Ullanor Crusade
From Lexicanum
The Ullanor Crusade was a vast assault upon the empire of Ork Overlord Urrlak Urruk during the Great Crusade.
While other Space Marine Legions, supported by newly-raised Imperial Army regiments, were tasked to retake the outlying planets of the Ullanor system, the Luna Wolves fleet drove straight for the central world. The force was massive. 100,000 space marines, 8 milllion Imperial Army Troops, Hundreds of Spacecraft.
Employing his favoured tactic of a direct strike at the enemy HQ units, Horus unleashed his Legion. Drop pods crashed to the ground all around Urrlak`s fortress-palace. Heavy shuttles deployed Land Raiders and Predators and armoured Space Marines advanced on the defenses. Then, as hundreds of Orks rushed to join the battle on the perimeter walls, Horus and a Terminator detachment teleported directly to the foot of the great central tower. As the Luna Wolves blasted away the guards, mobs from the walls raced back to protect Urrlak. Horus left most of the Terminators to hold back the Orks and pushed on up the tower with just ten Space Marines at his side. At the pinnacle of the tower they found Urrlak in a grand chamber, accompanied by forty of the biggest Orks in his empire. Horus charged straight into the midst of the Nobz, slicing apart the muscled, green bodies with the lightning claws of his battle armour. The Terminators with him similarly crashed into the combat. Slowly they hacked a path through the mob until Horus faced Urrlak himself. The Overlord was an enormous Ork, but he was simply no match for the Primarchs skill and unnatural power. First crippling his enemy, Horus hefted Urrlak`s broken body out onto the roof and threw it screaming from the battlements to fall far below amongst the horde of Orks still assaulting the lower levels.
The sudden demise of their mighty leader sent a panic through the Greenskin forces, which started to fall back from the Terminators. But the fleeing mobs found they had nowhere to run, as the outer walls had been breached by the attacking Luna Wolves, and the day turned into a slaughter. Back in the Overlord's chamber. Horus found every Ork and Terminator dead, apart from the gore-drenched Captain of the 1st Company, Abaddon, surrounded by crushed and broken bodies.
As word of his death spread, the Overlord's empire fragmented. The Imperial forces were able to destroy or drive out the remaining Orks and free the quadrant for Imperial rule within a year (naturally, the Luna Wolves claimed to have liberated substantially more worlds than their allies).
Not long afterwards a great Triumph was held to recognise the glory of the Ullanor Crusade. It was at this event that Horus was named Warmaster.
