Armageddon (Warhammer 40,000)
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Armageddon is a fictional planet in the universe of the Warhammer 40,000 setting and has been featured heavily in Games Workshop's table top wargames and related games. This article deals with both the world, and the three major wars that have been fought on its surface.
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[edit] The World of Armageddon
Located ten thousand light years to the galactic northeast of Holy Terra, the world of Armageddon is the fourth in its system of ten planets, is classified as a Hive World of the Imperium, and is the industrial hub of both the Armageddon sub-sector and the greater region. Many worlds within a several light-year radius of Armageddon rely on the world for its industrial output.
Hundreds of centuries of industry has reduced the world to barren wastelands and polluted oceans; humans can only survive within the artificial environment of the hive cities (massive arcology-like structures that stand several kilometres tall) and Imperial facilities. Food must be imported from off-planet, and clean air and water are precious commodities.
Because of the inhospitable conditions outside of the hive cities, almost all regiments of the Armageddon Steel Legion are trained as mechanised infantry.
[edit] Landmasses
There are three main landmasses on Armageddon. Most human life is located on the main continent, which is split into two parts, Armageddon Prime and Armageddon Secondus, by the thick band of jungle known simply as the Equatorial Jungle. The bulk of Armageddon Prime and Secondus is covered in ash wastes, aftereffects of millennia of industrialisation. Several hive cities house the population and industry of Armageddon; Tempestora, Death Mire and Volcanus on Prime, Infernus, Hades, Acheron, Helsreach and Tartarus on Secondus.
To the north of Armageddon Prime and Secondus are The Fire Wastes, which is home to the mining and resource gathering industries that support the industrial factories. This is an extremely arid region, which has been strip-mined far beyond the point of any sustainable ecosystem.
To the south is the ice-covered Deadlands. The polluted ice is melted and heavily purified to provide a source of drinking water to the inhabitants of the hive cities.
[edit] First War for Armageddon
| First War for Armageddon | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Wars for Armageddon | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
| Imperial Guard | World Eaters
Imperial Guard traitors Chaos cultists |
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| Commanders | |||||||
| Logan Grimnar | Angron | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| Unknown numbers of Imperial Guardsmen
300 Space Wolves 100 Grey Knights Terminators |
Unknown numbers of World Eaters
Unknown numbers of traitors and cultists |
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| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| Large numbers of Guardsmen and civilians
Unknown numbers of Space Wolves 97 Grey Knights |
Unknown numbers of World Eaters
All traitors and cultists All Greater Daemons |
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The first war fought for the planet is perhaps the least known, and probably for good reason. In the 499th year of the 41st millennium, a force assembled by Angron, daemon-Primarch of the World Eaters, used the space hulk Devourer of Stars to launch an invasion of Armageddon.
The hulk emerged from the Immaterium on the outer edge of the Armageddon system, and began to drift towards the Hive World. Actions by the Imperial Navy were able to stall the advance of the space hulk, but a month after emerging from the Warp, Angron was in a position to begin his attack.
[edit] Chaos Ascendant
As the space hulk manouevred itself into orbit around the Hive World, cultists worshipping the Chaos god Khorne broke out in rebellion. At least half of the Imperial Guard stationed on the planet turned against their fellows. Anarchy and mayhem swept through the hives of Armageddon Prime, which made a perfect target for Angron's first landings. The planetfall was effectively uncontested, and the forces of Angron were able to establish control of Armageddon Prime within a few weeks.
Imperial forces were forced to withdraw through the Equatorial Jungle towards Armageddon Secondus, leaving behind them a land ruled by the daemonic and the insane. The land was said to have been littered with bones, while the polluted rivers were choked with blood spilled in the name of Khorne.
The Warp storms that had sprung up around the Armageddon sector in response to Angron's invasion began to abate at this point in time, and Angron was forced to stop the advance in order to consolidate and reinforce his Warp-spawned power. The Daemon Prince ordered a gigantic monolith be constructed that would draw the power needed to sustain daemonic existence on Armageddon, a construction that took many weeks, and killed thousands of slaves. Thousands more were executed in consecration ceremonies.
[edit] The Imperium Strikes Back
The time taken by Angron's forces to construct their daemonic-supporting construction was put to good use by the retreating Imperial forces. The Imperial forces had dug in at the River Chaeron, and support from the Space Marines of both the Space Wolves and Grey Knights Chapters had made its way to Armageddon.
Logan Grimnar had been elected to lead the defence, and against the Imperial defences, the forces of Chaos could find no sanctuary. Ill-prepared for the level of resistance offered, the Chaos hordes sent failed wave after failed wave at the Imperium over the course of three days of hard, near-constant combat. As the Chaos hordes casualties began to take their toll however, Angron, accompanied by a bodyguard of a dozen of Khorne's Bloodthirsters, was almost able to break the line at one point, and advance on Infernus and Helsreach Hives.
This had been planned for by Grimnar. As Angron's force broke through the line, an entire company of Terminator armour-equipped Grey Knights teleported into his path. Despite heavy losses, the Grey Knights fought without regard for their own safety, and one by one banished each daemon back to the warp. After the sacrifice of Brother-Captain Aurelian, the surviving Grey Knights triumphed, banishing Angron's spirit to the warp from where it could not return for a hundred years and a day. Leaderless, the Chaos horde was crushed in due order.
[edit] Victory and Aftermath
Bereft of the leadership of Angron and his daemonic allies, the hordes of Chaos were quickly routed and destroyed. The bodies of the enemy were piled into great funeral pyres and burned; the sites of these incinerations still show the signs of Chaotic corruption.
The Imperium had prevailed, but at the cost of all industrial infrastructure on Armageddon Prime, along with a death toll that was beyond measure.
One final tragedy was to strike the world of Armageddon, as it was decided that all knowledge of the daemonic invasion had to be suppressed, to prevent mass panic from spreading to the rest of the Imperium. The destruction of records was simple enough, but the survivors of the war posed a greater problem. The Administratum, along with the Inquisition, began a grand redevelopment scheme. Every single man, woman and child who had survived the war was rounded up and relocated to enormous forced-labour camps. A new population was brought in to re-settle the planet, and within 15 years all the workers in the camps were dead - a poor reward for those who had so bravely resisted the forces of Chaos. Logan Grimnar of the Space Wolves was the only one who dared protest these actions, and has never forgiven the Administratum for the betrayal of the brave men and women who fought for their world.
[edit] Player perspective
The events of the First Armageddon War are told in Chaos Attack, an expansion game for the Battle of Armageddon board game released by Games Workshop in 1992.
[edit] Second War for Armageddon
| Second War for Armageddon | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Wars for Armageddon | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
| Imperial Guard
Blood Angels Ultramarines and Salamanders Space Marine chapters. |
Orks | ||||||
| Commanders | |||||||
| Herman von Strab‡ | Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| Unknown numbers of Imperial Guardsmen
Unknown numbers of Space Marines |
Several millions of Ork Boyz | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| Large numbers of Guardsmen and civilians
Unknown numbers of Space Marines |
Massive number of Boyz | ||||||
The second invasion of Armageddon occurred in 941.M41, led by the Ork Warlord Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka, who, thanks to the efforts of Eldar Farseer Eldrad Ulthran had been diverted from his course intercepting Ulthwe, and onto the Imperial planet. The ruler of Armageddon, Overlord Herman von Strab, was completely unprepared for the attack, and his own pride and incompetence only made matters worse. Ignoring the presence of a large Ork fleet in the outer system, and sending his regiments piecemeal to fight the Ork Waaagh after it made planetfall, von Strab may well have lost the vital planet, if not for the actions of Commissar Yarrick.
Yarrick was the one to send a distress signal to the rest of the Imperium, an action that led to his exile by von Strab to the megacity Hades Hive. Elsewhere, von Strab's command led to defeat after defeat, causing the destruction of numerous planetary defence armies, the capture of two other megacities across Armageddon Prime and Secondus, and killing hundreds of thousands of refugees through the use of ancient and malfunctioning biological weapons.
As the Imperium was defeated across the planet, the conflict at Hades Hive reached a level of intensity previously unseen in the invasion. Led by Yarrick himself, the Imperial resistance was so fierce that Ghazghkull himself joined the fray; every ploy and stratagem the Ork Warlord employed was countered by the wily Commissar. The heroism and leadership of Yarrick turned the course of the war, for as Ghazghkull became more frustrated, he became fixated on taking the hive, stalling his army's advance. After six months of siege, Imperial reinforcements arrived, spearheaded by the Blood Angels Space Marines. Von Strab was removed from command and imprisoned, as the defenders of Armageddon chose to follow the legendary Chapter Master Dante. The Blood Angels were quickly reinforced by the Ultramarines and Salamanders chapters, quickly turning the tide of the war back in the Imperium's favour.
Moving north, the Space Marines failed to arrive in time to save Hades Hive, which had become much more than a military objective to Ghazghkull. The combined forces of Armageddon fell on the Orks as the latter broke into Hades Hive, slaughtering or routing every Ork that could be found. Yarrick had become such an annoyance that Ghazghkull hunted him down himself, catching him in the hive and headbutting Yarrick to the floor, nearly killing him.
The Second War for Armaggedon had continued well into the year 942.M41 and so devastated the planet that the vital Hades, Tartarus, and Infernus Hives were still unrepaired by the time Ghazghkull returned, fifty-seven years later.
[edit] The Aftermath
Ghazghkull also survived the final assault on Hades Hive. Retreating to his stronghold in a neighbouring sector, he continued on with the master plan revealed to him by the Ork Godz. The Second War for Armageddon was simply a way for the Ork military genius to test the reactions of the Imperium to mass invasion.
In the decades following the war, Ghazghkull began practicing the tactics he believed would lead to the demise of the Imperium, carrying out a series of smaller experiments in the form of raids and ambushes on small Imperial outposts, slowly moving his influence closer to the Armageddon system.
[edit] Player perspective
In 1992, Games Workshop released Battle for Armageddon, a board game detailing the events of the Second Armageddon War. Also, the events of this war formed the main background for the Warhammer 40,000 second edition box set.
[edit] Third War for Armageddon
Fifty-seven years after his first attempt, Ghazghkull Thraka led a second Waaagh smashing into Armageddon. Commissar Yarrick and many of the heroes who fought for the planet before were called into battle again.
[edit] Opening Moves
The first signs of the impending war were a series of attacks on the systems surrounding Armageddon. Over a period of months, two worlds were laid waste by pirate raids, while one in every two Imperial merchant vessels vanished without a trace. Suddenly, the pirate raids became full-on Ork assaults on outposts and colonies, taking advantage of the fact that the Armageddon Sector Navy's top priority was to guard the Armageddon system.
In the early half of the year 999.M41, as the attacks on Imperial worlds increased in frequency and ferocity, General Kurov, now supreme commander of the Imperial Guard forces on Armageddon, called for all nearby Imperial Guard Regiments and Space Marine Chapters to gather in the defence of Armageddon.
[edit] Return of Ghazghkull
On the fifty-seventh anniversary of end of the first Ork invasion of Armageddon, a sensor station located on the outer reaches of the system registered a titanic Ork fleet emerging from the Immaterium. The station, shortly before its destruction, recorded almost four hundred separate vessels, including four space hulks. The Imperial Navy was mobilized within twenty-four hours, and engaged the lead elements of the Ork fleet five days later.
Despite the skill of the Imperial Navy, and the command of Admiral Parol, the defenders were outnumbered six-to-one, and as they were being slowly forced back, word came from the other sensor stations within the Armageddon system that three more fleets of equal size were entering the system on other vectors. Parol was forced to disengage in an effort to save the surviving vessels of the Imperial fleet. The Ork fleets did not stop on their drive towards Armageddon, slowly but inexorably descending towards the world.
[edit] Invasion
The final preparations before the Ork fleet arrived in orbit were made with a fateful frenzy. Imperial Guard and Space Marines dispersed into the ash wastes in order for the Imperium to quickly respond to any landings made. Imperial merchant vessels continued to run the ever-closing gauntlet, one of the final ships to make it to Armageddon carrying Commissar Yarrick himself. As the Imperium's greatest expert on Orks in general and on Ghazghkull in particular, Yarrick was made the supreme commander of all Imperial forces on the planet.
After six weeks, the Ork fleet, now numbering over two thousand vessels, reached their target. The orbital battle was brief, lasting only three days before the defences were destroyed and Ork landing craft began their descent to the surface. During this time, Hades Hive was bombarded by asteroids dropped from orbit; Ghazghkull did not want to have to fight at the scene of his defeat nearly sixty years prior.
As the Ork forces established themselves on the surface, it became clear to many the skill of Ghazghkull and his strategies. The conflict was scattered and chaotic, the conditions in which Orks thrived and Imperial armies floundered. The only group that continued to make any headway were the forces from the twenty-four Space Marine Chapters scattered across the world.
The Ork forces on the surface of Armageddon were quickly reinforced as modified Ork Rok spaceships made their landings in strategic locations around the planet. The various hive cities became besieged, and armour engagements dotted the landscape.
The conflicts on Armageddon ebbed and flowed, neither side able to gain an advantage for more than a few days. The size of the forces involved and the number of casualties on each side was immense; Imperial Guard Command on Armageddon lost track of the number of soldiers involved, and the Celestial Lions Space Marines were betrayed by the Inquisition, and nearly annihilated as a result. The war itself stalled when the world of Armageddon entered the 'Season of Fire' (the time of year when Armageddon's elliptical orbit brings it close to its sun), when conditions in the ash wastes grew so unbearable that both sides were forced to stop fighting, instead spending the season consolidating their gains for when the conflict began again.
[edit] The Aftermath
The period known as the Third Armageddon war lasted for less than a year, with Ghazghkull leaving the planet, pursued by Yarrick and a full Black Templars crusade. It could be said that the Imperium narrowly won the war, their victory became pyrrhic when it became clear that fighting would continue for a long time.
The Orks have come to regard Armageddon as a kind of Valhalla, where they can always come to find a good fight, and warbands from across the galaxy have travelled to the world to take part in the 'ultimate test'. The Imperium was forced to bring in more troops to keep the planet in Imperial hands, calling in regiments from as far away as Necromunda. Armageddon is too vital a world to have fall to the Orks, and any measures will be taken to keep the world under Imperial control.
[edit] Player perspective
In 2000, Games Workshop held a worldwide campaign for Warhammer 40,000, Epic 40,000, and Battlefleet Gothic, where the results of battles could be sent in from all over the world. Each country or region corresponded to a location on the planet (for example, Great Britain represented Hive Infernus, while the area around Helsreach Hive was fought over in the United States).
A Codex was also released for the campaign, which included army lists for the Armageddon Steel Legion, Ork Speed Freeks, and the Black Templars and Salamanders Space Marine Chapters.
The current edition of Epic, also known as Epic: Armageddon is based on the world of Armageddon, the background material and rules sets 'beginning' as the events detailed in the Games Workshop campaign 'ended'.
[edit] Related links
- [http://www.armageddon3.com/English/40KIntro/40Kintro.html Now just redirects to the main Games Workshop homepage
[edit] References
- Chambers, Andy; Johnson, Jervis, and Thorpe, Gav (2000). Warhammer 40,000 Codex: Armageddon, 1st Edition, Nottingham: Games Workshop. ISBN 1-84154-045-5.
- "The Third War for Armageddon" (August 2000). White Dwarf: Australian Edition (248). ISSN 0265-8712.
- "Codicium Imperialis – The First War For Armageddon" (February 2003). White Dwarf: Australian Edition (278). ISSN 0265-8712.
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