Recaps

Li Qinwu inspected a six-kilometer Armed Merchant Ship and learned how its speed, cargo capacity, and protected vital facilities compensated for its thin armor and few guns. After landing aboard, he confronted the olive oil merchant, who insisted Li Qinwu's goods were worth the giant ship.

• Li Qinwu, the captain, and Busi examined the Armed Merchant Ship and discussed its size, armament, armor, and defenses.
• The captain and Busi explained that the ship relied on speed and military-grade Bird Spectrometers to evade threats, while internal armor protected its vital facilities.
• Li Qinwu and his technical team arrived on the ship's hangar deck, where the olive oil merchant greeted him.
• Li Qinwu teased the merchant about providing a ship twice the size of his flagship instead of a smaller vessel, and the merchant insisted the goods justified it.
• Li Qinwu joked about whether the deal would strain the merchant or count as corruption, then praised the merchant's sense.

Li Qinwu inspected the Armed Merchant Ship and decided to refit it as a Knight Carrier, while its captain vetted the crew and Tech-Priests checked the ship’s systems. After agreeing to buy it, Li Qinwu urged the olive oil merchant to invest in Titus’s coming expedition instead of asking him to repeal the tax increase.

• Busi sent Tech-Priests to inspect the transport ship’s systems, while the captain checked the bridge and began screening its three thousand crew members.
• Li Qinwu toured the ship’s spacious Open-Through decks and discussed how their layout could leave cargo vulnerable to enemy Boarding troops.
• Li Qinwu decided to refit the Armed Merchant Ship as a Knight Carrier, with open decks for Knight Mechs and lower compartments for Knight Bastions.
• Li Qinwu agreed to the transaction and promised to have the ship’s cargo delivered to the merchant convoy’s base.
• The olive oil merchant asked Li Qinwu to persuade Titus to repeal the tax increase, but Li Qinwu instead encouraged him to invest in Titus’s expedition.

Li Qinwu persuaded an olive oil merchant to support Titus’s campaign in exchange for future trade access, then arranged a major refit of a massive transport ship. The completed Knight Legion became a mobile base for troops, vehicles, and Knight Mechs just before the fleet’s departure.

• Li Qinwu convinced the olive oil merchant to offer three Armed Merchant Ships and one hundred billion Sola to Titus in return for the first opportunity to trade on worlds Titus retook.
• Li Qinwu offered the merchant Goldenwood as a calling card and arranged for workers and materials to refit his transport ship.
• Li Qinwu named the two-Lunar-class-sized Armed Merchant Ship the Knight Legion and assigned its decks to Knight Bastions, Knight Mechs, vehicles, and troops.
• The Olive Oil Merchants' Association funded the overhaul and hired more than a million workers to prepare the ship and build Knight Bastions.
• The Knight Legion finished its refit before the fleet’s departure, and Li Qinwu moved his tanks, armored vehicles, and Knight Mechs aboard.

Li Qinwu used his commission to invest in Macragge and expand his operations, while Titus assembled a fleet to begin the Five Hundred Worlds Crusade. On the tenth day of their Warp journey to the Fortress World Thunder Saint Alliance, Li Qinwu sensed that powerful Warp entities were watching the fleet.

• Li Qinwu spent his 10-billion-Sola commission on establishing families and an olive grove on Macragge, supporting local development, and buying goods and hiring specialists for Agricultural World 496B.
• Titus assembled a fleet of nearly fifty ships, including an Imperial-class Battleship, and his ground forces grew to more than two million.
• Titus declared the Five Hundred Worlds Crusade and named the Fortress World Thunder Saint Alliance as its first target.
• The fleet entered the Warp and began a month-long journey to Thunder Saint Alliance.
• On the tenth day of the journey, Li Qinwu patrolled the Fortune in his Inquisitor's Set and felt that powerful Warp entities had set their sights on the fleet.

Li Qinwu sensed a Warp power targeting the fleet and discovered it had sent a growing Warp Storm toward the fifty ships. He sacrificed his body and soul to divert the storm, leaving the fleet intact as it swept past.

• Li Qinwu patrolled the Fortune but found no Daemons, though he remained uneasy that a Warp power had noticed him and the fleet.
• Li Qinwu sensed a change in the Warp Storm and used Soul Projection to investigate beyond the Geller Field.
• Li Qinwu traced a powerful Warp vortex heading toward the fifty-ship fleet and realized it could scatter or destroy the ships.
• Li Qinwu unleashed his Psychic Power to push the Warp Storm aside, burning away his body and then his soul.
• Li Qinwu shifted the storm enough for it to graze the fleet's flank, with only the slightest part of its tail touching the ships.

After Astropath Daniel reported that Li Qinwu had sacrificed himself to save the fleet from a Warp Storm, Titus and the Ultramarines held a memorial service for him. Gadriel’s praise turned into a boast about the Emperor Bolt Pistol Li Qinwu had given him, leaving the gathered battle-brothers furious.

• Astropath Daniel told Titus that Li Qinwu had burned his soul to repel the Warp Storm and died saving the fleet.
• Titus, Metaurus, and Gadriel mourned Li Qinwu, and Metaurus called for a memorial service to honor him.
• More than a hundred Astartes gathered in the shipboard cathedral before a portrait of Li Qinwu riding Bruce Crocodile.
• Titus and Metaurus praised Li Qinwu for his service and sacrifice.
• Gadriel praised Li Qinwu, then loudly boasted about the golden Emperor Bolt Pistol he had received from him, angering the battle-brothers.

Titus gathered the fleet’s representatives to explain the battle for the Fortress World Thunder Saint Alliance and the Tyranid threat in orbit. Li Qinwu attended with his family, and the chapter left the assembled forces preparing to face a vastly outnumbering Tyranid fleet.

• Titus brought the fifty-ship fleet to the Mandeville Point and called representatives to a pre-battle meeting.
• Li Qinwu misunderstood the summons, brought Li Dadan, Li Zhongdan, and their wives, and promised his daughters-in-law warships and Knight Mechs for future children.
• Li Qinwu’s family arrived at Titus’s Battleship, where more than five hundred officials and military representatives had gathered.
• Titus showed that loyal Imperium forces controlled half of Raesmon while fighting Tyranids and the Blood Hunt Cult across the planet.
• Titus reported that the Tyranids had three Battleship-class, twenty Cruiser-class, and more than five hundred Frigate-class Bio-Ships in orbit.
• Li Qinwu reassured Li Dadan that Imperial warships could overcome the Tyranids’ numerical advantage through superior armor, weapons, and command.

Titus ordered the fleet to fight the Tyranids in a tightly clustered formation and claimed that Li Qi E Tu had sacrificed himself to save them from a Warp Storm. As the officers held a memorial for Li Qi E Tu, Li Qinwu appeared alive and joined his family in paying respects to his own supposed death.

• Titus ordered the warships to cluster within ten kilometers of one another, bombard the Tyranids, and let transports land troops while enemy ships were drawn away from Thunder Saint Alliance.
• Titus told the officers that Li Qi E Tu had used his Psychic Power at the cost of his life to divert the Warp Storm and save the fleet.
• The officers held a pre-battle memorial for Li Qi E Tu, offering salutes, medals, rings, and other tokens.
• Li Qinwu, Li Dadan, Li Zhongdan, and the two wives joined the memorial line after Li Qinwu agreed they should pay their respects.
• Titus saw the supposedly dead Li Qinwu alive and was stunned as Li Qinwu placed sunflower seeds beside his own portrait and led his family in shouting, "Remember!!"

Titus led fifty warships toward Raesmon, where the Tyranids sent a small force to test his fleet. After Titus destroyed all twenty attackers, the Hive Mind launched a much larger assault, leaving his fleet facing its true challenge.

• Titus ordered fifty warships to turn their broadsides toward twenty Tyranid Bio-Ships approaching Raesmon.
• Titus directed the fleet to concentrate its fire on the largest Bio-Ship, destroying it with Lances and Macro Cannons.
• Titus led the fleet in destroying the other nineteen Bio-Ships over the next two hours.
• The Hive Mind revised its plans and sent two Bio-Battleships, ten bio-cruisers, and nearly three hundred frigates against Titus's fleet.

Titus’s fleet destroyed a Tyranid Bio-Battleship by using Lance Cannons to clear its spore clouds before striking it with Macro Cannon shells. After the battle, Titus asked Li Qinwu to deal with an approaching Chaos Space Marines warband while he led a boarding operation against another Bio-Battleship.

• Titus ordered the fleet to fire Lance Cannons through the Bio-Battleship’s spore clouds, then sent Macro Cannon shells through the openings to inflict severe damage.
• Titus’s fleet bombarded the Bio-Battleship for two days until it broke apart, and Li Qinwu ordered the tactic recorded for future battles.
• Titus warned Li Qinwu that the Tyranids could reclaim battlefield corpses unless their forces controlled the battlefield and burned them.
• Titus told Li Qinwu he planned to board another Bio-Battleship and destroy it with a nuclear bomb implosion.
• Titus asked Li Qinwu to deal with the approaching Chaos Space Marines warband instead of joining the boarding operation or commanding the fleet.

Li Qinwu learned that eighteen Chaos Warbands were hiding near the Mandeville Point, waiting for the loyal forces to weaken before plundering the Thunder Saint Alliance. After Titus explained that the warbands were likely small and poorly equipped, Li Qinwu agreed to deal with them.

• Titus showed Li Qinwu a star map and explained why Chaos Astartes had gathered near the Thunder Saint Alliance.
• Titus said the traitors were hiding on a dead Industrial World and waiting for the Imperium and Tyranids to wear each other down.
• Titus estimated that the enemy force had roughly eighteen warships, alarming Li Qinwu, who had only two capital ships.
• Titus explained that Chaos Warbands were usually small and poorly equipped, and that the eighteen groups might have only five hundred Astartes combined.
• Li Qinwu decided the attack was a chance to capture enemy ships and agreed to deal with the traitors.

Li Qinwu and Bruce Crocodile struggled to power the Warp Black Cloud hiding the Fortune and the Knight King on their journey to the Death World. When Bruce spat out the sleeping Troy onto the Psychic Throne, Troy powered it without pain, and Li Qinwu asked for a blanket.

• Li Qinwu split from Titus and took the Fortune and the Knight King toward the Death World while Titus stayed behind to fight the Tyranids.
• Li Qinwu and Bruce Crocodile took turns using the Psychic Throne to sustain the Warp Black Cloud, but the strain drained their Psychic Power and weakened their bodies.
• Bruce Crocodile collapsed when Li Qinwu told him they still had six days to travel, and Li Qinwu tried to force him back onto the throne.
• Bruce Crocodile spat out the sleeping Troy, who landed on the Psychic Throne and stabilized its Psychic Power channels.
• Li Qinwu found that Troy showed no signs of distress and asked Bruce Crocodile to get a blanket.

Li Qinwu hid his warships near the Death World and flew toward the traitor fleet in a crudely disguised Shuttle to investigate their plans. A broadcast revealed that the Death Warband had summoned the traitor leaders to gather their elite forces before attacking Thunder Saint Alliance.

• Troy’s Psychic Power made the warships faster and better concealed, easing Li Qinwu and Bruce Crocodile’s shifts during the six-day journey.
• Li Qinwu hid both warships beside a massive asteroid six hours from the Death World and decided to infiltrate the traitors by Shuttle.
• Li Qinwu painted a Chaos Star and a cartoon Daemon on an old Shuttle, then Troy decorated it with childish drawings while Li Qinwu was away.
• Li Qinwu flew the Shuttle around the Death World and received a broadcast from the Death Lord calling the warband leaders to gather their elite forces on the planet’s surface.

Death summoned the Eighteen Routes of Chaos lords to the Death World to assess their forces and unite them for a war, offering postwar rewards to encourage them to reveal their strength. As the warbands gathered at an abandoned factory, Li Qinwu arrived in a brightly painted Shuttle and demanded to be taken to the meeting.

• Death announced a neutral gathering on the Death World's surface and promised the warbands shares of the spoils after the war.
• Li Qinwu joined the public comms by shouting along with the other Chaos lords.
• Death's warband assembled at a half-buried Imperium Factory while grotesque Chaos Astartes reported their forces.
• Chaos warbands arrived by Shuttle at a landing zone outside the factory, including Li Qinwu in his flower-and-rabbit-painted Shuttle.
• Li Qinwu stepped off his Shuttle, rebuked the ground crewman for staring at its paint job, and asked to be taken to the gathering.

Li Qinwu reached Death Lord’s gathering and intervened when a guard barred Yellow Sand and Swift Shadow from entering. After Death Lord ordered the three admitted, Li Qinwu brought the two Astartes inside as his newly declared warband brothers.

• A fallen mortal led Li Qinwu to the gathering, where a guard Astartes blocked Yellow Sand and Swift Shadow from entering the industrial spire.
• Li Qinwu defended the two Astartes and introduced himself with a string of grand titles, but the guard still refused to let him in.
• Li Qinwu joined forces with Yellow Sand and Swift Shadow, but the guard said their group needed at least ten people.
• Death Lord ordered the guard to admit the three and suggested they could charge at the front during the attack on the Fortress World.
• Li Qinwu took Yellow Sand and Swift Shadow inside, calling them his Third Brother and Second Brother.

At a meeting of traitors in an industrial Spire, Li Qinwu and his companions met Swift Shadow, a handsome clone raised by a Dark Eldar Mistress. Swift Shadow recounted how killing a cursed Red Greater Daemon earned him a year in bed with his Mistress, leaving the reason for his distress as the story continued.

• Li Qinwu arrived at the industrial Spire with his second and third brothers and was led to a room to wait for the meeting.
• Li Qinwu checked the oxygen, removed his helmet, and invited his companions to introduce themselves.
• Swift Shadow revealed that he was a clone whose soul had been made complete by Dark Eldar technology and that a Dark Eldar Lady had raised him as her sword-fighting champion.
• Swift Shadow described how his Mistress sent him to fight a cursed Red Greater Daemon in the Arena and promised him a special reward for killing it.
• Swift Shadow defeated the Greater Daemon, and his Mistress declared herself the reward and kept him in bed for an entire year.

Swift Shadow told Li Qinwu how he escaped his Dark Eldar Mistress and became a pirate leader, then explained why the Iron Hands had hunted him. Li Qinwu revealed that Swift Shadow’s apparent Emperor’s Children heritage linked him to Fulgrim, who killed Ferrus, and Swift Shadow finally understood the Iron Hands’ hatred.

• Swift Shadow recounted how his Mistress forced him into a year of sex, but eventually released him after he refused to remain her captive.
• Swift Shadow described choosing freedom, landing on a pirate ship, killing half its crew, and becoming its leader.
• Swift Shadow told Li Qinwu that Iron Hands Astartes attacked him when he sought help from the Imperium, forcing him to steal a shuttle and escape into the Warp.
• Li Qinwu explained that Swift Shadow’s appearance suggested Emperor’s Children DNA and that Fulgrim had killed Ferrus, the Iron Hands’ primarch.
• Swift Shadow accepted the reason for the Iron Hands’ hostility and leaned back in his chair.

Yellow Sand explained why he abandoned his Loyalist Chapter after discovering his descendants were being sacrificed to delay the Tyranids. He fled with his great-great-grandson, and his family grew into a force aboard an Armed Merchant Ship.

• Li Qinwu asked Yellow Sand to introduce himself, and Yellow Sand revealed he had once been a two-hundred-year Astartes veteran of a Loyalist Chapter.
• Yellow Sand said he had been recruited after designing an irrigation channel, then spent more than two hundred years serving the Chapter as a skilled tunnel-builder and fortification engineer.
• Yellow Sand learned that the Tyranids threatened his homeworld and that the Chapter Master had ordered him to fortify it before its planetary core was detonated.
• Yellow Sand recognized a youth in the trenches as his great-great-grandson and confirmed that the girl he had left behind had borne his child.
• Yellow Sand seized an Armed Merchant Ship and escaped with his descendants, whose family eventually filled the ship and formed their own military force.

Li Qinwu, Swift Shadow, and Yellow Sand formed a temporary alliance as they headed to a gathering of Chaos Astartes summoned by Death Lord. After Li Qinwu provoked the assembled warriors, Death Lord’s followers questioned him about his strange shuttle, leaving his background under suspicion.

• Yellow Sand explained that he had joined Chaos to protect his mutated descendants after the Imperium hunted him as a traitor.
• Li Qinwu presented his biography instead of recounting his life, then joined Swift Shadow and Yellow Sand on their way to Death Lord’s banquet hall.
• Li Qinwu persuaded Yellow Sand and Swift Shadow to cooperate with him in exchange for a chance at a better future.
• Nearly five hundred Chaos Astartes watched the trio enter, and Li Qinwu insulted the gathering, provoking a horned warrior to draw his Power Sword.
• Death Lord stopped the horned warrior from fighting and asked Li Qinwu who he was.
• The horned warrior displayed Li Qinwu’s BabyBus Shuttle and challenged him to explain its appearance, making clear that the gathering suspected him of being a spy.

Li Qinwu convinced the Chaos Astartes that he was no spy by claiming childhood trauma and showing tattoos on his feet that read “Kill the God-Emperor Dead.” As Death Lord began outlining the campaign against the Fortress World of Thunder Saint Alliance, Li Qinwu pointed out that he and his two companions had not been given seats.

• Li Qinwu told the Chaos Astartes that their regrets over their deeds were signs of unresolved trauma, unsettling nearly half of them.
• The Bull-Horn Astartes challenged Li Qinwu to prove he was not a spy, and Li Qinwu showed tattoos on his feet that read “Kill the God-Emperor Dead.”
• Death Lord accepted Li Qinwu’s proof, and Swift Shadow gave Li Qinwu a high-five.
• Death Lord began explaining his campaign against the Fortress World of Thunder Saint Alliance, but Li Qinwu interrupted to complain that he, Swift Shadow, and Yellow Sand had no seats.

Li Qinwu forced the assembled Chaos Astartes to give him and his companions seats by threatening to overload his reactor. At the alliance feast, he recognized a trap, called for the Executioners, and attacked a Chaos Astartes.

• Bull-Horn Astartes mocked Li Qinwu for his small warband, so Li Qinwu began a reactor overload countdown.
• Death Lord hurriedly had a table brought for Li Qinwu and his companions, and Li Qinwu canceled the detonation.
• Swift Shadow praised Li Qinwu's handling of the crowd, while Yellow Sand said only the result mattered.
• Death Lord revealed that a Daemon Artifact could summon a Greater Daemon to help conquer the Fortress World, then called on the warbands to form an alliance.
• As the Chaos Astartes raised their goblets to seal the alliance, Li Qinwu shouted that it was a trap, called for the Executioners, and beheaded a stunned Chaos Astartes.

Li Qinwu turned the banquet hall into a massacre, killing a Nurgle Astartes and mowing down the assembled Chaos forces with the Emperor's Bolt Pistol. As his hidden warships moved in, Swift Shadow warned that the boss was trying to escape.

• After Li Qinwu killed an Astartes, the warband leaders smashed their glasses, summoning Executioners and igniting a brawl among the eighteen factions.
• Li Qinwu, Swift Shadow, and Yellow Sand fought back-to-back as Li Qinwu urged Swift Shadow to attack anyone within reach.
• Li Qinwu shot the Nurgle Astartes who had been trying to mediate, then swept the hall with the Emperor's Bolt Pistol and killed more than half the Chaos Astartes.
• Li Qinwu contacted the captain and ordered the two hidden warships to enter the battlefield and destroy the traitor vessels.
• Swift Shadow killed an Astartes attacking Li Qinwu and pointed out that the boss was fleeing through a distant passageway.

Titus led an Astartes squad into a Tyranid Bio-Battleship to plant Melta Bombs in its chemical stomach, while Gadriel discovered his Emperor Bolt Pistol was missing. On Death World, Li Qinwu chased the fleeing Death Lord and struck his escaping Shuttle with psychic lightning, sending it falling from the sky.

• Titus led his squad through the Bio-Battleship, explaining that detonating its chemical stomach could destroy the vessel.
• Titus's squad fought through the Tyranids and reached the chemical stomach to plant Melta Bombs.
• A Carnifex charged the squad, and Gadriel discovered that his Emperor Bolt Pistol had vanished.
• Li Qinwu shot at the fleeing Death Lord, but the Bull-Horn Astartes took the Bolt Rounds and died, allowing the Death Lord to escape.
• Li Qinwu, Swift Shadow, and Yellow Sand pursued the Death Lord, killing the armed mortals who tried to stop them.
• Li Qinwu struck the Death Lord's escaping Shuttle with a massive bolt of psychic lightning, causing it to smoke and fall.

Li Qinwu and his allies chased the Death Lord to his crashed Shuttle, where Li Qinwu killed one Terminator guard before the Death Lord escaped by teleportation. After surviving the fleet’s bombardment, Li Qinwu learned that his warships had arrived and prepared to confront the fleeing traitors.

• Li Qinwu, Swift Shadow, and Yellow Sand reached the crashed Shuttle and found the Death Lord with two Terminator guards.
• Li Qinwu fired at the guards, destroying one Terminator after his Bolt Rounds broke through its armor.
• The Death Lord and the surviving guard teleported away, and Yellow Sand explained that they had likely returned to their warship.
• Li Qinwu and his allies fled in their Shuttles before the Death Lord’s fleet bombarded the crash site with Macro Cannon shells.
• Yellow Sand reported that the Death Lord’s fleet was fleeing as two cruisers entered the battle, and Li Qinwu said his warships had arrived.
• Li Qinwu gave his allies’ ship identification codes to the Fortune, then ordered its hangar opened so they could board and prepare to confront the traitors.

Li Qinwu ordered Fortune and Knight Legion to destroy a Nurgle warship before pursuing the Death Lord’s flagship. After burning the plague ship, the fleet raced after the flagship, which had stayed behind near Fortress World Raesmon, and the captain estimated the chase would take one day.

• The captain reported that Fortune and Knight Legion had destroyed three traitor warships and were pursuing a fourth, but Li Qinwu ordered them to target the Nurgle Astartes Warband’s plague ship instead.
• Li Qinwu identified the foul, tumor-covered ship as the greatest threat and ordered the crew to load Gas Torpedoes and burn it to slag.
• Fortune and Knight Legion caught up with the Nurgle ship, crippled it with sustained fire, then ignited its Gas Torpedoes with a volley from Fortune’s Lance batteries.
• The captain showed Li Qinwu that the Death Lord’s flagship had remained near the system while the other traitor ships fled into the Warp, and Li Qinwu ordered both warships to pursue it.
• As the fleet raced after the flagship, the captain estimated the pursuit would take one day, and Li Qinwu took Swift Shadow’s hand to show him something fun.