legion were able to destroy the few Khornate forces that remained.

The Months of Shame

Given that the whole planet had been contaminated by Chaos, by the sanction of an Inquisitor Lord the remaining population of Armageddon, civilians and soldiers alike, were to be sterilized and sent to Inquisitorial compounds to be worked to death, and optimistically intended have any Space Wolves who had seen the Grey Knights were to be mindwiped save for Grimnar. Yeah, that last part was never going to happen. The Space Wolves were not fucking amused. Logan politely and calmly explained to the Inquisitor that by punishing the citizens of Armageddon for their heroism and survival, the Inquisition were sullying the honor of the men that yet lived and disrespecting the memories of the dead. The Inquisitor more or less told Logan to go fuck himself. The Old Wolf was not amused. Shortly after this exchange, refugees and soldier survivors started to mysteriously "disappear" from Inquisitorial custody. The Wolves pretty quickly figured out what was up and called the Inquisition to explain their deeds, but they weren't feeling talkative. The Inquisition began firing on any civilian craft leaving the planet, including the ones escorted by the Space Wolves, who blocked the Inquisitorial fire, first with their void shields and then with the hulls of their ships, but never fired back. After months of tense standoffs and passive resistance against the Inquisition, which had eventually dispersed unquantified numbers of survivors and utterly shattered the Inquisition's best attempts at containment, the Space Wolves finally got sick of the Inquisiton's shit when they, while under truce, damaged the relic Strike Cruiser Scramaseax and destroyed its escorts, and the space vikings started shooting back. Evidently the Inquisitor Lord thought it was a good idea to be in a void war with Logan Grimnar, a dude who can call on EIGHT battle barges and FUCKING THIRTY Strike Cruisers, and in command of chapter, a First Founding chapter no less, of Space Marines, and whose forces are typically assumed to be approximately triple the average number, if not larger. He was wrong.

The End

After months of the Inquisition getting its ass kicked, the Inquisitor Lord finally called on every resource he could muster and set off to Fenris with an entire Imperial Navy fleet, a Grey Knights Strike Cruiser and the entire Red Hunters chapter fleet. It still wasn't enough; turns out that The Fang is as monstrously hard a target as the name implies, who knew? To make a long story short, the Wolves lost a negligible amount of ships and some men, but the Inquisition, Grey Knights, and Red Hunters lost a devastating amount of ships and men, and everything ended when Logan Grimnar teleported onto the Grey Knight's Strike Cruiser. Logan then thoroughly demonstrated that for all that the Grey Knights are peerless psykers, capable of going toe-to-doe with daemons and perma-killing them; in a close-quarters fight, they couldn't hold a candle to the sons of Russ. He made this point by killing the Lord Inquisitor (who by now was nearly crying), splitting the head of the Grey Knight's Grand Master before he could even draw his sword, and then threw Hyperion a Kharn vs Erebus level of beating, only forced to stand down when Bjorn teleported up into the party and had what is quite possibly the single most "Bjorn" moment ever. Not only did he tell the Inquisition to get off his damn lawn, not only did he tell Logan to "quit making so much damn noise with his out-of-hand party, young man," Bjorn actually came onto a Fenrisian Inquisitor, calling her a "beautiful frost-born maiden" (or some other flowery shit, it's been a couple years since I read The Emperor's Gift, okay?) revealing himself to be a crotchety old romantic neckbeard. Everyone was pretty fucking dumbfounded, but hey, the Lord Inquisitor was dead, and he was pretty much the only one who'd been in favour of this strategy (to the extent that his subordinates had been devoting an awful lot of time and effort into how best for him to have an "accident") so everybody pretty much went their own way. Inquisitors, even Inquisitor Lords getting ahead of themselves, trying to throw their weight around with Astartes, and then getting in way over their heads is hardly unprecedented, and is a scenario that usually only ends one way. Trying that shit with First Founding chapters however... You'd have better odds trying your luck in a game of chicken with a black hole.

Now in song form!

Second War for Armageddon

To make a short story even shorter, the Second War for Armageddon was a massive fucking meatgrinder full of happy Orks and pissed off Humans. Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka arrived on the planet with a bunch of Roks and a few billion Orks and decided to make things more interesting. Armaggeddon's ruler at the time was a fucker by the name of Herman von Strab, a man so delusionally assured of his own abilities and decisions that ignored every piece of sensible tactical advice given and sent numerically inferior, split focus forces to fight against the uncharacteristically clever Ork hordes. He actually deployed a Titan Legion without any kind of support, resulting in their total defeat. When things really started going south, he evacuated to his private bunker and bombarded his own cities with past-the-use-by-date Virus Bombs, killing millions of his own people as well as the Orks. The planet was only saved due to the actions of a few loyal but disobedient commanders, including Commissar Yarrick, the Old Man himself, who took over and started getting shit done. Yarrick managed to hold things together with his half-whipped and half-starved forces until the Marines arrived to help out. Commander Dante arrives with a taskforce to finish the fight. Ghazghkull fucked off to space. Kinda like WWI. All this war did was create Mephiston and set the scene for the big war that came after, which brings us to...

Third War for Armageddon

The third war for Armageddon was the biggest land war in the history of the Imperium and the galaxy's mosh pit. FUCKING EVERYONE was there - well, all the Orks and Humans anyway. Seriously, all nine former Space Marine legions were there along with a lot of successors, a dozen Titan Legions and a metric fuckton of Guard regiments, along with a few billion Orks. There were more Void Ships and ground forces at the third war for Armageddon than any other war in the history of mankind, surpassing even the Siege of Holy Terra and the Ullanor Crusade (though this has been partially retconned by our overlords). Commanding this clusterfuck was High Marshal Helbrecht in charge of the Void Battle, as the Templars are void specialists, and Commissar Yarrick in overall command on the ground (says a lot about how hardcore Yarrick is that even the Astartes were willing to take orders from this guy). Short story shorter Ghazghkull was annoyed that he had to fuck off to space last time, so he came back with even MORE Orks to come back and get Yarrick, though this time the Imperium was prepared and eventually forced a stalemate. Ghazghkull got bored and fucked off to space again, with Yarrick joining the Templars on an epic road trip to go smite the green fucker, only to be left in the proverbial dust when Gork and Mork intervened on Ghazghkull's behalf. The conflict has kept going ever since, with no sign of slowing down.

Meanwhile, the events of the Gathering Storm ended up putting Armageddon directly in the path of the Blood Crusade - a colossal legion of Khorne Daemons who almost certainly are ready for a second round. Given the recent activity of the other Daemon Primarchs, it's not a stretch to assume that Angron will be involved with this invasion as well (as of Dark Imperium he almost was!). The Blood Crusade tried to summon Angron but the Salamanders managed to muck up the ritual. While the Chaos warbands were fighting each other, the Orks and the Steel Legion actually teamed up to banish them on occasion before going back to fighting each other. At this point, half of the planet is now a Daemon World occupied by the forces of Khorne and Tzeentch (which as usual are fighting among themselves as well) and the other half is presumably waiting for Old Man Yarrick to come back to fuck shit up.

Armageddon indeed.