Astral Knights

Artor Amrhad... Pure awesomeness (Thank you Black Library!).

The Astral Knights were an Astartes chapter that later went out WITH A FUCKING BANG!! Numbering 772 at their height of glory, these awesome motherfuckers certainly deserve their own page (I'm suprised no fa/tg/uy has done it yet). At this time, their Chapter Master was a guy named Artor Amhrad, an awesome motherfucker.

The height of their glory

The World Engine was a planet-sized Necron space vessel that set out when the Necron Lord of the Tomb World Borsis was usurped by Necronian politics (this was written in the 5th Ed Marine Codex, mind you!) and the revolutionaries, presumably led by Tut Guevara, took the WHOLE Tomb World for a little joyride. They appeared in the Vidar Subsector at the close of M41, beginning their reign by Death-Starring the Agri Worlds of Gaios Prime and Gaios Tertio of all life, using the largest Gauss weapons known to man.

The Imperium got its act together uncharacteristically promptly, and sent the whole sector's fleet, and detachments from fifteen Space Marine chapters, including the Ultrasmurfs, the Astral Knights, the Invaders, the Blood Angels and the Aurora Chapter to head off the World Engine at Safehold before the Necron punks could get any further.

Now, the main problem with the assault was that the Giant Ball of Haetraep had the Necron equivalent of Void Shields so powerful that not even that many ships could do anything to it. No torpedoes, no Drop Pods, not even Nova Cannons could touch the thing. It also blocked all teleportation attempts, killing the two full squads of Terminators the Invaders sent to infiltrate it. All the while, the Necrons happily blasted away at the Imperial fleet, destroying and crippling dozens of ships.

But then something wonderful happened.

Chapter Master Artor Amhrad of the Astral Knights decided that he would be awesome today.

Chapter Master Artor Amhrad of the Astral Knights decided that if weapons can't break the shield, maybe something bigger would. He brought his battle barge, Tempestus, around to bear, fired up the engines, and rammed it directly into the World Engine.

And it totally worked. He sent the entire Astral Knights chapter down into the World Engine via mass Drop Pod, now that his ship was through the shield. The Astral Knights proceeded to kick the collective buttocks' of a world's worth of Necrons over a 100-hour period. They blew up every generator, weapons battery, supply depot, and command node as they went, too; because Chapter Master Artor Amhrad had a plan.

Chapter Master Artor Amhrad was going to overload the WHOLE PLANET.

At the final battle, only Artor Amhrad and five other Marines were left standing, while the surrounding fleet continued to pound on the still-impenetrable shielding while being slaughtered by the still-mostly-operable Gauss batteries. The team finally hit the Central Command Tomb after one hundred hours of continuous fighting. After presumably strangling Tut Guevara to death with his bare hands and beating the sorry scrapheap's head in, Chapter Master Artor Amhrad planted meltabombs all over the Command Tomb, blowing it, himself, and his five remaining, finest marines to kingdom come. And with that last act, Chapter Master Artor Amhrad had both ended the Astral Knights Chapter, and saved the Imperium from this unstoppable foe. Because, Chapter Master Artor Amhrad and his noble Spaced Marine teams destroyed so many generators and command nodes that when the Central Node exploded, the power couldn't regulate itself fast enough, backed up, and blew out the whole shielding array, most of the remaining weapons, and several other critical systems in a glorious chain reaction.

When the Imperial Fleet saw that the World Engine's shields were down, they let everything they had fly, and promptly EXTERMINATUSED THE THING WITH CYCLONE TORPEDOES!!!!!

The after-mission report was similarly filled with win. The fleet made remained in orbit for several weeks after, not because they were searching for any remaining Necrons, mind you. No, they were letting the Adeptus Mechanicus actually sift through the wreckage for useful stuff. And, the Ultramarines salvaged the wreck of the Tempestus themselves, towing it down to make planetfall on the recently-harvested Dead World of Safehold, to raise an Imperial Shrine inside the wreck dedicated to each of the last 772 Marines of the Astral Knights Chapter who fought and died to cripple the World Engine. Every one of them got a personal statue inside the shrine. And despite the fact that the world is totally deserted save for only about nine scavengers that still live on the entire planet to this day, the shrine is personally guarded by volunteers from each of the 14 Space Marine chapters that fought alongside the Astral Knights.

Finally, to not let their Fortress-monastery go to waste the Sable Swords were founded just to take care of the thing. You know that you are a badass of the umpteenth degree if they found an ENTIRE CHAPTER OF SPACE MARINES just to look after your crib after you kick the bucket. This creates an interesting clash of the canon however, since the Sable Swords were around during The Beheading, nearly 9400 years prior.