First War for Armageddon

The First War for Armageddon, fought in 444.M41, is the least well known of the three wars fought by the Imperium in defence of the Hive World of Armageddon in the Segmentum Solar, and involved the Forces of Chaos and the Imperium. It was the culmination of years of preparation by the former Primarch and Daemon Prince Angron, the favoured Champion of Khorne, to unify his World Eaters Chaos Space Marines after the Battle of Skalathrax had led the XII Legion to break up into scattered warbands into a coherent force capable of turning on the Imperium once more. In the end, it was Angron's own foolish belief in his victory before completing a total conquest of the world that led to the failure of the campaign and his banishment to the Warp for one hundred Terran years. The First War for Armageddon represents a text-book example of how the Forces of Chaos can slowly infiltrate an Imperial population to eventually bring about a full-scale invasion from the Warp.

The war also unleashed an internecine conflict between the Inquisition and the Space Wolves Chapter of Space Marines, which took issue with the Inquistion's decision to quarantine and sterilise the entire surviving population of Armageddon to maintain the Imperial policy of secrecy concerning the existence of Chaos and its daemonic minions. The Space Wolves' Chapter Master, the Great Wolf Logan Grimnar, saw this action as an outright betrayal of the Imperium's highest ideals and the Space Wolves initiated a violent campaign against all Inquisition efforts to cleanse the population of Armageddon. The conflict eventually resulted in an orbital battle over the Space Wolves' homeworld of Fenris between the Space Wolves' Chapter fleet and an Inquisitorial fleet under the command of the Inquisitor Lord Ghesmei Kysnaros. Kysnaros was slain, but a compromise was eventually reached between the Inquisition and the Space Wolves that restored harmony between the Imperium's factions. But as a result of the First War for Armageddon's aftermath, the Space Wolves have never again trusted the Inquisition and move to frustrate Inquisitorial designs at every opportunity.

Invasion Commences
The war began within the hated region of space and the great Warp rift known as the Eye of Terror. The forces within, being devoted to the service of Chaos and the Ruinous Powers, usually fought against each other as was their fractious nature, but occasionally and inexplicably they put aside their rivalries to form an assault in the form of Chaos Undivided on their common enemy, the Imperium of Man. In this case, the unity of the powers of Chaos was triggered by the arrival of the Space Hulk Devourer of Stars around a Daemon World within the Eye of Terror that was controlled by the Daemon Prince and former Primarch Angron and his World Eaters Traitor Legion. Angron had spent much of the last 10 millennia attempting to restore some level of unity amongst the divided warbands of what had once been his XII Legion of Space Marines. The World Eaters' dedication to the Blood God Khorne during the Horus Heresy had reduced them for much of that time into a fractious force of Khornate Berserkers just as likely to kill each other as their true foes. The emergence of the Devourer of Stars into orbot around Angron's Daemon World provided just the opportunity he had been looking for to recreate some semblance of common purpose for his scattered Legion. The Space Hulk proved sufficiently large enough to carry huge numbers of Chaotic troops but only on an erratic course into realspace. This is how the Forces of Chaos unexpectedly emerged from the Warp aboard the Space Hulk in the Armageddon System in 444.M41.

The arrival of Angron at Armageddon probably had nothing to with Angron's own desires, rather the location was determined by the chaotic currents of the Warp which sent his Space Hulk to Armageddon, possibly at the whim of one of the Gods of Chaos, probably Khorne, if there was any intent behind the Devourer of Stars' course at all.

Meanwhile, on Armageddon, a series of strange events culminated in an armed rebellion breaking out in half a dozen of the world's large hive cities against the Imperium's authority at the same time that massive Warp storms cut off the world from Imperial communications and commerce. The revolts, largely initiated by Chaos cultists taking advantage of food shortages caused by the Warp storms to stir up trouble, were quickly put down on the eastern region of the world's main continent called Armageddon Secundus, but amongst the more widely scattered hives of the western region of Armageddon Prime the rebels proved more difficult to eradicate. As Armageddon's Planetary Defence Forces (PDF) and the few regiments of the Imperial Guard's Armageddon Steel Legion present on the world seemed capable of dealing with the revolt, no additional units were sent by the Imperium to deal with the problem once the Warp storms cleared. Armageddon was a very long way from the Eye of Terror in the galaxy's Segmentum Obscurus, and no one in the Imperium suspected any more sinister cause for the revolts than simple civil unrest.

Busy containing the rebellion, the Imperial forces were caught by surprise when the Space Hulk Devourer of Stars suddenly emerged from the Warp in the Armageddon System.

The Threat Realised
On board the Devourer of Stars was an enormous Chaos army led by the Daemon Primarch Angron. Chaos Space Marines from the World Eaters Legion and hordes of daemonic creatures dedicated to the Blood God poured from the Space Hulk onto the surface of Armageddon and swept across the land.

The insidious effects of Chaos were quickly felt as nearly half the Planetary Defence Force of Armageddon unexpectedly went over to the invaders, declaring their loyalty to the Ruinous Powers of Chaos. The few remaining Loyalist defenders were quickly routed from the continent of Armageddon Prime. Falling back through the equatorial jungles in the south, the survivors joined up with the Imperial PDF units that had been left on the continent of Armageddon Secundus and prepared to make a last ditch defence along the rivers of the Styx and Chaeron.

Raising the Defences
The Imperial defence was well organised. Unknown to the Forces of Chaos, the Great Company of Space Wolves Astartes led by the Chapter's Great Wolf (Chapter Master) Logan Grimnar had been assigned to this sector of the Imperium, and they moved quickly to provide aid to the beleaguered defenders as soon as they received the astropathic distress messages from Armageddon describing the Chaotic invasion of the Hive World.

The Imperial defenders gained valuable time while Angron raised bloody monuments to the Blood God from the wreckage of the dead instead of pressing his advantage. When his army emerged from the equatorial jungles that separated Armageddon Prime from Armageddon Secundus, they found the Imperial defenders ready and waiting -- and reinforced by the Space Wolves.

Huge battles erupted along the entire front. In the east, along the Chaeron River, the Imperial forces held, but towards the west on the Styx River Angron led the way himself. He smashed through the Imperial lines and led his forces towards Hive Infernus and Hive Helsreach.

Final Showdown
It was now that Logan Grimnar unleashed his secret weapon. He had called for the assistance of the Grey Knights, the psychic Space Marine Chapter that served the Ordo Malleus of the Inquisition as its Chamber Militant, as soon as he had heard of the nature of the attacking forces. Only the Grey Knights had the ability to truly defeat a daemonic entity of such malevolent power as Angron. As the very existence of Chaos was one of the most closely guarded secrets of the Imperium of Man, few amongst even the Space Marines knew of the existence of the Grey Knights, the most elite Chapter of Astartes ever formed who were tasked specifically with combat against daemons. But Grimnar had seen them in action on more than one occasion and as the lord of an Astartes Chapter he had never been forced to submit to the mind-wipe that was required of nearly all witnesses to the Grey Knights in action.

Amongst the Grey Knights units deployed for action on Armageddon was Squad Castian, which joined an ad hoc "Ragged Brotherhood" of Grey Knights under the command of Taremar Aurellian, the Brother-Captain of the 3rd Brotherhood. When the call came, the Grey Knights teleported directly into the midst of the advancing Chaos horde, surrounding the gigantic Daemon Primarch. Taking heavy losses from Angron's enormous, tainted weapon (the Black Blade), the Grey Knights inflicted their own punishment, and eventually Squad Castian engaged in melee with the Daemon Primarch. After Angron mangled the squad, the only Grey Knight left standing was the Pyrokine (master of psychic flame) Hyperion. Trying to protect a still-surviving squad mate, in a tremendous display of faith, power, and effort, Hyperion used his psyker abilities to shatter the Primarch's daemonic blade -- while he himself collapsed from the effort. Captain Aurellian then confronted the bladeless Daemon Prince of Khorne and managed to banish him back to the Warp, though at the cost of his own life.

Hyperion was one of only 13 Grey Knights to survive the battle, out of 109 Astartes of the 3rd Brotherhood who had been deployed for the campaign. Found alive but in terrible shape by Space Wolves on the hellish field after the battle, Hyperion soon acquired the honorific "Bladebreaker" for his feat. He had to be put in temporary stasis in order to survive, and underwent surgery that replaced half his face and skull with augmetics, and he eventually reported back to duty more than 4 months later.

The Grey Knights had defeated the Daemon Prince, hurling his spirit back into the Warp from where he could not return for over one hundred Terran years. At the same time as the Grey Knights were teleporting directly into the centre of the daemonic force to launch their attack on the Daemon Primarch, the Space Wolves launched their own massive counter-offensive all along the Imperial lines. The Forces of Chaos were routed after they watched their leader defeated and only the World Eaters managed to retreat back to the Space Hulk and escape into the safety of the Warp. The Imperial victory was complete and overwhelming.

Imperial Betrayal
Although they had defeated all that the Forces of Chaos had thrown at them, the victorious soldiers of Armageddon were doomed from the start. They had gained knowledge of the existence of Chaos, a forbidden secret of the Imperium, and been exposed to its corruption. The Inquisition had no intention of letting the wider Imperium discover the true nature of the daemonic foe that had attacked Armageddon, or of the ways and means victory had been achieved with the aid of the Grey Knights; the Inquisitors present voted to sterilise and quarantine-for-life the remaining population of the Hive World even though it was generally considered untainted, and ignorant of the truth concerning the existence of Chaos. The valiant Imperial Guard, PDF regiments and other human defenders of the world were to suffer the same fate or be liquidated. The Inquisition ordered all of the people who had fought on the planet, except for the Space Marines, to be rounded up at gunpoint, sterilised to prevent any possible Chaos-induced mutations in their offspring and placed in Adeptus Arbites work camps across the galaxy, with their world to be re-colonised by people from other regions of the galaxy with no knowledge of the war.

Over the strident protests of the Space Wolves and their Great Wolf Logan Grimnar, the Inquisition followed through with this plan, and the Grey Knights frigate Karabela still in orbit of Armageddon was ordered to disable the first Imperial Guard troop transport to leave Armageddon as it approached a Warp jump point off-world. Following this first incident, a months-long cat-and-mouse campaign took place between the Space Wolves and their human charges from Armageddon on one side, and the Inquisition and Grey Knights on the other. It was characterised by increasingly deadly fratricidal actions by both sides, and rapidly escalated into a full-fledged Imperial civil war between the Space Wolves and the Inquisition. Grimnar saw the Inquisition's actions following the war as betraying the very people who had honourably fought for their homes and for the Emperor, and if the Imperium did not protect those who fought for it, he did not believe it had any purpose.

Finally, in an attempt to bring the conflict to an end, the Inquisitor Lord Ghesmei Kysnaros ordered his growing Inquisitorial armada, including Grey Knights Chapter fleet vessels, to Fenris, the Space Wolves' lightly defended homeworld, in a last-ditch gambit to force those Astartes to comply with the Inquisition's wishes concerning the liquidation or imprisonment of Armageddon's survivors. Kysnaros' armada, including a multitude of Inquisition warships, Grey Knights vessels, and the entire Chapter fleet and strength of the Red Hunters Space Marine Chapter, arrived at Fenris and surrounded the planet in high orbit whilst targetting The Fang, the Space Wolves' fortress-monastery, for a devastating orbital bombardment.

The planet was virtually undefended as the vast majority of the Space Wolves and their Chapter fleet were dispersed on missions across the galaxy. Kysnaros again asked for a parlay with any ranking Space Wolves present. A delegation consisiting of Kysnaros, the Grey Knight Librarian Hyperion (who commanded respect amongst the Space Wolves as the "Bladebreaker") and Inquisitor Annika Jarlsdottyr, a native Fenrisian, arrived at The Fang for the meeting. The Space Wolves had awoken the Venerable Dreadnought Bjorn the Fell-Handed to deal with the Inquisitorial party. The ancient warrior who had once fought beside the Primarch Leman Russ during the Great Crusade immediately received the unbidden respect and reverence of the Inquisitorial delegation, and was thought to be a more temperate and wise representative for the Chapter than Logan Grimnar.

Kysnaros asked for the Space Wolves' express obeisance to Imperial authority and the chain of command, and a Penitent Crusade to be undertaken to expiate the Chapter's guilt for their attacks upon the servants of the Inquisition. In exchange, the Inquisition and the Imperium at large would take no other action or censure against the Chapter. Before negotiations could go further, to the surprise of everyone, the Space Wolves' Chapter fleet under the command of Logan Grimnar translated from the Warp near Fenris. As the Inquisition delegation made haste to their flagship, a short, brutal fight ensued over the planet. Eventually Grimnar and his Wolf Guard teleported to Kysnaros' flagship's bridge, where the Great Wolf unceremoniously beheaded the Inquisitor Lord. Grimnar then proceeded to maul the last survivor of the Grey Knights Squad Castian who had survived the conflict on Armageddon. To save his brother, the Librarian Hyperion confronted Grimnar, and in the duel that followed, he used his psychic powers to crack Grimnar's ancient, venerated Frost Axe, the Morkai. As Hyperion then confronted Grimnar and twenty Space Wolves alone, Bjorn the Fell-Handed teleported to the bridge and put an end to the fight.

Bjorn told Grimnar that the internecine war between the Chapter and the Inquisition on behalf of the survivors of Armageddon had to stop. The Inquisitorial force should be allowed to leave Fenris unscathed, and the Space Wolves should reach an understanding with the Imperium. He then addressed Hyperion and Inquisitor Jarlsdottyr, as the ranking Inquisition representatives present, and told them that no Inquisition vessel should ever again appear above Fenris. Additionally, the Space Wolves who had acquired knowledge of the existence of the Grey Knights would not be mind-scrubbed, as was customary, though the remaining Armageddon survivors would be handed over for mind-wiping and dispersion across the galaxy. The Inquisition accepted the terms, and shortly afterward, the Inquisitorial force left the system. Yet, as a result of what they conintued to believe was a betrayal of the Imperium's core values, the Space Wolves have never again trusted the Inquisition and move to frustrate Inquisitorial designs at every opportunity.