Index Mardannon: Sector War 2004

This particular article has been in the Warhammer 40,000 Battles Book we keep here at the club - a thick, black binder filled with presentation sheets containing articles, maps, and tales of valor. This particular article was penned back in 2004, after the Battle for Vogen was fought and gave a narrative to the two campaigns we fought in 2003-2004. Since these began the storylines for our entire Warhammer 40,000 campaign structure, I thought it relevant to post this. It has since been subsumed into a new essay (containing a distilled version of the narrative given here) that is the introduction to our Battles Book. I'll be posting additional sections from all our Battle Books here for everyone's perusal in the future. There will be more Wargate material coming soon!

The Mardannon Sector War

(Late .M41)

Although plagued by strife for its entire existence, the Mardannon sector became a truly war torn place during the height of the 13^th Black Crusade. Abaddon’s forces erupted from their hiding spots and drove for the most vulnerable of the Imperial worlds, and succeeded in subjugating and enslaving entire systems.

At the end of the Black Crusade, forces loyal to Chaos still have full sway in some zones of the sector. The most dangerous subsectors have very little Imperial presence beyond a few outposts or naval bases. The wake of the Black Crusade has damaged Imperial rule throughout the galaxy, and the Mardannon sector feels this keenly due to proximity to the Eye of Terror. Indeed, on every world in the sector the sky pulses with the unnatural light of those tainted stars.

Notable Actions

• The Exparos Incident – At the height of the 13^th Black Crusade, Inquisitor Lord Lucian Kylan of the Ordo Malleus divined a terrible disturbance in the Warp around Exparos, deep in the Magnum Sierra subsector. These Warp tremors were caused by an alien artifact of Eldar make, and with this portent Kylan foresaw the artifacts purpose was to resonate psychic energy and generate and a build up of Warp energy for an unknown purpose.
• Inquisitor Kylan dispatched his protégé, Inquisitor Dominic Gustav, to reconnoiter the ork held world and find the exact location of the artifact. The ork tribe inhabiting Exparos, a splinter of the dominant Black Skull Goffs, had sensed the Warp focus and built crude shrines to their gods. This amplified the psychic resonation in the buried artifact to extremely dangerous levels. If left unchecked, this resonation could build to critical levels, resulting in a cataclysmic Warp-realspace breach of unknown magnitude.
• Inquisitor Gustav and his task force reconnoiter the area and locate the artifact quickly, in the middle of a large ork encampment around their newly constructed idols. Though severely outnumbered with limited supplies in enemy territory, Inquisitor Gustav knows the artifact must be destroyed, even at the cost of his own life and the lives of his men. Grand Master Hess of the Grey Knights had accompanied Gustav at Kylan’s request, and used his expert military planning to ensure the handful of Grey Knights and stormtroopers in the expedition were as effective as possible.
• In a daring teleport assault by the Grey Knights, the Inquisitorial task force entered the underground ruins of an ancient Eldar city and disabled the artifact, an Eldar psychic power grid. Its resonating energies dissipated with much less catastrophe due to Gustav’s powerful psychic might. Only ork encampments and idols were destroyed in the resulting blast, and nearby systems were unaffected. No Warp storms were triggered, a deep concern that Gustav and Hess shared.

• The Battle for Vogen – On Tetrazom Tertius, in the Urbanus Scapulare subsector, the capital city of Vogen once stood as a bastion against the plagues of heretics that scarred the landscape of this formerly beautiful and civilized world. However, decades of civil wars against heretic guerilla uprisings and militias left what few Imperial forces remained scattered and stretched to the limit.
• During the 13^th Black Crusade, Tetrazom Tertius was nearly lost entirely to Chaos and alien forces. At the time, no reinforcements could be diverted help Tetrazom Tertius…the long battle for the Cadian Gate demanded the most of the sector’s military resources due to its relatively close proximity to Cadia and the Eye of Terror. Conflicts at home flared in absence of Imperial presence, and proved to be a little too much for the Planetary Defense Forces.
• The traitorous Alpha Legion had long used this planet as a secret staging area, supplying heretic armies with weapons and converts to Chaos. The secretive and inscrutable Alpha Legion sorcerers directed their operations here, and eventually the capital city of Vogen became the primary target.
• Fate can change her mind at any time. What was assured victory for the machinations of the Alpha Legion was thrown into question by the arrivals of military forces previously not present.
• A large force of Black Skull Goffs crashed into the planet in a ramshackle ork rok, in close proximity for Vogen. The capital city became their first target in their planned domination of the humans occupying their new playground. Led by the tenacious Warboss Gigi, the orks began to smash all military forces directed their way.
• As if guerilla armies of daemon worshippers, a renegade space marine legion, and a horde of orks dropping from the sky weren’t enough for Imperial forces on Tetrazom Tertius, another threat appeared from space shortly after the general evacuation of Vogen by Imperial authorities. A Tau hunter cadre had wandered dangerously far from home using an unstable Warp rift, and several thousand Sa’cea Fire Warriors began to establish a beachhead on the war-torn Imperial planet they had “discovered”. Many Imperial citizens responded favorably to the policies implemented by the new arrivals, and a Tau protectorate formed in just a few months inside Vogen, which was now largely abandoned by Imperial forces.
• In the midst of all this conflict between so many different military powers, the cults flourished and drew power from the bloodshed and depravity in the lawless city. The sorcerers of the Alpha Legion supplied the heretic bands throughout the city and surrounding area with powerful rituals and spells designed to bring forth the energies of chaos. Quickly, the negative psychic energy surrounding the city built to a critical mass, opening the way for malignant daemons and other manifestations of chaos.
• A terrible thing then happened. The spells and rituals the Alpha Legion seeded in the heretic cults opened a way for a powerful Daemon Prince of Slaanesh. Once a noble space marine of the Emperor’s Children, he attained daemonhood quite recently. His daemon fleet arrived through the Warp, and quickly seized the star port in Vogen. Daemons of Slaanesh polluted the very reality around the city, and violence between the Tau, Orks and heretics escalated to a new level.
• It was then that the Titan’s Hammer and escort the Avenging Talon arrived in orbit around Tetrazom Tertius. The Lord Inquisitor Lucian Kylan had arrived to do battle with Kal’Duraas, an enemy of mankind that Kylan had pursued for many years. This time, however…the Chaos sorcerer had become a true daemonic entity. Lord Kylan assembled a task force on Cethrax, including Grand Master Hess of the Grey Knights, and his protégé, the young Inquisitor Dominic Gustav.
• The two powerful Imperial ships vastly outclassed the ragtag collection of smaller, ill-maintained transatmospheric ships that the heretics possessed. Although the Imperial achieved orbit over Vogen and held it without contest, the Imperials simply could not control the amount of small craft on the surface. The Emperor’s Children maintained atmospheric air superiority throughout most of the battle for the city.
• Imperial control of Tetrazom Tertius was waning. As the Inquisitor surveyed military reports, he realized there were less than two areas of solid Imperial control on Tetrazom Tertius, both thousands of miles overland from Vogen. Lord Kylan immediately assumed command of all remaining Imperial military units, and ordered all loyalists to consolidate and defend the two remaining fortress cities of Abbacia Inheritus and Inveteratus. Imperial forces immediately established a strong line of defense and began to push the heretics and aliens back.
• Kylan’s forces then entered the capital city, first as tentative reconnaissance units. As areas of the city were cleared enemy presence, the Inquisitorial task force began to search for its real objectives on Tetrazom Tertius. The Inquisition was not there to defend or provide soldiers for garrison. Kylan wished to root out and destroy the minions of Chaos responsible for this and many other atrocities: the sorcerers of the Alpha Legion and Kal’Duraas the Daemon Prince.
• The battle for Vogen went on for five more months. The Alpha Legion fled or went into hiding after just a few engagements with Inquisitorial forces. In the end, the Emperor’s Children controlled enough area of Vogen to influence the heretic cults that worshipped Kal’Duraas to commit a massive ritual suicide, the resonating psychic force of which enabled Kal’Duraas and his traitorous brethren to escape Tetrazom Tertius. The Inquisition succeeded in capturing several important areas of Vogen, but could not hope to control the city. With the Daemon Prince gone, the frequency and magnitude of the manifestations of Chaos in and around the city returned to normal, but the damage was done. The area was tainted by daemon blood. The Alpha Legion’s sorcerers responsible had disappeared, whereabouts unknown. The Lord Inquisitor’s task force left Tetrazom Tertius to return to Cethrax for supplies, leaving the Planetary Defense Force to defend the cities and await Imperial liberation.
• As for the aliens present during the battle for Vogen, the Black Skull Goffs defeated a truly remarkable amount of enemy forces during the campaign. Their fury was unmatched, and every enemy they encountered paid a high toll, in blood. The horde was very powerful, but could not maintain effective control of the city. The ork attack eventually lost momentum as losses were taken too quickly to be replaced. Hundreds of ork warbands scattered into the hinterlands as the campaign wore on.
• The Tau Hunter Cadre controls a large portion of the city and became popular with the remaining Imperial citizens who did not flee Vogen or become tainted with Chaos. The alien heresy remained for several months after the battle as the only presence in Vogen besides insane bands of daemon worshippers. In the end, they knew they were too far from home to continue the colonization, and opted to flee Imperial retribution. Taking many willing humans who allied themselves with them, they launched their ships and fled into the Warp to an unknown destination.
• Tetrazom Tertius, to this day, is a dangerous world scattered with the battle scarred ruins of its cities. The two Imperial fortresses have been reinforced with Imperial Guard regiments since the end of the 13^th Black Crusade, but Imperial power here is still weak. Proper steps have been taken to ensure an Astartes Crusade to reclaim the planet…if the defenses of the Imperial citizens hold until that day.