Chapter Summaries

The Portal collapsed after a million daemons entered the real world, and Losek redirected the daemons to harvest souls and contest the Spaceport as Tyranids descended. Across the planet, Astra Militarum, Orks, Gitz, and daemons converged on a sprawling war, while Pex emerged from a concealed passage near the Spaceport.

• The Portal burst apart as reality repelled the Warp, and Losek recognized Tyranid Spore Pods as the cause of the interference.
• Losek ordered the daemons to split up, sending one group toward the Spaceport and the other north to harvest human lives and souls.
• Commissar Kester’s campaign against Ghazghkull’s Orks collapsed, and the Orks shattered and encircled Astra Militarum forces on the plains.
• Gitz from Stone Ridge breached the Orks’ rear lines and fought their way toward Capello, turning the ruined city into a melee among Orks, Gitz, and Imperial forces.
• Crooked Mouth abandoned Iron Claw’s campaign and gathered Mekboys to build spaceships, while Tyranid Spore Pods filled the sky across the southern hemisphere and equator.
• Pex and his party emerged from a concealed passage on the outskirts of the city surrounding the Spaceport.

Pex led a small group carrying sleeping infants through Capello’s besieged spaceport, hoping to evacuate the cult’s future while deceiving his fellow believers about their fate. Their shuttle escaped amid the fighting, while Hanks noticed the Tyranid Bio-ships shifting their focus toward the planet’s surface.

• Pex thanked the church members who helped his group and accepted forged documents and a contact inside the spaceport.
• Pex concealed the truth from the believers, then led his party into the spaceport when an ork raid distracted the Astra Militarum.
• At a checkpoint, the female sergeant shot at a suspicious commissar, who killed her before a mutated believer stabbed him; nearby troops closed in on Pex’s group.
• A Tyranid Gargoyle knocked a Slaaneshi daemon between Pex’s party and the approaching troops, giving them a chance to reach a shuttle.
• Pex and the survivors took off with other fleeing shuttles, while Hanks observed that the Tyranid Bio-ships were concentrating on the surface and lacked the opposition needed for a risky attack.

After ten days of fighting, the Tyranid Swarm divided its forces across Number 3 and began growing new bio-ships, leaving the human fleet nearly powerless. Hanks hesitated over whether to retreat until the Xenos Slayers Chapter arrived, and Chapter Master Lawrence contacted the fleet to learn why the intelligence had been so inaccurate.

• The Tyranid Swarm split its forces between the Orks at Stone Ridge, daemons near Spaceport City, and easier targets in the Northern Hemisphere.
• The swarm consciousness divided biomass between ground forces and bio-ships, and a new bio-ship was born as the fighting settled into a stalemate.
• Hanks discovered that his fleet had no reconnaissance craft left and struggled to choose between retreating and staying to save survivors, including Commissar Kester.
• Lawrence arrived with more than seven hundred Space Marines and two strike cruisers, then questioned how the system's intelligence could have been so wrong.
• A Techmarine told Lawrence that the Imperial Navy was in dire condition, and Lawrence ordered the contact put through.

Chapter Master Lawrence learned that Euronia was collapsing under invasion and corruption, then chose to lead a Space Marine strike against Ork Warlord Ghazghkull. After the Astartes prayed and received their orders, the chapter ended with Iron Claw and Kester fighting in Capello.

• Lawrence confronted Hanks over the failed defenses and learned that Governor Cornwall had died fighting cultists while the other commanders were missing, corrupted, or besieged.
• Kester requested orbital bombardment support after his forces pinned down Ghazghkull, and Lawrence decided to launch an Astartes assault instead.
• Lawrence joined four companies of Space Marines in prayer before ordering Second, Fifth, and Sixth Companies to isolate the Ork Warlord while First Company attacked him.
• Lawrence gave the companies fifteen minutes to check their equipment before departing for the battlefield.
• Iron Claw and Kester fought fiercely in Capello, in Number 3's Southern Hemisphere.

Iron Claw and Daft led the Orks against the Astra Militarum at Capello, where Daft destroyed the human Titan with a daring bombing run. Kester then confronted Ghazghkull, damaged his Rocket Pack, and faced Iron Claw as the battle reached its climax.

• Iron Claw rallied his Nasty Boyz and charged the Astra Militarum while the armies fought across the ground and sky.
• Daft led his squadron toward the Titan, then used his damaged aircraft to drop a Gork bomb onto its weakened armour and destroy it.
• The Titan's explosion nearly threw Kester from the Emperor's Bane, and Ghazghkull landed nearby, crushing a Leman Russ Tank.
• Kester revealed his plan to kill Ghazghkull and fought him from the Emperor's Bane, damaging one wing of his Rocket Pack with a melta.
• Iron Claw recognized Kester as a worthy opponent, leapt onto the Titan's turret, and brought his iron claw down at him.

Kester fought Iron Claw until a Thunderhawk-led Space Marine assault arrived, and Lawrence’s Terminators later gravely wounded the Ork Warlord. As Lightning Claws closed in to finish Iron Claw, Heavy Nobs appeared and blocked them, with their larger leader dismissing the Space Marines as the chapter ended.

• Iron Claw crushed Kester’s legs, but Kester used his Power Sword to strike the Ork’s knee before a Thunderhawk’s melta shot drove Iron Claw back.
• Thunderhawk Gunships deployed Space Marines and vehicles, while Drop Pods descended and disrupted the Orks’ counterattack.
• Lawrence and five Terminators engaged Iron Claw, but the Ork killed two Terminators and continued to overpower them.
• Lawrence’s attack drew Iron Claw into the air, where sniper fire pierced his armour and a bolt round exploded beside his heart.
• As Lightning Claws surrounded the wounded Iron Claw, Heavy Nobs appeared with Flash Step and blocked the Terminators; their leader called the Space Marines canned Humies.

Lawrence’s Space Marines were overwhelmed by Boss Copperhead’s Heavy Nobs, while the Librarian urged a retreat and warned of a new green tide threatening the galaxy. Meanwhile, Cheng Mingrui’s forces attacked the Tyranids on Number 3, and he activated a mysterious weapon aboard Boss Slick’s Ship.

• Lawrence learned that Copperhead was not the strongest Ork Warboss and watched Heavy Nobs devastate the Space Marines trying to reach him.
• The Librarian used his psychic power to pull Lawrence from the fight and ordered the Chapter to retreat, warning that a new green tide could bring another War of the Beast.
• Cheng Mingrui launched an all-out assault on Number 3, sending Ork Bosses including Copperhead down to fight while Boss Slick’s Ship attacked the Tyranid Fleet.
• The Swarm Consciousness ordered the Tyranids to retreat as Cheng Mingrui’s ship destroyed their Bio-ships and disrupted their forces.
• Frustrated by the Tyranids’ survival, Cheng Mingrui pressed a red-and-green button, and Boss Slick’s Ship opened its bow to reveal a massive cannon.

Cheng Mingrui used Boss Slick's Ship to devastate the Tyranid Fleet, forcing its survivors to crash-land on Number 3 and seize Spaceport City. He merged with the planet-wide Waaagh! Field to hunt down the Tyranids, but his effort to establish authority was interrupted by a Greenskin who recognized him as Gork and Mork’s Chosen.

• Cheng Mingrui fired his modified anti-C'tan weapon, destroying or crippling most of the Tyranid Fleet and leaving the Swarm Consciousness to prioritize sending intelligence to the Great Devourer.
• The Swarm Consciousness sent its surviving Bio-ships plunging toward Number 3 to gather biomass, while Boss Slick's Ship destroyed the remaining vessels in space.
• Tyranid Bio-ships descended on Spaceport City, overwhelmed the Slaaneshi Daemons, and established a foothold for gathering biomass.
• Cheng Mingrui connected to the planet-wide Waaagh! Field with Kuka's guidance, but found that the Orks did not yet recognize him and regarded Iron Claw as their strongest Boss.
• Cheng Mingrui considered defeating Iron Claw to claim command when an unknown Ork contacted him, calling him Gork and Mork’s Chosen and offering to join his Waaagh.

Cheng Mingrui recruited Crooked Mouth and found Iron Claw, then used his dominance to unite the Orks of Number 3 under his Waaagh. He sent their overwhelming green tide against the Tyranids at Stone Ridge.

• Crooked Mouth told Cheng Mingrui that Gork and Mork had guided him to join the Great Waaagh, and Cheng accepted him after learning his two nearly finished Gargants could join the fleet.
• Cheng Mingrui found Iron Claw fighting alongside Copperhead and confronted him, revealing his immense size and strength.
• Cheng Mingrui broadcast Iron Claw’s defeat through the Waaagh! field, causing Number 3’s Orks to recognize him as their new Boss and clearing the field’s obstruction.
• Cheng Mingrui directed the united Orks toward the Tyranids at Stone Ridge, where their vastly outnumbered swarm overwhelmed the Tyranids’ defenders.

Cheng Mingrui led his Orks through Pioneer City and Capello before attacking the Tyranids’ living city near Spaceport City, where daemons were also fighting. After the Green Tide routed the Tyranids on land, he discovered they were withdrawing into the sea and turned his attention to the remaining nests and his old daemon enemy.

• Lawrence watched Pioneer City fall to the Orks and returned Commissar Kester to stay with the dead of his regiment.
• Cheng Mingrui led his Kill Team and the Orks through Capello, which the Green Tide flattened.
• Cheng Mingrui spotted the Greater Daemon that had ambushed him in Slaanesh's trap and chose to fight instead of ordering an Orbital Bombardment.
• Cheng Mingrui's Orks burned through the Tyranids' living city and destroyed their Tyranid Titan War Beasts, forcing the Tyranids to retreat.
• Cheng Mingrui discovered that the Tyranids were withdrawing into the sea to collect biomass, so he decided to attack their land nests and pursue the Greater Daemon.

Losek lured Cheng Mingrui and the Green Tide into a Warp-corrupted realm, where magic disabled the Orks’ ranged weapons and Daemons ambushed them. Cheng Mingrui sensed the Waaagh! overcoming the Warp’s influence, but Lucius then isolated him with his guards and led a Chaos assault.

• Losek used the Warp-altered terrain to weaken the Orks’ weapons and surround their vanguard with Slaaneshi Daemons.
• The Orks fought the Daemons in close combat, while Cheng Mingrui sensed the Waaagh! Field and Warp energy consuming each other.
• Cheng Mingrui realized the Waaagh! was stronger and would eventually disperse the Warp energy as more Orks entered the realm.
• The Warp distorted the battlefield and isolated Cheng Mingrui with a little over a hundred Mega Bosses from his Kill Team.
• Lucius arrived with Chaos forces, and Cheng Mingrui handed Hols to a guard before taking up a Power Klaw.
• A Sonic Cannon blast began the battle as Chaos Space Marines charged Cheng Mingrui and the Heavy Nobz under a barrage of weapons.

Cheng Mingrui and his Kill Team slaughtered Lucius's Chaos Space Marines and Daemon Vehicles without suffering any casualties. After the isolated battlefield vanished, Cheng Mingrui found the larger war still raging between millions of Orks and Daemons, with the Daemons' advantage fading.

• The Heavy Nobs' Gauss Beams and plasma devastated the Chaos Space Marines, and Lucius ordered his forces to advance.
• A Heavy Nob caught a Daemon Engine's claw and tore off its other claw as Cheng Mingrui's Kill Team gained the upper hand.
• Cheng Mingrui killed Lucius's elite warriors, crushed the Chaos Dreadnought and Predator Tank, and smashed Lucius to death.
• Cheng Mingrui dissolved purple-black energy from his hand with waaagh! energy, then used Gork's Fist to destroy a platoon of Chaos Space Marines.
• Within fifteen minutes, Cheng Mingrui's Kill Team wiped out the Chaos Space Marines and Daemon Vehicles without losses.
• The isolated area vanished, revealing millions of Orks and Daemons still fighting as the Daemons' advantage and their warped realms receded.

Losek lured Cheng Mingrui into a trap in the daemon realm, where Slaanesh’s Daemonettes and Losek’s soul-wounding attacks turned the fight against him. As Cheng Mingrui struggled to keep the Green Tide’s faith in Boss Slick intact, Hols transformed into an Aeldari to help him fight at speed.

• Losek watched Lucius fall and began a ritual to speed Lucius’s rebirth so he could seize the expelled soul.
• Cheng Mingrui spotted Losek on a cliff and used Psychic Teleportation to confront him.
• Losek summoned Daemonettes from a ritual circle, and they attacked Cheng Mingrui alongside him.
• Cheng Mingrui struggled to hit the Daemonettes as their attacks drained his shield and Losek wounded his soul.
• Hols criticized Cheng Mingrui’s speed, then changed into an Aeldari form suited to high-speed combat.

Cheng Mingrui and Hols fought Losek and the Daemonettes, overcoming Losek’s Time Magic and killing them. Cheng Mingrui took the wounded Hols for treatment, while Slaanesh devoured Hols’s severed arm and craved more of his soul.

• Hols used his Ancient Aeldari form to attack the Daemonettes, while Cheng Mingrui realized Losek’s Time Magic had distorted his perception of time and speed.
• Losek ordered the Daemonettes to kill Hols, but Hols resisted the spell and Cheng Mingrui killed Losek with a ranged Power Fist before Lucius’s ability could take effect.
• Cheng Mingrui killed the remaining Daemonettes, then picked up Hols, who transformed into a red Squig despite his poisoned, severed arm.
• Cheng Mingrui saw that eight hours had passed and the Orks’ green tide had advanced through the Northern Hemisphere, then teleported Hols to Boss Slick’s Ship for examination and treatment.
• After Cheng Mingrui left, the Warp region collapsed under the Waaagh! field, and Slaanesh’s mouth appeared and devoured Hols’s severed arm, craving more of his soul.

Slaanesh resurrected Losek, ordered him to gather the forces that worship Slaanesh under Fulgrim, and demanded that they capture Hols. Meanwhile, Tzeentch considered the Emperor’s soul beyond the reach of fate and set a mysterious change in motion beneath Glory Bastion’s Governor’s Palace.

• Slaanesh resurrected Losek and told him that Hols, the shapeshifter beside an Ork Warboss, had been the soul they wanted.
• After Losek misunderstood and credited the sacrificed souls, Slaanesh killed and tormented him before resurrecting him again.
• Slaanesh ordered Losek to tell Fulgrim that Slaanesh’s forces should stop assisting Abaddon and gather to obtain Hols.
• Tzeentch reflected on the Emperor’s soul escaping Slaanesh’s traps and made a replica of it inside the Crystal Maze.
• Tzeentch chose to use pawns against the Emperor’s pawn, and a mysterious power stirred a hidden basement beneath Glory Bastion’s Governor’s Palace.

Cornwall was reborn and sent by the Prophet of Wisdom to unite Secret Societies as a Rogue Trader, while Cheng Mingrui struggled to find a way to destroy the Tyranids beneath Number 3's seas. The chapter left the Orks considering Cheng Mingrui's request as the Tyranid swarm prepared to alert the hive mind about him and his Clutch.

• The Prophet of Wisdom restored Cornwall and ordered him to travel between star systems as a Rogue Trader, uniting Secret Societies.
• Cornwall appeared aboard the merchant ship Wanderer, bound for Vigilus in the chaotic Nachmund Gauntlet.
• Cheng Mingrui examined Hols and discovered that damage to his soul would require a month of recovery in a Medical Pod.
• Cheng Mingrui considered using massive weapons against the Tyranids beneath the sea but decided those options were too costly or destructive.
• Cheng Mingrui asked the Orks through the collective Waaagh! field how to quickly kill the Tyranids at sea, and the bored Orks began pondering the problem.

Cheng Mingrui’s Orks used their belief in Ork Logic to part the oceans and wipe out the Tyranids in the Euronia System. After a year of building a massive fleet, Cheng Mingrui set out for the Octarius Sector, while the newly named Starting Point System was already under attack by Tyranids.

• Goldtooth suggested using diving Squigs to attack the Tyranids underwater, but the Weirdboys instead told Cheng Mingrui they could fight beneath the sea.
• Kuka showed Cheng Mingrui that the Orks had parted the ocean, allowing their forces to charge along the seabed and destroy the Tyranid defenders.
• Cheng Mingrui tried to enter the water channel, but it collapsed because he did not believe strongly enough in Ork Knowledge.
• The Swarm Consciousness failed to report its intelligence to the Great Devourer before its remaining Warrior Bugs and its consciousness were destroyed.
• Cheng Mingrui spent a year building ships, then left Euronia with about two hundred warships and a billion Greenskins, naming his destination the Starting Point System.
• In the Starting Point System, the Tyranids overwhelmed the Orks on two planets and nearly defeated them on a third, where the Greenskins had developed a new weapon.

Blackheart Boss and the Greenskins repelled a Tyranid beach assault with their navy and a new superweapon, while the swarm used the battle to study their defenses. A thousand Tyranid bio-ships then attacked the Orks’ Central Continent, beginning a devastating exchange with its anti-aircraft batteries.

• Tyranids breached part of the Orks’ southern beach defenses, but artillery and charging Choppa Boyz and Shoota Boyz stopped their advance.
• Blackheart Boss’s flagship, the Badwater, and the Ork Fleet devastated the beachhead, while the Badwater’s superweapon shattered retreating Tyranids with pulsing waves.
• The swarm consciousness revealed that it had used repeated attacks to learn the Orks’ weapons and prepared a fleet of nearly three thousand bio-ships.
• A thousand Tyranid bio-ships passed over Starting Point III’s Central Continent and came under fire from the Orks’ lances and anti-aircraft guns.
• The Tyranid Fleet returned fire with bio-plasma and dropped spore pods across the Orks’ defenses.

The Tyranids overwhelmed the Orks’ defenses after the Dimensional Rumble Cannon broke down, and Blackheart Boss faced a coordinated Lictor assassination attack aboard the Badwater. The chapter ended with Blackheart Boss charging the five Lictors alone.

• Tyranid Bio-ships bombarded the Ork Continent, while the Greenskins held out from underground fortifications and fought across the beachheads.
• Blackheart Boss ordered the Badwater upriver and used the Dimensional Rumble Cannon to destroy spore pods and bombs across half the continent.
• The Tyranids replenished their aerial assault for a month until the Dimensional Rumble Cannon exploded, leaving the Orks’ forces increasingly overwhelmed.
• The swarm consciousness predicted Number 3 would fall within a month as Tyranids captured Ork fortresses and destroyed their heavy weapons.
• Five Lictors ambushed Blackheart Boss aboard the Badwater after silently killing his guards.
• Blackheart Boss roared and charged the nearest Lictor as all five attacked him together.

After Blackheart Boss’s death weakened the Orks on Starting Point III, the Tyranid swarm prepared to finish them and move on to a system where another fleet had gone silent. Cheng Mingrui arrived with Boss Slick’s Ship and an Ork fleet, and as the Tyranids advanced, he let his unruly captains charge to make his force appear vulnerable.

• Five elite Lictors killed Blackheart Boss in a costly ambush, and a wounded Lictor hung his head and body from the Blackheart’s mast.
• The sight of their dead Warboss shattered the Greenskins’ morale, though ambitious Bosses began trying to rally the survivors.
• The swarm consciousness expected to clear Starting Point III in ten days and planned to investigate the next system, where a Tyranid Tendril Fleet had stopped communicating.
• Cheng Mingrui arrived with Boss Slick’s Ship and two hundred Ork warships, while the Tyranid fleets prepared to attack from the first three planets.
• Cheng Mingrui judged that Boss Slick’s defenses could withstand the Tyranids, but he let his captains charge wildly so the enemy would believe his fleet could be defeated.