The Fourth War for Armageddon

[Khornestar]

The Fourth War for Armageddon:

 

This is a long-term multi-army project. The goal was to chug along and chip away at the various projects I have in my collection, but also to unify them in some way. To accomplish this, I decided to theme my armies as if they are participating in the Fourth War for Armageddon, a campaign fought amongst the Imperium, Orks, and Chaos.

 

I don’t plan to buy all the factions and models that make up these armies, but I enjoy fleshing out the story to exercise my creative muscles and just kinda have fun with the background of the hobby. I plan to write bits and pieces of fanfic here and there, but for the most part right now I’m trying to organize my thoughts.

As far as what has been written about this conflict that I know about, I try to stay true to it. Specifically, the Salamanders and their role as written in the space marines codex. It’s a short blurb, but crucially relevant to this project.

 

So really, this is becoming my new catch-all project log. What you can expect to see is outlined fluff, occasional narrative, and WIP models. I jump around a lot between projects, it’s just the way I am, so apologies in advance if that is annoying. I’m not trying to be particularly original or edgy here, just trying to have some fun. If the contents don’t seem particularly creative, don’t be surprised. That being said, I did come up with the events on my own other than the aforementioned tidbit from the SM codex.

 

As far as the orks and sisters are concerned, I know the least about their background so stuff may change as I read up and learn about them.

 

Everything is subject to change, but here’s where I’m at:

Factions:

• Orks:
  • Led by Thrakka
    • They’ve come back to Armageddon to have some fun and wreck face
    • Their side objective is to steal the buried imperator titan (see later) for themselves. With totems of Gork and Mork, they believe they can banish the daemon from the machine.
• Imperium:
  • Salamanders:
    • Led by Vulkan He’stan
      • The Forgefather is in a mad dash to obtain the remaining lost artefacts of the primarch Vulkan. One of them is in the hands of a Word Bearers sorcerer: the Song of Entropy. Guided by the visions of the primaris librarian accompanying him, the Forgefather was already en route to Armageddon when the planet’s defense forces sent out their distress signals.
      • The Salamanders senior leadership consists of Vulkan He’stan, Bray’arth Ashmantle, a chaplain, a techmarine, a primaris lieutenant, and a primaris librarian.
      • This force consists of a large contingent of dreadnoughts; ancients whose wisdom, experience, and knowledge are vital to the mission of recovering the lost artefacts. A past Forgefather is enshrined in a leviathan dreadnought, for example.
      • The bulk of the Salamanders infantry is primaris marines led by the primaris lieutenant.
      • He’stan considers the defense of Armageddon the ultimate mission, but will not compromise his quest to recover the Song of Entropy from the Word Bearers sorcerer Ophidion, either. To the Salamanders, the future of mankind depends on Vulkan’s return. If recovering the artefacts hastens the primarch’s return, then that is the route by which they can achieve that.
      • Spoiler alert:
        The Salamanders fail to recover the Song of Entropy. The Forgefather and the sons of Vulkan found themselves in a situation where they could engage and kill Ophidion and try to stop the resurrection of the imperator titan,  or stop the ritual to summon Angron. They chose the latter. Ophidion takes the Song of Entropy back into the warp with him when the WB fall back.
  • Black Templars:
    • Have been on-and-off following and engaging with Ghazkhull’s Waagh since the third war for Armageddon. Over time, their original astartes brothers have been killed off. Guilliman and Cawl reinforced the crusade with primaris marines, bolstering their numbers.
    • Commissar Yarrick
      • is dead, killed by Thrakka himself.
  • Imperial Guard: Steel Legion
  • Adeptus Mechanicus:
    • Working to excavate the traitor/possessed Imperator titan buried beneath the planet’s surface. Their hope is that they can banish the daemon haunting the titan, or ultimately destroy it to cut off the machine’s beaconlike nature to the orks and forces of chaos alike. They have almost excavated the titan at the beginning of the campaign.
  • Titanicus elements
  • Adepta Sororitas
  • Grey Knights Grandmaster
    • Traveling with five custodes, determined to interfere with the Word Bearers’ rituals at all costs until reinforcements from the Ordo Xenos arrive.
      Convinces the Salamanders to commit to helping him stop Angron’s ritual. The grandmaster dies in the process but the Salamanders pull it off.
  • Adeptus Custodes
• Chaos:
  • World Eaters:
    • Championed by Khârn
    • Consists of a grand host of Khornate forces, mainly warbands belonging to the legion though some Khornate-focused renegade Astartes/legionaries as well.
      • A few thousand World Eaters berzerkers backed by daemon engines.
      • Juggernaut-riding chosen of Khorne known as the Brass Stampede
        • Led by Arctos Gorehowl, riding atop a Khornate warp dragon.
      • Unnamed Warbands
    • Their main objective is to summon Angron. Armageddon is the destination because although the Grey Knights banished him during the First War, there is some residual essence/something that allows him to be summoned there more easily than elsewhere in realspace. If successful, they plan to butcher the planet’s entire population and fight on to other planets.
    • Their side objective, as true veterans of the Long War, is to kill as many loyalist Astartes as possible.
  • Word Bearers:
    • Led by Erebus
      • Erebus knows to stay well away from Khârn throughout the entirety of the campaign. He has his Coryphaeus Osstok the Adjudicator leading their forces on the ground and as far as he’s able, acting as a liason between the two traitor legions. Erebus remains aboard his flagship calling shots, coordinating the big picture, and doing daemonic ritual preparation stuff from orbit.
      • First Acolyte X:
        • His job is to enact the daemonic rituals on the ground. Him and Erebus succeed in essentially lassoing an edge/portion of the Cicatrix Maledictum and wrapping it around Armageddon.
        • Is killed on the verge of summoning Angron, and thus fails.
      • Ophidion: This heretic is a sorcerer and a senior commander in Erebus’s second host, and leads the Chapter of the Phoenix Ascendant, which is comprised of former members of various traitor legions and renegades now clad in Word Bearers livery, fully dedicated to the cause.  Ophidion wields the Song of Entropy to terrifying effect. It is unknown how he obtained it or exactly how corrupted it’s become in his hands. The Chapter of the Phoenix Ascendant is working with the Dark Mechanicum to resurrect Canticum Tenebris.
        • Cult of Ashes: Part of the chapter’s throngs; human cultists, abhumans, mutants, and the like.
          • Their main objective is to catch bullets. They believe that by dying in battle, they will be reborn as warp entities – manifestations of the purest form of what they worship and hope to attain unity with. Sometimes they’re right.
      • There are numerous goals that Erebus hopes to accomplish with his assault on Armageddon. He orchestrates things in such a way that the imperial defenders must sacrifice stopping one goal in order to stop another.
        • One is to set off a chain reaction of daemonic rituals that isolates Armageddon from reinforcements for any faction and culminates in summoning Angron. Given the ongoing events of the Thirteenth Black Crusade, as far as the Word Bearers are concerned there is no down side to unleashing Angron on the imperium.
          • The first part is successful, however - as per the GW fluff, the ritual to summon Angron is stopped by the Salamanders.
        • Another is to resurrect the traitor/possessed Imperator Titan being excavated by the Adeptus Mechanicus
        • Another is to harvest the gene seeds and unique organs of primaris marines.
        • Another is to survive the greenskin onslaught, which is sweeping across the planet and doesn’t discriminate between loyalists and heretics.
  • Traitor Guard:
    • Makes up the bulk of the heretical forces, in terms of numbers. A vast army with an array of armored units (including superheavies) as well as infantry.
    • I’m still mulling about regarding their motivations.
    • Despite winning numerous victories, by the end of the campaign this army is nearly obliterated. Very surprising.
  • Dark Mechanicus:
    • Employed/bribed/blackmailed by Erebus into accompanying his campaign in order to repair and activate the haunted Imperator titan.
    • Spoiler alert:
      They succeed. Canticum Tenebris is resurrected and devastates the imperial forces set against it. However, after doing so the Word Bearers pull the titan with them back into the warp as they fall back having achieved one of their major goals. They intend to use the titan for other purposes. They take Khârn and whatever surviving World Eaters with them as they go.

 

MAIN EVENTS:

 

The traitor imperator titan Canticum Tenebris is not only discovered to be real, but the fact that it’s demonically possessed is verified. Its spirit is roused, and it blasts out a sort of signal that attracts the attention of Thrakka, the Word Bearers - as well as the Salamanders, who haul ass to Armageddon as quickly as possible.

 

The Sororitas and Steel Legion are there from the beginning, stationed on Armageddon. They begin the war at full strength.

 

Thrakka, nostalgic and eager for a new war on Armageddon also heads to the planet, with the Black Templars crusade at his heels. His Waagh is vast. The orks arrive after the Salamanders, followed by the Black Templars.

 

The Word Bearers and World Eaters arrive together, Erebus himself leading the former while there is no official leadership among the latter. Khârn leads (as much as he’s capable of leading) a sizable chunk of World Eaters, while other warbands tag along. The Dark Mechanicum ride with Erebus. The traitor guard army arrives simultaneously, launching a two-pronged war against the orks and the imperium.

 

And then, it all goes mostly wrong for everyone…

[Khornestar]

Working on some more berzerkers:

 

All at once:

 

 

Individuals before spraying Khorne red:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[sarabando]

Needs more Celestial Lions returning for a good krumpin' Manaheim gap style.

[Pearson73]

Sounds like this is going to be a good thread, nice start on the Berserkers.

[Khornestar]

Needs more Celestial Lions returning for a good krumpin' Manaheim gap style.

 

 

Ooh yeah, I like that idea!

 

 

Sounds like this is going to be a good thread, nice start on the Berserkers.

Thanks! I take a long time to get through stuff, but this idea has restarted my interest in working on my models, as the rules of the game and lack of my usual friends/opponents have more or less killed my interest in playing.

[Khornestar]

A quick little story to set the mood for my update: (disclaimer: not particularly well-proofread or edited, forgive me):

 

“Private Curtis.”

 

Lieutenant Morro waved her hand in front of the private’s face, still staring at the charred hulk of flesh and ceramite at their feet.

 

“Private Curtis, report!”

 

This time, Private Eugenia Curtis looked up and met the Lieutenant’s gaze, though it was clear to her commanding officer that her mind was elsewhere. Curtis barely noticed the medic cauterizing the mangled stump that remained of her right arm.

 

Hours earlier, thirty infantrymen had occupied the ruins of a once thriving butcher shop on the ground floor of a habitation structure. That was before a howling giant clad in red and brass shoulder barged through a wall as his way of announcing that the shop was under new ownership.

 

Adrenaline slowed down the mayhem around her. Guardsmen scattering to avoid the explosion of concrete as the heretic Astartes crashed into their midst, lasguns rising to aim at the brute, the hand reaching for a vox caster to call for reinforcement - everything slowed - that is, except the monster himself. He laid about him with a chainblade in his left hand and a chainaxe in his right. Limbs and heads thumped to the floor as they were separated from the bodies that once suspended them. The screams of his chain weapons were nearly drowned out by those of the guardsmen as well as those of the berserker himself.

 

Curtis wasn’t quite sure how the promethium tank on Private Mastersen’s back exploded, but it surely did before her eyes. Perhaps the World Eater’s axe had passed through Mastersen’s torso and into the tank before he was engulfed in flames. For a heartbeat, she allowed herself to thank the Emperor for her miraculous salvation.

 

She didn’t notice the sensation of voiding her bladder as the berserker, burning alive, continued to slaughter in her direction. She remained frozen as he cut down the four guardsmen other than herself who had survived to that point. Curtis managed to feebly raise her arms defensively as she closed her eyes and began forming the words of a prayer. She couldn’t therefore see the giant in black sprinting toward her, nor his power sword slice clean through the berzerker’s abdomen, nor the monster’s axe as it ripped through her arm despite the attempt at intervention.

 

She barely felt it, in truth. She backed herself against a wall as the World Eater, now cut in half, pulled his upper half toward her with his entrails dragging behind him as he continued to burn. Deaf since shortly after the attack began, she felt the shockwaves reverberating off her skin as the Templar pumped five rounds from his bolt pistol into the berzerker’s skull.

 

“Lieutenant? I…" Private Curtis passed out mid-sentence, the blood loss and shock finally catching up to her. The mangled corpses and blood on the walls would have to suffice for a report.

 

 

 

 

Got the dark brass trim done on this batch of berzerkers. Oof, so much trim. So many rivets. On to the next colors...

 

[General Strike]

What legs are those zerkers?

[Khornestar]

Various. Mk III, Mk IV, Mk VIII, CSM, and Berzerkers.