War of the Beast
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The War of the Beast, also known as Waaagh! The Beast was an enormous Ork Waaagh! first encountered by the Imperium in 544.M32. Waged by the Warboss known only as The Beast after he succeeded in uniting much of the Ork race, his Waaagh! was the largest the Galaxy has ever seen and rampaged across the Imperium, eclipsing even the one Horus defeated during the Ullanor Crusade which earned him the title of Warmaster. The largest war fought by the Imperium since the Horus Heresy, humanity only halted his advance at great cost and desperate measure, devastating the Adeptus Astartes.[1]
Overview
The Beast Arises
By mid-M32, the Imperium was in a state of relative peace and prosperity. Having recovered from the devastating Horus Heresy, the Traitor Legions had were still reeling from their defeat, Xenos were relegated to the frontiers of Imperial space, and the stagnation and decay that would define the Imperium millennium later had not yet set in. Confident that humanity had endured its greatest challenge, the Orks in particular were underestimated and judged to have been removed as a threat since the Ullanor Crusade. Under the powerful Lord High Admiral of the Imperial Navy Lansung most of the Imperial Fleet was dispatched to humanity's borders, far from Terra.[2]
This underestimation of the greenskins would prove to be disastrous upon the world of Ardamantua in Segmentum Solar, just an estimated six weeks Warp travel from Terra. There, the Imperial Fists battled the Chromes, insectoid aliens seemingly in flight of another, worse threat. The planet soon became wracked by gravitational storms and geological disturbances as the Chromes made their last desperate attack on the Imperial lines. The source of the disturbances became clear when an enormous Ork planetoid began to materialize into Ardmantua's orbit, laying waste to the Fists fleet. Realizing the disaster facing Terra, a rescue operation led by Lord Commander Militant of the Imperial Guard Heth and nearly the entire imperial Fists chapter in the Phalanx itself was dispatched. On Ardamantua, the Fists under Chapter Master Cassus Mihren and Koorland with Guardsmen allies waged a desperate struggle against the panicked Chromes and escalating gravity anomalies as the Greenskin planetoid seemed to phase in and out of reality as it drew closer to full materialization. When the Imperial expedition transitioned in system, they were scattered by the gravity storms and annihilated by a massive Ork fleet dispatched from the "Battle Moon", which had somehow arrived from what the Imperials would dub "Subspace". After dispatching a message that the Imperium faced a threat like none before, Heth's fleet was seemingly destroyed along with seemingly the entire Imperial Fists chapter. The Imperium estimated that the Battle Moon would next move on Terra itself.[2]
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