Warhammer 40k Wiki
Register
Warhammer 40k Wiki
Line 22: Line 22:
 
*''Codex: Chaos Space Marines'' (3rd Edition, 2nd Codex), pg. 22
 
*''Codex: Chaos Space Marines'' (3rd Edition, 2nd Codex), pg. 22
 
*''Imperial Armour Volume Ten - The Badab War - Part Two'', pg. 118
 
*''Imperial Armour Volume Ten - The Badab War - Part Two'', pg. 118
*''Index Astartes - Death Company'' (Digital Edition)removed double sentence
+
*''Index Astartes - Death Company'' (Digital Edition)
 
[[Category:S]]
 
[[Category:S]]
 
[[Category:Black Legion]]
 
[[Category:Black Legion]]

Revision as of 03:25, 10 September 2013

The 7th Black Crusade, also remembered informally as the Ghost War, was a Black Crusade against the forces of the Imperium of Man led by the infamous Chaos Champion Abaddon the Despoiler and his Black Legion, launched out of the Eye of Terror in 811.M37.  At this time, the Forces of Chaos spewed forth from the great Warp Rift past Cadia and then disappeared. This event is what earned this conflict its informal name of the Ghost War. The following years saw a game of hide-and-seek played between the Forces of Chaos and the Imperium of Man which spread confusion, paranoia, disinformation and deceit across the galaxy. Raids became commonplace in far-flung areas but eventually the servants of the Dark Gods returned to the Eye of Terror, having caused enough trouble but having proven unable to significantly degrade Imperial defensive capabilities at that time.

History

Midian

When the Blood Angels Space Marine Chapter battled against the Forces of Chaos at Midian, Abaddon singled them out with implacable fury. He led a band of Khornate Berserkers into the teeth of the Blood Angels' Devastator positions. Even the Blood Angels' own Assault troops could not dislodge the frenzied warband and recapture the bodies of their comrades. But there is an obscure reference to the Blood Angels being saved by an unidentified Space Marine Chapter of mysterious origin. Written within the The Canticle of Cassandria Lev - Vol. CVI, the eponymous Sainted Sisters' highly mythologised and oblique account of the wars of the 7th Black Crusade, is found mention of a "grey-clad" Space Marines Chapter who came from "The outer night" to aid the Imperium, and whose "Jagged maw did swallow the stars ... and whose ... black gaze did mirror the void of oblivion". In the course of the canticle this Chapter's ships set upon Abaddon's forces following the disastrous defeat and routing of the Blood Angels at Midian and attacked the pursuing forces as Saint Lev writes: "...fell upon the servants of the skulled-one with great fury from the darkness, unseen as the beast that lurks beneath the black waters, death for death, blood for blood...thus were the Sons of Sanguinius bought respite, and did turn back upon their pursuers and so were the damned traitors of the false gods driven unto their ruin." Images of these events can be found upon the walls of the Cemetery World of Hypasitis created to house the honoured dead of that war, depicted in repeated fresco and bar relief. Curiously, the faces of the intervening Space Marines depicted there are obscured with featureless disks of black obsidian. Given the largely unknown history of the star-faring Carcharodons Chapter, accounts of their activities can only be constructed from recorded historical incidents and fragmentary records that are believed to have involved the Carcharodons on balance of evidence. This notable engagement is listed by Imperial savants as a "[Special] Probable Encounter/Recorded Sighting" of this notorious and mysterious Space Marine Chapter.

Mackan

During the long years of the 7th Black Crusade, also known as the Ghost War, the full might of the Blood Angels Chapter falls upon a vast Black Legion warband on the world of Mackan. Although the conflict ultimately ends in the near-extinction of the Blood Angels at the hands of Abaddon the Despoiler and his primary lieutenants -- the Sorcerer-Lord Iskandar Khayon and the swordmaster Telemachon Lyras -- the Blood Angels Reclusiarch Thalastian Jorus becomes one of the few Imperial heroes to ever land a blow against the Warmaster of Chaos. With his Chapter devastated, the Chaplain endures weeks of hardship in the wilderness and the constant trials of keeping his crazed warriors undetected on Mackan. When the time is right, Jorus leads his Death Company in a lightning raid behind enemy lines, butchering the unprepared sworn warriors of the Despoiler’s honour guard, and allowing the Reclusiarch to lock blades with Abaddon himself. It is said the Chaos Warmaster still bears the scars of that battle, even three standard millennia later. Whatever the truth of the matter, it is known that the Despoiler honoured Jorus once the war was over -- perhaps in mockery, or perhaps with nothing but sincerity. After Mackan, thousands of Blood Angels corpses were desecrated, their gene-seed ruined beyond recovery. Of all the Chapter, only a handful of bodies were left undefiled: Reclusiarch Jorus and his Death Company, clad in their battered and broken black ceramite, seated in makeshift thrones made from the armour of those Black Legion warriors they had killed on that fateful night.



Canon Conflict

There is some confusion as to where the attack by Abaddon and his Forces of Chaos against the Blood Angels actually took place. In Codex: Chaos Space Marines (3rd Edition, 2nd Codex) it states, "When the Blood Angels battled against the horde at Mackan, Abaddon singled them out with implacable fury." But in the recently released Imperial Armour Volume Ten - The Badab War - Part Two, under the Notable Campaigns of the Carcharodons Chapter, "...following the disastrous defeat and routing of the Blood Angels Chapter at Midian." It now seems likely that the chorniclers are referring to two separate events that occurred during the 7th Black Crusade.

Sources

  • Black Legion - Codex: Chaos Space Marines Supplement (Digital Edition), pp. 35-36, 70-71
  • Codex: Chaos Space Marines (6th Edition), pg. 23
  • Codex: Chaos Space Marines (3rd Edition, 2nd Codex), pg. 22
  • Imperial Armour Volume Ten - The Badab War - Part Two, pg. 118
  • Index Astartes - Death Company (Digital Edition)