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For a complete chronology of the events of the Great Crusade please see Great Crusade Chronology


The Great Crusade was the period in the early history of the Imperium of Man, lasting from approximately 798.M30 into the first decades of the 31st Millennium (approximately a little over two standard centuries), when the Imperium was expanding as it sought to bring all of human-settled space back under the control of a single ruler, the Emperor of Mankind.

The Great Crusade marked a brief era in human history of rebuilding, reunification and rapid technological advancement following the complete regression of Mankind into techno-barbarism during the 5,000 Terran years of the Age of Strife. It was a time when the Emperor of Mankind still lived in the conventional sense and led His people in person. The Great Crusade era is considered the Golden Age of the Imperium before the long, slow slide into cultural stagnation, political repression and increasing warfare that marked the ten millennia after the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy had ended.

The Emperor of Mankind sought to unite all of humanity under one banner following the Long Night of the Age of Strife, and end inter-human conflict. Once united, the Emperor intended to begin the next stage of His great plan to ensure human domination of the Milky Way Galaxy, which He judged to be necessary if humanity was to survive the never-ceasing threats to its existence embodied by Chaos, myriad xenos races and its own fragile human nature.

To carry out the Great Crusade and reunite all the scattered colony worlds of Mankind beneath the single banner of the Imperium of Man, the Emperor created the Space Marine Legions that would form the core of the later Adeptus Astartes and the Imperial Army to serve as a support and garrison force for the Astartes. The use of accelerated gene-culturing of gene-seed organs to fill the need for vast numbers of Space Marines later led to the development of genetic flaws in many of the Legions, which would be one factor in bringing on the Great Betrayal of the Horus Heresy.

These forces, with the technological and military aid of the Mechanicum as required by the Treaty of Mars, would bring the light of the Imperial Truth and enforce Imperial Compliance with the new regime on every human world encountered. At its peak in the early 31st Millennium, some 203 standard years after it began, there were 4,287 primary Expedition Fleets engaged upon the business of enforcing Imperial Compliance and extending the Imperial aegis across the galaxy as well as 60,000+ secondary deployment groups involved in regulating Compliance or Imperial occupations.

A further 372 Expedition Fleets were regrouping or refitting in the Sol System or other Imperial hub star systems or resupplying as they awaited new orders. Some 4.3 million Remembrancers, official Imperial artists and journalists, were sent out with these fleets in the final days of the Great Crusade to record for posterity in pictures, words and music all that the Imperial warriors of the Crusade were accomplishing in the name of Mankind.

Finally, every Imperial Expedition Fleet carried with it a corps of Iterators, Imperial philosophers, rhetoricians and propagandists who sought to spread the Imperial Truth to every human world and convince their populations of the benefits to be had from Imperial rule.

The Great Crusade was under the direct, personal command of the Emperor of Mankind until the great victory won against a massive Ork WAAAGH! during the Ullanor Crusade. After the defeat of the Orks achieved a new high point for the Great Crusade, the Emperor retired to Terra to begin work on a secret project deep within the Imperial Palace to open the labyrinthine interdimensional Aeldari Webway to humanity's use so that the Imperium could be tied together as never before and forever shielded from the depredations of the Warp.

The Emperor named His favorite son Horus, the Primarch of the Luna Wolves Space Marine Legion, as the Imperial Warmaster and gave him full authority to direct the Great Crusade's progression as he saw fit, including the right to command all of his fellow brother Primarchs and their Legions of Astartes. The Emperor also established the Council of Terra and the Imperial bureaucracy, the forerunners of the later Senatorum Imperialis of the High Lords of Terra and the Adeptus Administratum, to begin shifting the Imperium from His personal rule to a government that more closely served the needs of the Imperium's common people.

The Emperor's secrecy and willingness to hand power over to others produced enormous tensions with some of the Primarchs and ultimately became one of the weaknesses that the Ruinous Powers exploited to corrupt 9 Primarchs and their Space Marine Legions into the service of Chaos, unleashing the terrible civil war known as the Horus Heresy. This conflict ended the Great Crusade and the Golden Age of the Imperium. From that time to the present in the late 41st Millennium, the Imperium has known only stagnation, oppression, religious strife and endless war.

History

End of the Age of Strife

EmperorsWisdom

The Emperor of Mankind during the Great Crusade.

During the Age of Strife the Emperor, who had spent all the years of His immortal life since His birth in the 8th Millennium B.C. seeking to guide Mankind to a better destiny, was trapped on the techno-barbarian-ravaged Earth. This was due to the massive Warp Storms prevalent throughout the galaxy in the 5,000 standard years before the birth of the Chaos God Slaanesh once more made travel and astropathic communication through the Warp possible.

Not content to simply sit back while humanity suffered through the long years of Old Night, the Emperor of Mankind spent this time performing intensive biological research on the human genome in gene-laboratories hidden deep below the Himalazian (Himalayan) Mountains, seeking a way that he could ultimately reunite all of humanity so that it could once more pursue its destiny of taking control over the Milky Way Galaxy as other intelligent species like the Eldar had already done.

The Emperor, who did not bear that title at this early date, had always worked to advance His agenda from behind the scenes and a long list of different identities over the millennia, some of them very well-known. But to save Mankind from the disaster of the Age of Strife, it had become apparent that He would have to take a far more open political role than He had previously preferred if the human race was to be saved from ultimate extinction.

The result of His scientific work was the creation of the first prototype supersoldiers who would serve as a template for the later development of the Space Marines. Using these first genetically-engineered supersoldiers called the Thunder Warriors, the Emperor unleashed the Unification Wars upon the techno-barbarian tribes and nation-states of Terra, forcing them to unite under a single government represented by a banner called the Raptor Imperialis with Himself taking the title of the "Emperor of Mankind" after years of savage warfare. This event was later known in Imperial records as the Unification.

After this, the Emperor realised that to reunite all of humanity, He would need generals and proconsuls in addition to Himself whom He could trust absolutely and who possessed capabilities similar to His own. So he ordered the creation of 20 highly advanced, genetically-engineered transhumans known as the Primarchs. These men, created using the Emperor's own genome as the foundations of their genetic code, were intended to lead the reunification of Mankind.

The Ruinous Powers of Chaos, however, fearful of the affect the Emperor's plans would have upon their own power within the Immaterium since they were dependent upon mortals for their very existence, managed to bypass the arcane wards protecting the Emperor's secret gene-laboratory under the Himalazian mountains, and teleport the unborn Primarchs, still in their gestation capsules, away from Terra. They were scattered across the galaxy to different human-settled worlds and several were tainted with the touch of Chaos that would bloom in time.

Facing this setback, the Emperor decided to change His tactics if not His ultimate goal of reunification. He gathered the remaining genetic material that had been used to create the Primarchs and from it cultured thousands of sets of gene-seed. These could be gestated into individual sets of 19 separate organs that when implanted within the body of an adolescent human male would transform him into one of the transhuman warriors known as the Astartes in High Gothic, the first true Space Marines.

The Emperor raised 20 Legions of Astartes, each making use of gene-seed organs cultured from the DNA of one of the Primarchs, from among the population of a newly unified Terra. After five millennia and the birth of Slaanesh following the events that led to the Fall of the Eldar, the massive Warp Storms finally dissipated across the galaxy. With their absence allowing interstellar travel once again, the Emperor quickly moved forward with his plans to begin the conquest of the galaxy.

Mars and the Adeptus Mechanicus

Emperor Great Crusade

The Emperor of Mankind leads the Space Marine Legions personally during the Great Crusade

The Emperor's first obstacle to the reunification of Mankind was the existence of the Mechanicum empire of the Tech-priests of the Cult Mechanicus on Mars, who had historically been fiercely independent of Earth. Instead of an outright war, the Emperor used the threat of an assault by his Space Marines on Mars and the offer of new technologies to form an alliance in the 30th Millennium with the Tech-priests of what would later be called the Adeptus Mechanicus. This alliance formed the heart of the newborn Imperium of Man and was symbolised by the adoption of the two headed-eagle or Aquila that is still the primary icon of the Imperium.

Despite his disdain for their reliance on religion and cybernetic augmentation of their bodies, the Emperor knew that He would need Mars' great manufactoria (factories), mechanical output and ancient technological knowledge to build the military force required to reunify humanity across the galaxy, and He incorporated them into the Imperium.

The Tech-priests of Mars, likewise, saw the Emperor's extraordinary scientific knowledge and technological skill as proof that He was the Omnissiah, the living avatar of their Machine God in the material realm, who the creed of the Cult Mechanicus had promised would return one day to the Red Planet and offer the true way forward for humanity.

Conquest of the Void

Imperium Dominatus Ancient Map3

The extent of the Imperium of Man, ca. 892.005.M31, the last year of the Great Crusade

The Great Crusade was the largest and most ambitious military endeavour ever undertaken by Mankind. As mighty and valiant as the hosts of the Emperor were, this epic undertaking would have been entirely impossible without the countless thousands of Warp-capable vessels that transported hundreds of thousands of the superhuman warriors of the Space Marine Legions and many millions of Imperial Army soldiers from one star's light to the next.

The Great Crusade saw a staggering array of vessels constructed, reclaimed or pressed into service. Some were used for a matter of solar months before being declared obsolete or wearing out and degrading to destruction, quite apart from losses incurred in battle, while others gained a permanent place in the canon of war, with successful designs endlessly copied and modified as the decades progressed.

The first vessels to enter the service of the Imperium were constructed in the orbital foundries of Terra, and later Mars' Ring of Iron and the orbital shipyards of Saturn, under the scrutiny of the Emperor and the Forge-wrights of the Mechanicum, and indeed it was only that in alliance with Mars that the trans-solar expansion was possible in any meaningful way. This was further aided when at last the Saturnyne Dominion, with its accomplished ship-masters, joined the Imperium after their alien overlords were overthrown, and as the Imperium expanded, many more great orbital shipyards were added at Voss, Grulgarod, Lorin and Cypra Mundi. All these grew to near rival Mars itself in voidship production.

Driven by the will of the Emperor, the first Expeditionary Fleets pushed outwards into the galaxy. Preceding each great Expeditionary Fleet of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of vessels often ranged smaller contingents of independent flotillas led by a class of martial leader that would become known as the Rogue Traders Militant. Many of these individuals were former rulers of the numerous realms the Emperor had cast down first during the Unification Wars and later as the Great Crusade spread, formerly independent human worlds.

They were offered a stark choice--bend the knee before the Emperor and swear service to the Great Crusade, or die by His hand. Though many set pride before what they regarded as slavery, others chose service and took up the Emperor's Warrant of Trade. There was a price, however. The Rogue Traders Militant were expected to scout ahead of the leading edge of the Great Crusade, accompanied by their own armies as well as whatever assets had been ceded them by the Emperor.

Operating so far ahead of the Emperor's crusading armies, the Rogue Traders Militant could expect little or no aid should they encounter foes too powerful for them to overcome. After several solar decades penetrating the inky black of the void, Rogue Trader Militant fleets often appeared as ramshackle vagabonds, many of their starships taken from defeated enemies, sometimes including xenos vessels of entirely novel or esoteric form.

They were forbidden to return to Terra, for in His wisdom the Emperor sought not to just rid Himself of powerful rivals, but to ensure that even in their deaths they might serve Mankind. Many vanished alone and unheralded; slain, consumed or enslaved by nameless xenos abominations far from the light of Terra.

As the Imperium expanded, so too did its fleets. Countless long-lost wonders of technology were recovered, some wrested from the dead hands of unwilling custodians, and others surrendered willingly as fitting tribute to the Master of Mankind. Some vessels were unique, constructed by methods even the most accomplished Adepts of Mars could not hope to replicate: the Terminus Est, the Nicor, the Mirabilis and the Phalanx foremost among them. Other patterns and classes proved possible to reproduce and replicate, and before long the various arms of the Imperium's military acquired their own distinctive panoply of warships.

Those of the Legiones Astartes were often blunt of prow and slab-armoured, built to endure the withering storm of fire that accompanies a planetary invasion, their plasma furnace-hearts powering some of the most destructive weapons known to Mankind. But beyond these practical needs, each fleet favoured the nature of its Legion, from the sable black marauders of the Raven Guard to the baroque crimson and gold battlecruisers of the Blood Angels to the brute functionality and unadorned steel of the Iron Warriors' siege-barques.

The ships of the Emperor's wider naval armadas, the Armada Imperialis, were more diverse affairs, built for void supremacy. They ranged from stately Battleships, multi-kilometre long engines of doom, their armour concentrated to the fore and their flanks repleted with rank upon rank of broadside batteries, to lithe and deadly Destroyers and stripped-bare Warp Runners, to watchful piquet Frigates and lumbering star fortresses. Beyond these were innumerable classes of transports, arks, conveyers and supply ships, the forge vessels of the Mechanicum and their own strange space-going engines of war.

Rediscovery of the Primarchs

Even with access to the vast fleets of starships and military materiel that the forges of Mars could churn out, the expansion outwards into the galaxy from Terra was slow, primarily due to a lack of the necessary manpower and skilled leadership. Without access to the Primarchs' unique genomes, the time required to create a Space Marine was far longer than ideal. The Emperor was also adamant that all the genetic material for new Astartes gene-seed must come directly from Him, to keep the gene-seed organs pure and 100% effective, as mutation had a habit of setting in even at this early date in the Astartes' existence.

Only a short time after he had launched the great expedition to reunite Mankind that he called the "Great Crusade," the Emperor was reunited with one of His Primarchs after His Great Crusade Expeditionary Fleet, the Pricipia Imperialis, reached the nearby Mining World of Cthonia during one of its first journeys through the Warp; this was Horus, the future Warmaster of the Imperial armies. Being the first Primarch rediscovered by the Emperor, the first of His beloved sons who had returned to Him, Horus and the Emperor soon formed a truly unique bond of friendship and paternal love, saving one anothers' lives on many occasions.

Horus was given command of the XVI Legion of Space Marines, the Luna Wolves, and he soon set the precedent for raising all future Astartes for his Legion from among the men of his former homeworld, in this case Cthonia. With the increased Space Marine production made possible by direct access to a Primarch's genome, the Great Crusade began picking up steam, with the Emperor's "Imperium of Man" bringing many new worlds into "Imperial Compliance" either through negotiation and diplomacy or outright conquest when all other methods failed.

Each world was also introduced to the Imperial Truth, the Emperor's chosen philosophy and the foundation for Imperial culture, which was stridently atheistic and rejected all forms of human religion or spirituality as mere superstition to be replaced by the cold rationalism of scientific progress. Though the Emperor loathed war, He understood that if Mankind was to survive the rigours of a hostile universe it must stand united, and that unity must be brought quickly, even if it had to be forced in certain instances.

After 30 Terran years of successful crusading, the Emperor discovered another of the Primarchs, the Wolf-King, Leman Russ on the frozen world of Fenris. Although Horus was pleased at the discovery of one of his brothers, he secretly hoped to always remain the Emperor's favourite son, no matter how many of his brothers were rediscovered.

Over time, all of the Primarchs were rediscovered by the various Expeditionary Fleets of the Great Crusade and given command of the Space Marine Legion for which their genetic code had been used as the foundation of that Legion's gene-seed. The order in which the Primarchs were discovered is not entirely clear in Imperial records. Horus was clearly the first to be rediscovered, and Alpharius of the Alpha Legion was the last.

Rogal Dorn of the Imperial Fists was the seventh of the Primarchs to be found, while Lion El'Jonson was discovered on the Death World of Caliban after Leman Russ of the Space Wolves had already been recovered by the Emperor on Fenris.

Magnus the Red of the Thousand Sons was found on Prospero before his brother Lorgar of the Word Bearers welcomed the Emperor to Colchis. Angron of the World Eaters was rescued against his will from his homeworld of Nuceria after the Great Crusade recovered Perturabo of the Iron Warriors from his homeworld of Olympia.

The Crusade also grew larger as the solar decades of conquest passed. With each new world brought into Imperial Compliance and made accepting of the Imperial Truth, its resources could be harnessed for the construction of ever more starships and the massive amounts of materiel needed to keep the entire enterprise moving forward. With the rediscovery of all of the Primarchs, the time required for Space Marine production was dramatically decreased; a new Astartes ready for combat could be created in as little as a standard year at the height of the Great Crusade.

This rapid creation process, however, would prove disastrous: mental defects and unique eccentricities began to creep into the ranks of the Astartes as the manpower needs of the Great Crusade called for larger and larger armies. Yet, by the early 31st Millennium, some 200 standard years after it had begun, the Great Crusade had reunited vast swathes of the galaxy under the leadership of the Emperor of Mankind, seemingly initiating a new Golden Age of progress and reason for the human race.

Blood and Illumination: The Pax Imperialis

"There is no salvation from the darkness in men's hearts."

— Ancient Terran Proverb

The Great Crusade brought peace to Mankind, ending wars between peoples and nations, binding all together in unity. It broke the chains of superstition and freed billions from the whims of tyrants and murderous xenos. Where before there had been strife and the cloud of ignorance, now there would be peace and truth. These were high ideals indeed, but ideals that came at a price. Mankind had to be dragged to illumination, and many tried to pull it back into the shadows, into the old ways of ignorance and discord.

The Emperor had unified Terra not only through words and alliances, but also through force of arms. Illumination and peace had to be won by blood. This was the basic truth of the Pax Imperialis, and when the Great Crusade took to the stars, this truth went with it. But it was not only in open war that the blood price for universal peace had to be paid. The enemies of the Imperium were manifold, and even before Horus turned from the Emperor, there were those who nurtured treachery in their hearts, who mouthed words of loyalty whilst seeding discord. While the ideals of the Great Crusade saw warriors marching in open war, the truth was that there were other methods and other less noble battles fought to keep the peace.

The Assassin Temples, the networks of informers and the Silent Agents of Malcador the Sigilite, the Annihilation Protocols, and the ancient and all but forbidden weapons wielded by a chosen few in the Legions, all these were the tools and warriors by which the Imperium enforced its ideals and, for a time, brought peace to the galaxy. For the Emperor, the end justified the means in the pursuit of His great dream, for He knew better than most, that His time was limited. Mankind must be united and ready to face the future before the Chaos Gods could unite to stop Him.

Fractures in Loyalty

As the Imperium grew and the Great Crusade fractured into hundreds of different Expeditionary Fleets that could be separate from one another for solar decades of relative time, the Primarchs and their Emperor began to grow distant from each other. The Night Lords and World Eaters Legions grew infamous for their ever-greater atrocities during the conquest of new worlds, the Thousand Sons' pursuit of knowledge transformed into the use of sorcery through the temptations secretly offered by Tzeentch, and the Word Bearers' fanatical religious beliefs in the Emperor's divinity led to a rift between them and the Emperor when He dramatically rejected their attempts at worship in light of the atheistic nature of the Imperial Truth he sought to impress on all the worlds of the Imperium.

The Imperial Army, composed almost entirely of normal human soldiers (some regiments such as the Geno Two-Five Chilliad were the products of selective breeding and genetic-engineering dating back to the Unification Wars to produce more capable soldiers or officers), provided much-needed manpower for garrison and support duties for the planets brought into Imperial Compliance by the Crusade.

Freed from garrison duties, the Space Marines who comprised the core of each Expeditionary Fleet could conquer yet more worlds in a shorter space of time. Many Astartes and Imperial Army soldiers began speaking only of their loyalty to the Primarch that they served, and not to their Emperor. Owing to the isolation between the Legions and the Emperor after the Ullanor Crusade when the Emperor returned to Terra and left the Great Crusade in the hands of His favoured son Horus as the new Imperial Warmaster, this growing breach between the military and the people of the Imperium as represented by the Emperor essentially went unnoticed back on Terra.

Twilight of the Great Crusade

After Horus' successful campaign to destroy the largest Ork WAAAGH! known in the history of the Imperium to that point at the world of Ullanor during what became known to later Imperial historians as the semi-legendary Ullanor Crusade, the Emperor declared it the greatest victory of the Imperium to date. Horus' reward was the title and position of Imperial Warmaster and with it the supreme command of all of the Imperium's armed forces, Space Marines and Imperial Army starships and troops alike.

After doing so, the Emperor made it known that He was needed back on Terra, where he would undertake a secret project intended to open the next phase in human cultural evolution. What the Emperor intended was to make use of the ancient artefact known as the Golden Throne, an instrument of technology created before the Age of Strife that had been unearthed on Terra that acted as a powerful psionic augmentation device, to open the Aeldari Webway to the use of humanity. This would allow all the worlds of the Imperium to be instantaneously interconnected through the Webway in a way that would make travel by starship obsolescent, and also end humanity's need to rely on psykers for interstellar navigation and communication with all the risks this entailed. The creation of a human Webway was intended to be the Emperor's greatest gift to Mankind and usher in millennia of progress and peace once the Great Crusade was complete.

Horus was not informed of the Emperor's plans on Terra, and felt deeply troubled by his father's sudden unwillingness to confide in him, once his closest confidante, and by his decision to retreat to Terra with the Great Crusade yet unfinished. To make matters worse, while some of his fellow Primarchs accepted his promotion, others, chiefly Angron, Konrad Curze and Perturabo, openly begrudged Horus his new authority.

There was also the widespread erroneous belief among the Astartes that the Emperor would disband or reduce the Space Marine Legions to the level of peacekeeping forces once the Great Crusade was completed. Horus resented his brothers' feelings and thought that while he was winning new worlds for the Imperium the Emperor was handing the Imperium he, his brothers and the Astartes had won to corrupt mortal bureaucrats and Terran nobles who knew nothing of honour or sacrifice. These existing seeds of bitterness, jealousy and pain were all the Ruinous Powers of Chaos needed to sow the seeds of dissension in the Warmaster's mind.

Events came to a head following Horus' wounding at the end of the Great Crusade during a battle on the moon of Davin against Nurgleite undead by the Chaos-tainted weapon known as the Kinebrach Anathame that had been wielded by the Nurgle-corrupted former Planetary Governor of Davin, Eugen Temba. Even Horus' superhuman immune system could not defeat the terrible Nurgle-created toxin that had laced the blade of the Anathame, and in their desperation to save his life, the Captains of the Luna Wolves gave in to the machinations of the Word Bearers Legion's First Chaplain Erebus and gave Horus into the keeping of the Chaos Sorcerers of the Temple of the Serpent Lodge on Davin.

As part of their "healing" ritual, the sorcerers sent Horus' mind into the Warp, where Erebus, the First Chaplain of the Word Bearers Legion who had long served Chaos, acting as the agent of the Dark Gods, sought to corrupt him. Erebus used a deceptive vision of the future of the Imperium where the Emperor was worshiped as a god to convince Horus, who was filled with jealousy at the sight of thousands of pilgrims worshiping in a grand cathedral dedicated to the Emperor, to replace his father as the master of the galaxy.

When Horus awakened fully healed, he awoke already corrupted, ready in his terrible ambition to turn on his father and attempt to wrest control of the Imperium from the Emperor no matter the cost, unleashing the terrible interstellar civil war known as the Horus Heresy. In return for his allegiance to their cause, the Chaos Gods offered Horus the power of the Warp, cementing the corruption of his soul.

Horus would never realise that the dark future of the Imperium that the Chaos Gods had shown him, where Mankind was oppressed by superstition, ignorance and constant war, would be caused by his actions and his betrayal of his father. The Heresy would end with the death of Horus, the exile of his 9 Traitor Legions into the Eye of Terror, and the quasi-death of the Emperor of Man following His internment within the Golden Throne. This was ironically the very instrument through which He had hoped to open the Webway and create vast new vistas of progress for Mankind.

Chronology of the Final Years of the Great Crusade

Note: The following information was compiled by agents of Malcador the Sigillite following the outbreak of the Horus Heresy. As more information is uncovered, it will be added to the more in-depth chronology.

Date Event Participating Space Marine Legion(s)
964.M30 The Razing of Monarchia Word Bearers, Ultramarines
965.M30 <ALL DATA REDACTED> Space Wolves
966.M30 Cadia is entered into the Carta Imperialis during the Pilgrimage of Lorgar Word Bearers
969.M30 <ALL DATA REDACTED> Space Wolves
972.M30 The Farinatus Extermination Night Lords, Raven Guard
981.M30 Alpharius assumes command of the XX Legion Alpha Legion
984.M30 The Destruction of Nostramo Night Lords
994.M30 Istvaan System first brought to Imperial Compliance Raven Guard
999.M30 The Pacification of Ark Reach Secundus Word Bearers, Space Wolves, Thousand Sons
000.M31 Triumph of Ullanor Alpha Legion, Blood Angels, Death Guard, Emperor's Children, Imperial Fists, Luna Wolves, Thousand Sons, Ultramarines, White Scars, Word Bearers, World Eaters
000.M31 The Fall of Saran Luxor Unknown
001.M31 The Council of Nikaea Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Death Guard, Emperor's Children, Imperial Fists, Thousand Sons, Salamanders, Space Wolves, Thousand Sons, Ultramarines
001-005.M31 The Chondax Campaign White Scars
002-003.M31 The Kayvas Belt Expedition Alpha Legion, Blood Angels
003.M31 Contact lost with Istvaan System
003.M31 The Vespae Incident Unknown
003.M31 The Luna Wolves are renamed the Sons of Horus Sons of Horus
004.M31 Horus falls mortally wounded by Eugen Temba on Davin's Plague Moon Sons of Horus
004.M31 The Destruction of Olympia Iron Warriors
004-005.M31 The Burning of Prospero Space Wolves, Thousand Sons
005.M31 The Blood Angels disappear en route to Signus Blood Angels
005.M31 The Ultramarines and elements of the Word Bearers muster at Calth Ultramarines, Word Bearers
005.M31 The Battle of Calth Ultramarines, Word Bearers
005.M31 The Istvaan III Atrocity - Horus Heresy formally begins Death Guard, Emperor's Children, Sons of Horus, World Eaters
005-006.M31 The Schism of Mars begins Mechanicum, Imperial Fists
006.M31 <ALL DATA REDACTED> <ALL DATA REDACTED>
566.006.M31 The Drop Site Massacre of Istvaan V Alpha Legion, Death Guard, Emperor's Children, Night Lords, Sons of Horus, Word Bearers, World Eaters, Iron Hands, Raven Guard, Salamanders

Expeditionary Fleets

Imperium Dominatus Ancient Map

Ancient Departmento Cartigraphicae Map labelled Imperium Dominatus which displays the extent of the Imperial demesne at the height of the Great Crusade, ca. 005.M31

During the Great Crusade, the vast forces of the Emperor were organised into a number of different formations which became known as the Expeditionary Fleets. At first there was but one fleet, the Principia Imperialis -- commanded by the Emperor Himself -- but as the Crusade spread across the galaxy more and more were launched. Trusted and powerful generals were appointed to lead these new fleets.

Later, after the discovery of several of the Primarchs in the early stages of the Crusade, the Imperial fleets were divided into three main thrusts across the galaxy, one commanded by Horus, the other by Ferrus Manus, and the last by the Emperor Himself.

In order that they could be effectively supported and their movements across the galaxy tracked with some degree of accuracy, each of the Expeditionary Fleets was designated a number by the War Council. As the Great Crusade drew to a close in the early 31st Millennium, some 203 standard years after it began, there were 4,287 primary Expedition Fleets engaged upon the business of enforcing Imperial Compliance and extending the Imperial aegis across the galaxy as well as 60,000+ secondary deployment groups involved in regulating Compliance or Imperial occupations. A further 372 Expedition Fleets were regrouping or refitting in the Sol System or other Imperial hub star systems or resupplying as they awaited new orders.

The composition of each of the fleets was not fixed. The various fleet groups, Imperial Army regiments, auxiliary troop formations and even Space Marine Legions that made up a fleet could come and go over time, as prevailing strategy dictated. But the designation numbers remained and, while most never held any particular significance, some became famously associated with specific Primarchs or other prestigious leaders of the Imperium.

The numerical designation of an Expeditionary Fleet was also applied to worlds conquered by its forces -- for example the Imperial world initially known as 63-19 was the nineteenth world discovered by the Warmaster Horus' 63rd Expedition. It was therefore possible for the Imperium's administrators to plot the movements of a specific fleet by the worlds it encountered, in chronological order.

While all of the original Expeditionary Fleets had been assembled in Terran space by the Mechanicum, by the height of the Great Crusade they had been dispersed throughout the Milky Way Galaxy to reunite all the human-settled colony worlds under the Emperor's rule to bring to fruition His dream of a united human race dominating the stars. The Expeditionary Fleets were given a broad remit to bring human-settled worlds into the Imperium by diplomacy if possible but by force if necessary, and to cleanse any xenos species from the galaxy who represented a threat to humanity.

As almost all intelligent alien species encountered by Mankind had proved hostile, outright genocide was the usual expected remedy. The fleets were also tasked with the secondary mission of exploring the galactic wilderness following the terrible anarchy of the Age of Strife so that new frontiers could be opened for human settlement and resource extraction in formerly virgin regions of the galaxy.

While the Emperor hoped that most human civilisations would willingly accept reunification under the Imperial aegis because of all the benefits interstellar unity offered, He knew that many human worlds would forcefully reject Imperial Compliance. As such, each Expeditionary Fleet was a potent military armada usually under the overall command of a high-ranking officer of the Imperial Army who bore the rank of Lord Commander and the expedition's fleet elements were commanded by an officer with the rank of Master of the Fleet. Additionally, each of the Emperor's Primarchs was given command of an unusually large Expeditionary Fleet, to which was attached the main body of their Space Marine Legion as well as substantial starship and Imperial Army assets.

These Expeditionary Fleets, which were quite rare since the majority of the Great Crusade's fleets possessed no Astartes contingent at all, usually undertook the major thrusts into completely new areas of the galaxy. Smaller fleets with less combat capacity would then follow in a major fleet's wake, branching off to ensure Imperial Compliance on worlds that presented less human or xenos resistance than those faced by the fleets carrying Astartes complements.

However, the Primarchs of several of the Legions were known at times to split off smaller units of Space Marines from their main fleets to accompany Expeditionary Fleets that were otherwise lacking in Space Marine support. In such situations, the ranking Space Marine officer served as the fleet's Lord Commander since Astartes always assumed command over normal troops in any military situation where they were present during the Great Crusade. What follows here is a list of the few Expeditionary Fleets of the Great Crusade that have been recovered from ancient Imperial records.

Notable Expeditionary Fleets

Expeditionary Fleet Designation Commander Space Marine Complement Imperial Army & Other Support Forces
1st Expeditionary Fleet
(Principia Imperialis)
Emperor of Mankind Unknown Unknown, included the Legio Custodes and many Titan Legions
The 1st Expeditionary Fleet was also known as the Principia Imperialis and for many solar decades it was the primary Imperial force that carried out the Great Crusade. Commanded by the Emperor Himself, at times it was handed over to the control of Horus, first among His sons, when He needed to search for the other Primarchs. The Principia Imperialis was among the most well-equipped of Imperial military forces and was disbanded some time toward the end of the crusade.
3rd Expeditionary Fleet Unknown VIIth Legion (Imperial Fists) Unknown
The 3rd Expeditionary Fleet was an Imperial Expeditionary Fleet of the Great Crusade commanded by the Imperial Fists Legion. They were instrumental in the discovery of the Consus Drift, a belt of stellar debris which lay in the dark between stars close to the Sol System. It was home to billions of humans who had been stranded there for millennia, caught in the Warp tides, whirpools and flats of dead calm. As the fleet rolled in the void, damaged and confused, they were attacked by the human Drift Clans of the archipelago of void cities known as the Mirror Race. The Imperial Fists counterattacked, driving the Driftborn from their ships, and then continued their assault by launching gunships, boarding torpedoes and breaching pods into the void cities. Battering their way into the heart of each city, the Imperial Fists stopped only when their hands held the controls of the cities' life support systems. They demanded their immediate surrender or face annihilation. The Drift Clans immediately surrendered. The 3rd Expeditionary Fleet left after repairs were made, but not before the Imperial Fists had taken the youngest and strongest male warriors of each of the Drift Clans. Of those who survived initiation into the VIIth Legion, all were inducted into a single unit; the 356th Company. Over the next century, the 356th Company's reputation for excellence in out-hull void warfare and starship assaults was without peer.
4th Expeditionary Fleet Primarch Lion El'Jonson Ist Legion (Dark Angels) Unknown
The 4th Expeditionary Fleet was originally under the command of a much smaller contingent of Space Marines from the Vth Legion, the White Scars, and was commanded by a White Scars Captain (Khan) named Shang Khan. The 4th Expeditionary Fleet was one of the smaller Imperial fleets deployed during the Great Crusade and was comprised of the Battle Barge Invincible Reason, the Imperial Army troopships Noble Sinew and Bold Conveyor, the Frigates Intrepid and Dauntless, the Destroyer Arbalest, and the White Scars Strike Cruiser Swift Horseman, later replaced by the Dark Angels Strike Cruiser, Wrath of Caliban.
7th Expeditionary Fleet Lord Commander Suleiman Grimm Ist Legion (Dark Angels) Unknown
The 7th Expeditionary Fleet was the name of a Great Crusade expeditionary force led by Lord Commander Suleiman Grimm of the Ist Legion, the Dark Angels. They were instrumental in the Imperial Compliance of the colonised world of Lascal in the celestial wasteland known as the Grail Abyss, located between the spiral arms, forming the extreme border of the Segmentum Obscurus and the edge of known space. This terrestrial world had been a feral Ork holding before the coming of the 7th Expeditionary Fleet. After exterminating the xenos threat, Lascal became a forward outpost of the Great Crusade, and later a naval fleet anchorage was constructed there in orbit under the auspices of the Lucien Mechanicum, with which the world would continue to maintain distant ties. Though the frontline of the Imperium's expansion moved on, Lascal was maintained as a fleet anchorage, a link in the binding chains of Imperial control of the galaxy. By 902.M30, the world of Lascal became an independent and self-sustaining Imperial colony.
8th Expeditionary Fleet Unknown IVth Legion (Yet unnamed as the Iron Warriors) Unknown
The 8th Expeditionary Fleet was the name of a Great Crusade expeditionary force led by an unknown Warsmith of the Iron Warriors Legion. In the earliest years of the Great Crusade, the 8th Expeditionary Fleet formed a key and leading element. This force conquered or reclaimed twenty-nine coreward system-clusters and annihilated several interstellar xenos realms in a protracted eleven-year campaign which played a key part in the establishment of the Imperium's control of the Segmentum Solar. All were achievements for which it was recognised and commended by the Emperor in turn. Most famously, they would go on to help liberate the Forge World of Incaladion, the homeworld of the Titan Legion, the Legio Fureans. When contact with Mars was reestablished, it was determined to bring the newly discovered Forge World into the fold of the Imperium, but the Great Crusade was at that time engaged in major battles on myriad fronts and much of the Mechanicum's military forces were tied up in on-going campaigns. It fell to the forces of the IV Legion (not then yet having taken the name of the Iron Warriors). With the support of elements of the Legio Mortis and Martian Skitarii, in a gruelling protracted two year campaign that lasted from 842-843.M30, the 8th Expeditionary Fleet successfully helped Incaladion join the Imperium. In a single, bloody engagement known as the Siege of Incaladion, they suffered a staggering loss of nearly 29,000 Legionaries. The needless sacrifice of their forces saw the remaining IV Legion fall out of favour with the Imperial hierarchy.
12th Expeditionary Fleet Primarch Roboute Guilliman XIIIth Legion (Ultramarines) Unknown & 170 God-Engines of the Legio Tempestus Titan Legion
The 12th Expeditionary Fleet was the name of a Great Crusade expeditionary force led by Primarch Roboute Guilliman and whose Astartes complement was made up of his XIIIth Legion, the Ultramarines and Titans from the Legio Tempestus, which played a pivotal role in the arduous wars of the Epsiloid Binary Cluster.
27th Expeditionary Fleet Corvus Corax XIXth Legion (Raven Guard) Therion Cohort
The 27th Expeditionary Fleet was the name of a Great Crusade expeditionary force commanded by the Primarch Corvus Corax and whose Astartes complement was made up of his XIXth Legion, the Raven Guard.
28th Expeditionary Fleet (1st Iteration) Primarch Magnus the Red XVth Legion (Thousand Sons) Lacunan Lifewatch and elements of Prosperine Spireguard
The first iteration of the 28th Expeditionary Fleet was commanded by the Primarch Magnus the Red and its complement of Astartes was made up of his XVth Legion, the Thousand Sons. Though two versions of this fleet was documented, the records do not make clear whether this was the same 28th Expedition later commanded by Primarch Fulgrim or whether it was an entirely different unit with the same designation that was later transferred over to the Emperor's Children.
28th Expeditionary Fleet (2nd Iteration) Primarch Fulgrim IIIrd Legion (Emperor's Children) Archite Palatines
The 28th Expeditionary Fleet was also the name of an expeditionary force during the Great Crusade commanded by the Primarch Fulgrim whose Astartes complement was made up of his IIIrd Legion, the Emperor's Children, and supporting military elements from the Imperial Army regiments of the Archite Palatines.
40th Expeditionary Fleet Unknown Unknown G9K Division Kill
The 40th Expeditionary Fleet was an expeditionary force during the Great Crusade that was shadowed by an Astartes complement made up of the Space Wolves' 3rd Great Company ("Tra" Company).
47th Expeditionary Fleet Primarch Lorgar XVIIth Legion (Word Bearers) Ouranti Draks
The 47th Expeditionary Fleet was the name of a great Crusade expeditionary force commanded by the Primarch Lorgar and whose Astartes complement was made up of his XVIIth Legion, the Word Bearers. With the assistance of the 40th Expeditionary Fleet, the 47th Expeditionary Fleet took part in the Imperial Compliance of the Ark Reach Cluster which consisted of the first four worlds. The compliance of the fifth and sixth planet, Shrike, was successfully accomplished with the assistance of the 28th Expeditionary Fleet.
51st Expeditionary Fleet Warsmith Barabas Dantioch 14th Grand Company of the IV Legion (Iron Warriors), flagship Benthos Ninth-Ward Angeloi Adamantiphracts
The 51st Expeditionary Fleet was responsible for the Imperial Compliance of Lesser Damantyne and the construction of the mighty fortress called Schadenhold on that world. Unknown to the Iron Warriors on Damantyne, the Horus Heresy had already begun. When Warsmith Idriss Krendl, the new Warsmith of the 14th Grand Company (who was staunchly loyal to the Warmaster Horus) returned to Damantyne, which served as a garrison world for the Iron Warriors, in order to recover his troops and materiel, he ordered Warsmith Dantioch to stand down. Krendl then informed Dantioch that his fortress would be commandeered as a resupply point for the Warmaster's armies. Dantioch remained Loyal to the Imperium and refused to betray the Emperor for Horus. Warsmith Krendl then informed Dantioch that his beloved fortress would be crushed in the name of the Warmaster. For the next 366 days, Dantioch commanded his paltry force against the bulk of the 51st Expeditionary Fleet. When the siege was finally drawing to its inevitable conclusion, an Emperor-class Titan of the Legio Argentum was deployed against Shadenhold by the Traitors, but was eventually destroyed. As the fortress was about to fall, Dantioch teleported himself and a few other Loyalist Iron Warriors with him aboard the Traitor’s flagship Benthos in orbit above Damantyne. Using superb military strategy, Warsmith Dantioch and his men managed to commandeer the Traitors' vessel and set a course for Terra. Their goal was to assist the Emperor with the fortification of the Imperial Palace against the encroachment of the Warmaster and his Forces of Chaos. Warsmith Dantioch’s ultimate fate is currently unknown.
52nd Expeditionary Fleet Primarch Ferrus Manus Xth Legion (Iron Hands) Unknown
The 52nd Expeditionary Fleet was the name of a Great Crusade expeditionary force commanded by the Primarch Ferrus Manus whose Astartes complement was made up of his Xth Legion, the Iron Hands.
60th Expeditionary Fleet Lord Marshal Ireton MaSade Solar Auxilia 1522nd Cohort & Shoar "Skull Taker" Cohorts
At the head of the 60th Expeditionary Fleet, Lord Mashal MaSade flew from victory to victory until the War Council called upon him to break the deadlock of the Agathon Compliance. Agathon, a Hive World of some five billions souls, had until then, successfully resisted Compliance for nearly fifteen standard years. Under MaSade's orders the 60th Expeditionary Fleet would finally break Agathon's resistance and prove victorious. The cultic aristocracy that had ruled Agathon for so long was purged, and in reward for this final victory and a lifetime of services, MaSade and his officers were awarded right of conquest over Agathon and the "Old General" as his troops had nicknamed the aging Ireton MaSade, became its first Imperial Commander. They would later go on to play a key role in fighting against the Traitor forces within the Coronid Reach against the Cyclothrathine Mechanicum, and the Liberation of Numinal.
63rd Expeditionary Fleet Warmaster and Primarch Horus XVIth Legion (Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus) Byzant Janizars & 15th Hesperan Lancers
The 63rd Expeditionary Fleet was one of the largest and most powerful deployed during the Great Crusade and it was the home fleet of Horus, the Warmaster of the Imperium and the supreme commander of the Great Crusade after the Emperor returned to Terra. The 63rd Expedition had the powerful Legio Mortis Titan Legion attached to it as well as Horus' massive flagship, the Battle Barge Vengeful Spirit. Their victories were manifold and Horus' generalship was legend, and so it was that the respect of their brother Legions rose to almost unrivalled heights.
81st Expeditionary Fleet Unknown VIIth Legion (Imperial Fists) Unknown
As a part of the 81st Expeditionary Fleet, the unique Imperial Fists battleship, Halcyon, helped conquer the Hecuban Conformity, breaking their forces in the hellish Aegisine War and brought the separatist human realm into Compliance. In the Battle for Taldane, the Halcyon accounted for six Eldar capital ships in lone battle, and Sigismund himself accepted the surrender of the Zurcon Freeholds from the Halcyon's bridge.
90th Expeditionary Fleet Unknown Unknown Unknown
While exploring the region of the galaxy known as the Cyclops Cluster, located in the Coronid Deeps in the Segmentum Obscurus, the 90th Expeditionary Fleet happened to discover the lost Forge World of M'Pandex through sheer chance.
125th Expeditionary Fleet Primarch Perturabo IVth Legion (Iron Warriors) Selucid Thorakite
The 125th Expeditionary Fleet was the newly constituted force following the reunification of the IVth Legion with their Primarch Perturabo. This Imperial Expeditionary Fleet quickly became the battering ram of the Great Crusade. As they fought alongside each of their fellow Legions in turn, they gained an unmatched reputation for brutal efficiency in battle, mastery of armoured warfare and as artillerists without peer among the Legiones Astartes.
140th Expeditionary Fleet Unknown 3 Companies of the IXth Legion (Blood Angels) Unknown Imperial Army Regiment (known to be 4,000 troops strong)
The 140th Expedition's Space Marines were commanded by the Blood Angels Captain Khitas Frome. It is unknown if he also served as the Lord Commander of the entire expedition, though this would have been likely. These Blood Angels were lost in combat against the powerful arachnoid xenos called Megarachnids of the Death World dubbed Murder by the Luna Wolves after the 63rd Expedition arrived at the world to determine what had happened to Captain Frome and his Astartes.
203rd Expeditionary Fleet Primarch Angron XIIth Legion (World Eaters) Unknown
The 203rd Expeditionary Fleet was a Great Crusade expeditionary force commanded by the Primarch Angron and whose Astartes complement was made up of his XIIth Legion, the World Eaters. The 203rd Expeditionary Fleet encountered the Lacrymole-infested world of Alpha Shalish. Spearheading an assault, the World Eaters Legion burst into the Lacrymole mound cities with righteous fury, cleansing the planet of their foul, man-eating kind with extreme prejudice, throwing off the shackles of alien rule by bringing the Imperial Truth to Alpha Shalish's beleaguered human population. The 203rd Expedition also fought alongside the Sons of Horus and their 63rd Expeditionary Fleet on the world of Aerius.
376th Expeditionary Fleet Unknown XIXth Legion (Raven Guard) Unknown
The 376th Expeditionary Fleet was a Great Crusade expeditionary force commanded by an unknown commander whose Astartes complement was made up of units drawn from the XIXth Legion, the Raven Guard. Overall command of the 376th Expeditionary Fleet still belonged to the Raven Guard's Primarch Corvus Corax.
392nd Expeditionary Fleet Unknown Unknown Unknown
The 392nd Expeditionary Fleet was a Great Crusade expeditionary force commanded by an unknown commander.
406th Expeditionary Fleet Iron Father and Captain Lasko Midoa Xth Legion (Iron Hands) Unknown
The 406th Expeditionary Fleet carried out multiple Imperial Compliance actions on various worlds during the Great Crusade, both before and after the Drop Site Massacre on Istvaan V. Following those events that decimated the Loyalist Legions of the Iron Hands, the Raven Guard and the Salamanders, the 406th Expeditionary Fleet engaged a Traitor Death Guard fleet in a vicious campaign around the world of Perditus Ultima.
413th Expeditionary Fleet Master Ulan Cicerus XIIIth Legion (Ultramarines), XV Chapter Marnean Armsmen & Serranic Peltasts, Demi-Legio of the Legio Atarus
The 413th Expeditionary Fleet under the commands of Master Ulan Cicerus, was sent to the world of Gardinaal, a solar empire at the edge of the Dominion of Storms to the galactic east, to bring it into Imperial Compliance after unsuccessful diplomatic overtures failed. The Ultramarines' attempt to take the capital world of Gardinaal Prime with minimal collateral loss would prove disastrous, as the Gardinaal utilised powerful STC weaponry and vehicles never before seen by Imperial forces. The Ultramarines and Titans were hurled back and forced to retreat off-planet rather than fight on with no possibility of victory. Nearly half of the demi-legio was lost and the Ultramarines' casualties were just as severe, but worse, over 500,000 troops of the Imperial Army lay dead or dying on Gardinaal Prime. Repulsed and bled dry, the 413th Expedition was unable to launch another assault. Breaking from the Warp to answer the Ultramarines call for aid, at the head of a new war-host, Ferrus Manus led an armada comprised of both the 52nd Expeditionary Fleet of the Iron Hands and the Emperor's Children Legions. During the final assault on the capital city, the Ultramarines, desperate to reclaim their honour from their earlier defeat, requested the honour of crossing the breach into the enemy citadel. The Gorgon acquiesced to the Ultramarines' request, but the price the warriors of the XIIIth Legion paid was high, for the defenders' counterattack was powerful, sparing none of their remaining might.
611th Expeditionary Fleet Unknown Unknown Unknown
The 611th Expeditionary Fleet was an Imperial Expeditionary Fleet of the Great Crusade, and helped bring the Feudal World of Zavarich, located in the Cyclops Cluster in the Segmentum Obscurus, bloodlessly into Imperial Compliance in 876.M30. Zavarich entered into operation as a fully managed agri-world by the time of the Horus Heresy, and was notable for being one of a relative handful of such worlds in the region, and therefore retaining strategic significance because of this.
670th Expeditionary Fleet Lord Commander Teng Namitjira None Crescent-Sind 6th Torrent, Geno Five-Two Chiliad, Outremar, Regnault Thorns, Zanzibari Hort
The Legio Xerxes Titan Legion was attached to the service of the 670th Expedition. The Primarch Alpharius and a force from his XXth Legion, the Alpha Legion, fought with the 670th Expedition during the tragic campaign to bring the world of Nurth to Imperial Compliance, but never became an official part of the 670th's order of battle. Lord Commander Namitjira remained in formal command during the operation, though of course he deferred to the Primarch's orders.
817th Expeditionary Fleet Unknown Unknown Unknown
Stationed at Hattusa at the outbreak of the Horus Heresy, the Remembrancer Solomon Voss was attached to this Expeditionary fleet at the time, along with his collaborator Askarid Sha.
915th Expeditionary Fleet Unknown Vth Legion (White Scars) Unknown
The White Scars of the 915th Expeditionary Fleet conducted a xenocidal purge against the Orks within the Chondax System. Most famously, they purged the greenskin menace on the world of Phemus IV.
954th Expeditionary Fleet Wolf Lord Bulveye The 13th Great Company of the VIth Legion (Space Wolves) Arcturan Dragoons
The 954th Expeditionary Fleet was the official name given to the Space Wolves' 13th Company and their supporting Imperial Army units. This same Expeditionary Fleet would ultimately be lost in the Eye of Terror after being ordered during the Horus Heresy by their Primarch Leman Russ to hunt down the Thousand Sons Traitor Legion. This same fleet would not be seen again until 10,000 standard years later when they returned to realspace to aid the Imperium during the darkest hour of the 13th Black Crusade of 999.M41.
1301st Expeditionary Fleet Chapter Master Deumos of the Serrated Sun Chapter of the XVIIth Legion (Word Bearers); Master of the Fleet Baloc Torvus Serrated Sun Chapter of the XVIIth Legion (Word Bearers) Unknown
The 1301st Expeditionary Fleet was the Imperial Expedition that undertook the Pilgrimage of Lorgar forty standard years before the start of the Horus Heresy for the Word Bearers' Primarch in his quest to discover whether the Old Faith of Colchis and the existence of its Gods was true. The outcome of this Pilgrimage confirmed for Lorgar that the atheism of the Imperial Truth was a lie and turned him against the Emperor of Mankind. Lorgar was the first of the Primarchs to be corrupted by Chaos based on the information brought back from the survivors of the 1301st Expedition during their extraordinary journey into the Eye of Terror itself. This Expeditionary Fleet is also notable for the rediscovery of the Feral World of Cadia, the exploration of the Eye of Terror as well as multiple Imperial Compliance actions following the events that occurred on the world of Khur where the entire Word Bearers Legion was dramatically censured by the Emperor for their continued violations of the Imperial Truth.
2188th Expeditionary Fleet Unknown Unknown Unknown
The 2188th Expedition disappeared under mysterious circumstances near the Word Bearers Legion's homeworld of Colchis, a disappearance that would lead to reports that the Warp in that region was unstable, prompting Imperial commercial traffic to avoid the planet, leading to its rapid economic decline before its destruction in the Great Scouring.
3855th Expeditionary Fleet Unknown Word Bearers Legion (The Bloodied Visage & The Crescent Moon Chapters) Unknown
The 3855th Expeditionary Fleet was a Great Crusade expeditionary force comprised to two Word Bearers Chapters, commanded by an unknown commander.
Unnamed Expeditionary Fleet Warsmith Khr Vhalen IVth Legion (Iron Warriors), 77th Grand Battalion Unknown
The unnamed Expeditionary Fleet of the Iron Warriors' 77th Grand Battalion, was an Imperial Expeditionary Fleet of the Great Crusade. The 77th, like a number of Iron Warriors detachments dispersed across the Imperium and all but forgotten, had become almost completely self-sustaining by the end of the Great Crusade, and when the Horus Heresy came, he and his forces were utterly ignorant of their Legion's betrayal. At the Battle of Paramar, he and his Legionaries would take bitter pride in their stubborn loyalty to the Great Crusade as brother turned against brother.
Unnamed Expeditionary Fleet Hashin Yonnad VIIth Legion (Imperial Fists) Unknown
The unnamed Expeditionary Fleet of the Imperial Fists commanded by Hashin Yonnad, Commander of the 39th Household of Inwit, was an Imperial Expeditionary Fleet of the Great Crusade. Reckoned by many to be one of the Imperium's greatest strategists, Yonnad was charged with prosecuting the Imperial Compliance of the Araeneus Continuity, a series of planets close to the Sol System. Marshalling his fleet at Tallarn, thousands of warships carrying over 20,000 Imperial Fists, alongside millions of troops of the Imperial Army and the Mechanicum launched their assault upon the unsuspecting systems of the Araneus. Within two solar months the Continuity was reduced to the single core world of Araneus Prime. But even as the Imperium moved in to claim their prize, the worlds of the Araneus Continuity were beset by an unknown xenos menace. The Imperial Fists detonated warheads they had attached to each Warp Gate. Without their gates, the unknown enemies simply vanished. Their advance had been halted on Araneus Prime when its gate exploded. All but one of the systems of the Continuity had died, and at the cost of thousands of Imperial Fists and billions of humans Araneus Prime survived, but barely.
Unnamed Expeditionary Fleet Arkhas Fal XIXth Legion (yet unnamed as the Raven Guard) Unknown
The unnamed Expeditionary Fleet of the XIXth Legion (later the Raven Guard Legion) was an Imperial Expeditionary Fleet of the Great Crusade. Comprised of three full Chapters, this fleet was under the overall command of Arkhas Fal, then Master of the XIXth Legion and bearing the title Shade Lord. They took part in the notable Imperial Compliance of the planet of Baratrum during the savage Battle of Hell's Anvil. Thousands of Imperial Army lives had been lost and they were unable to secure any foothold in the sunken metropoli of Baratrum. The arrival of the XIXth Legion fleet commanded by Arkhas Fal, and accompanied by a sizable contingent of Luna Wolves, changed the nature of the campaign.

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See Also

Sources

  • Horus Heresy Collected Visions (Art Book), pg. 143
  • Rogue Trader (1st Edition)
  • The Horus Heresy - Book One: Betrayal (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pp. 18-22, 80
  • The Horus Heresy - Book Two: Massacre (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pp. 14-16, 19
  • The Horus Heresy - Book Three: Extermination (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pp. 22, 76-77, 106, 110, 150, 155, 255
  • The Horus Heresy - Book Four: Conquest (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pp. 68, 71-72
  • The Horus Heresy - Book Five: Tempest (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pg. 73
  • The Horus Heresy - Book Seven: Inferno (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pg. 10
  • Warhammer 40,000: Compilation (1st Edition), pg. 20
  • Warhammer 40,000: Rulebook (6th Edition), pg. 166
  • Warhammer 40,000: Rulebook (5th Edition), pg. 102
  • White Dwarf 321 (US), "Warhammer 40,000 Tactica: Walkers"
  • White Dwarf 140 (US), "Space Fleet"
  • White Dwarf 139 (US), "Space Fleet"
  • Warhammer 40,000: Compilation, pg. 20
  • Age of Darkness (Anthology) edited by Christian Dunn, "The Iron Within" by Rob Sanders, "The Last Remembrancer" by John French
  • A Thousand Sons (Novel) by Graham McNeill
  • Descent of Angels (Novel) by Mitchel Scanlon
  • Fulgrim (Novel) by Graham MacNeill
  • Horus Rising (Novel) by Dan Abnett, pp. 172-173
  • False Gods (Novel) by Graham McNeill
  • Galaxy In Flames (Novel) by Ben Counter
  • Legion (Novel) by Dan Abnett
  • Prospero Burns (Novel) by Dan Abnett
  • Tales of Heresy (Anthology) edited by Nick Kyme and Lindsey Priestley, "Wolf at the Door" by Mike Lee and "After Desh'ea" by Matthew Farrer
  • The First Heretic (Novel) by Aaron Dembski-Bowden
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