Battle of Faith's Anchorage
The Battle of Faith's Anchorage began after a Warp mishap sent a portion of the Imperial Navy forces fleeing Cadia's destruction[1a] into the Chaos-invaded Agripinaa System, where they were ambushed by the warships of the Sons of Malice Chaos Lord Kanath.[1b]
History
The Imperial Navy forces had no choice but to flee, as they consisted only of several troop transports and the slightly armed warships Lord-Lieutenant Berwicke and the Venerable Warrior[1c], all from Battlefleet Cadia. Bearing the markings of Cadia however, were the reason why the Chaos Lord and the Sons of Malice were intent on destroying the fleeing ships. Cadians had purged their Homeworld Scelus, when the Sons of Malice had been excommunicated and the Warband sought to avenge the loss of its people.[1b] The Battlefleet's ships held Cadians who had escaped their doomed homeworld, and each one destroyed by the Sons of Malice pushed them one step closer to extinction. Soon only the Berwicke and Venerable Warrior were left, and the Cadians' commander, General Gruber, knew it was only a matter of time before they too were destroyed. Rather then die in the void, he chose to have the remaining Cadians deploy on Morten's Quay's ice mining moon, Faith's Anchorage, for their last stand. Gruber then spoke to the Berwicke's Captain, Zabuzkho, who told the General he would try to draw the Sons of Malice's warships away from the moon once the Cadian Guard was deployed. Gruber thanked him and then told the Captain to do his best to try and reach Terra and tell them Cadia had fallen.[1c]
Once the Cadians were on the moon, they fortified a mining facility, that had been damaged when the moon's population had been slain by the Chaos invaders. They then installed void shields, which would now force the Sons of Malice to land upon the moon, in order to attack the Cadians. As they finished preparing, the Berwicke and Venerable Warrior had long ago sped away in different directions, in an attempt to escape the System. Both sadly failed though. The Venerable Warrior had been hunted down and destroyed by a Sons of Malice warship and the Berwicke exploded after it's Geller field failed, when it attempted to enter the Warp. Now with no chance of word reaching Terra, the Cadians could only wait[1d] as the Sons of Malice's warships began firing upon them and Warband's forces landed upon the moon. The Warband was not alone though, as they unleashed hordes of Cultists and Mechslaves, which charged the Cadians as the Sons of Malice slowly advanced behind them. The Cadians fought valiantly and cut downs waves of the slaves sent against them, but their was little doubt as to how the battle would end. The Sons of Malice ensured this by destroying any Cadians that put up a hard resistance against their slaves, which allowed the Cultists and Mechslaves to swarm into the openings left behind.[1e] Worse still, the Sons of Malace's warships finally destroyed the Cadian's void shields and began bombarding the Guardsmen. Gruber quickly found himself backed into a corner, with a handful of surviving Cadians, but they knew their end was fast approaching. However word of the Cadians appearance in the Agripinaa System, had spread through the Warp and several nearby Chaos Warbands raced to attack, the defenders of the Cadian Gate. Even as the Sons of Malice began to advance on the last of the Cadians, Warbands of the Sons of Slaughter, Crimson Slaughter, Black Legion and five other Traitor Legions landed nearby, eager to end 10,000 years of struggle.[1f] Soon, Gruber and the Cadians were dead, but their deaths did not end the battle.[1g]
As even as Gruber's fleet had appeared in the Agripinaa System, a larger fleet under the command of Admiral d'Armitage, had appeared from Cadia at the opposite edge of the System. They were not sure where they were, so the Admiral had ordered the fleet to slowly advance in comm silence. However when they spotted a gathering of Chaos warships at Faith's Anchorage, the Admiral gave the order to attack the traitors. Sadly the Admiral's fleet had no idea that Gruber's forces were under attack and by the time they reached the moon, it was too late to save their fellow Cadians. They could avenge them though and the Admiral led his fleet to battle against the Chaos warships. Caught by surprise, the crews of the warships were caught between attacking the Admiral's fleet or retrieving their forces from the moon. This allowed the Admiral's fleet time to launch multiple volleys at them, but the Chaos warships recovered quickly and d'Armitage's flagship, Grand Alliance, was the main target of their attack. This sent the flagship listing into the Chaos Warships, where it began to take even more fire. The Grand Alliance would have been destroyed then, had the Space Wolves Strike Cruiser Stiklestad not suddenly appeared and come to its aid. No one knew where the Stiklestad had come from, but it fell upon the Chaos Warships surrounding the Grand Alliance, which allowed the flagship to escape their grasps. As the battle continued, the Imperial forces eventually gained the upper hand and destroyed the majority of the Chaos Warships, with only a few being able to flee into the void.[1h] Afterwards, General Isaia Bendikt deployed his Cadians to Faith's Anchorage and in two weeks, they purged the forces of Chaos from the moon's surface. The Battle of Faith's Anchorage ended when the last traitor fell dead, but it was just the start of a campaign for d'Armitage and Bendikt's forces. They immediately began a long campaign to reclaim the Agripinaa System from the forces of Chaos and when it ended, the System was firmly back into the Imperium's control.[1g]
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