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Death of Haakonath

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The Death of Haakonath was a battle fought by the Star Phantoms Space Marines in 101.M40.[1]

Overview

The entire Chapter's forces were recalled to their homeworld of Haakonath due to a sustained attack by Ork Freebooters. Ork Ramships and Roks invaded the system in a systematic assault with waves larger than anything encountered by the invaders previously. The Ork attackers however at first took heavy losses in the initial blundering waves through the interlinked orbital defences and minefields defending the Star Phantoms' world. When the Star Phantoms' fleet arrived, Ork ships were shot down in the hundreds and entire clusters of Roks were boarded and destroyed by the Astartes. The furious orbital battle lasted sixty days, and only then did the Ork Forces break and scatter. The Star Phantoms sensed victory was near, but at that point the true nature of the threat manifested.[1]

A vast temporal-Warp rift opened up, and at its vanguard came a massive Hrud migration. Realizing that the invading Orks had been fleeing this anomaly, the Star Phantoms mounted a valiant defense against the tides of the Warp and the Hrud, but as reality buckled in on itself and their fleet was destroyed in Warp Storms it became clear that their cause was hopeless. The Hrud soon landed on Haakonath itself, defiling the planet and creating earthquakes and tremors wherever they seemed to pass. One by one, the Star Phantoms were swallowed up by the coalescing shadows that revealed Hrud. Rather than face certain destruction of the hands of the Hrud, the Star Phantoms Chapter Master Omadon Tiresias ordered his remaining troops to flee. The Chapter's last remaining Battle Barge, Memento Mori, led the ragged remains of their once-proud fleet and escaped from the rift-vortices lashing the star systems. Many of the Star Phantoms' ships were destroyed in the desperate retreat and Tiresias himself was blinded when a rogue time-eddy speared the deck of the Momento Mori.[1]

In the aftermath of the battle, little more than a third of the Star Phantoms' strength remained. Now without a world, the Star Phantoms began the long and arduous process of rebuilding their strength. The battle however earned the Star Phantoms the honour of being one of only a handful of Chapters in the Imperium's history to face a full-scale Hrud migration and survive.[1] Eventually, the Star Phantoms were able to resettle on the ice moon of Jahga.[1a]

Sources