Chapter Summaries

Belisarius Cawl unveiled a powerful improved Grav-gun to the Astartes, who stayed in the Arena to spar. Evan fought the Salamanders champion Pons Izak to a hard-fought draw, then the Officio Assassinorum ended its surveillance of Evan and his companions on Guilliman’s orders.

• Belisarius Cawl demonstrated his improved Grav-gun, and Guilliman announced that the first Astartes Chapters would receive the weapons within ten years.
• After Cawl allowed the Astartes to use the Arena, Evan challenged Pons Izak of the Salamanders under the name Lin Xiuhao.
• Evan and Izak traded weapons and blows until they reached a stalemate, then praised each other and shook hands.
• Over the next Terran Day, other warriors sparred in the Arena, and Evan ordered master-crafted Power Swords from the Salamanders before his Forge World visit was declined.
• The Officio Assassinorum Grand Master ordered his agents to stop monitoring Evan’s companions and assigned an infiltrator to the EIA-103 Mission.

Anthony awakened on Terra for the honours ceremony, reunited with Situval and Evan, and marched with the Crimson Tide as Guilliman addressed the gathered warriors. Meanwhile, the Imperial Fists prepared the Blade Feast aboard the Phalanx, where Guilliman arrived with two Custodians and a mysterious guest, leaving the assembled Chapters on edge.

• Anthony awakened early, punched the Archmagos, and learned he had been brought to Terra for the honours ceremony.
• Anthony reunited with Situval and Evan, then joined the parade as the Crimson Tide marched before Terra’s crowds and watched Guilliman’s speech.
• The Imperial Fists announced that Guilliman, a Custodian, and a secret guest would observe the Blade Feast, prompting objections from several Chapter champions.
• Situval and Evan travelled to the Phalanx for the Blade Feast, and Situval explained its poisoned-blade, unarmoured duels.
• Guilliman arrived aboard the Phalanx with two Custodians and a concealed guest, while Evan realized the Lord Regent might use his shield if a threat emerged.

Situval won his opening Blade Feast match and later defeated the Inwit Radiance champion, advancing the Crimson Tide to the quarterfinals. While Evan pursued alliances, Guilliman weighed whether the gathered Chapters could be trusted to help purge Terra as Evan opened negotiations with the Inwit Radiance over Crimson Tide technology.

• Situval used bladework and paralytic drugs to defeat the Emperor's Chosen champion, then slept for three days.
• Evan secretly ate in his room, then arranged arms and supply discussions with the Emperor's Chosen Chapter.
• Situval faced the Inwit Radiance champion and won a punishing fight, advancing the Crimson Tide to the quarterfinals as Crawford also upset the Iron Knights champion.
• Guilliman rejected Cawl's advice to distance himself from Lady Euten and considered whether the gathered Chapters could be trusted to help purge Terra of Genestealers.
• Evan approached the Inwit Radiance Chapter and offered an exchange involving a small energy core decoded from an STC Template Fragment.

Evan was pulled into a dangerous Adeptus Mechanicus ritual aboard the Phalanx, where he helped stop a warp breach and encountered Magnus's threat. After the Blade Feast ended and the Crimson Tide secured recognition and supplies, the Eternal Mountain headed for Langjuxu, where an Aeldari Corsair captain prepared to confront it.

• Evan met Archmagos Haros on the Phalanx and agreed to stand guard during a psychic ritual without surrendering his shield.
• The ritual went wrong, and Evan helped close a forming warp rift, suffering serious injuries as a daemon attacked the gathered psykers.
• A corrupted Greater Psyker spoke as Magnus before Victor killed him, and Guilliman dealt with the aftermath alongside the Imperial Fists.
• Evan returned to Situval, who had lost his match, while the Blade Feast concluded with the Celestial Lions winning Dorn's Blade and the Imperial Fists backing the Crimson Tide's place among the Chapters.
• The Crimson Tide gathered blackstone and Martian weapons before the Eternal Mountain set course for Langjuxu.
• An Aeldari seer warned Captain of an approaching Astartes battle barge, and Captain summoned Aelos's fleet to plan an attack.

Eulusia and Aelos followed a prophecy to attack the Eternal Mountain and seize a blackstone relic, but the Astartes’ unexpectedly large force and layered defenses turned the raid into a devastating defeat. Eulusia was captured unconscious, while Aelos escaped with only a fraction of his warriors.

• Eulusia met with Aelos and persuaded him to join her raid on the Eternal Mountain, agreeing to split the spoils twenty-eighty.
• The seven Aeldari warships ambushed the Eternal Mountain, damaged its engines, and sent boarding forces into the ship.
• Evan and the Astartes fought the invading Aeldari, while Situval wounded Eulusia and then knocked her unconscious with an anaesthetic injection.
• Aeldari reinforcements fought through the ship toward the blackstone vault, but they could not remove the relic and faced fierce resistance from the defenders.
• The Eternal Mountain exposed and attacked the Aeldari ships, while Terminators boarded one vessel; Aelos ordered a retreat after most of his warriors were killed.

Evan secured funding and control of a frontier world, captured the Aeldari envoy Eulusia, and waited years while the Crimson Tide and Christina developed mass-produced anti-psyker armor. The chapter ended with Evan receiving a powerful custom suit and anti-psyker bolt rounds as the Chapter prepared to equip its warriors.

• Evan blamed the attacked Agri World for its weak defenses, claimed it under Astartes jurisdiction, and applied for Imperium funding to turn it into a logistics staging post.
• Evan interrogated the captured Eulusia, who refused to reveal Vyzik Craftworld's location; Aelos later concluded she had defected after finding no soul in the recovered Spirit Stone.
• In Chapter Era year 247, the Crimson Tide traded spacecraft wreckage and Dark Age technology, then shipped the stored Space Manta remains to Langjuxu for mass production of repair units.
• Christina used the Space Mantas and adamantium to create standard anti-psyker armor and a stronger custom suit for Evan, who ordered armor issued to every active-duty Primaris Warrior.
• Christina revealed anti-psyker bolt rounds made with T'au cerebrospinal fluid.

Christina revealed the vast scale of the T'au population processed into anti-psyker supplies, and Evan led the Crimson Tide to the shrine world of Grosass after Khorne's ritual corrupted its defenders. The Anti-psyker-armoured Primaris Warriors routed the first blood warriors, but Evan's forces then faced a much larger Blood Legion.

• Christina told Evan that roughly a billion T'au had been processed, producing more than enough anti-psyker bolts, and Evan departed with his shield.
• The Crimson Tide returned with its new Anti-psyker Armour, while Alpha Legion attackers and Khorne cultists turned Grosass into a slaughter-filled ritual site.
• After an Astra Militarum force called for help, Evan assembled seven hundred Primaris Warriors and ordered Rogier to lead the Space Wolves' sons in Drop Pods onto Grosass.
• Evan landed at the church, killed cultists and a corrupted Alpha Legion warrior, and warned the Chapter that enemy Astartes were present.
• Khorne answered the cultists' sacrifice by sending more than a thousand blood warriors, but Rogier and the Wolf Brothers used anti-psyker weapons and armour to rout their vanguard.
• The surviving blood warriors retreated to a much larger Blood Legion led by Possessed, and Evan ordered his forces to charge.

Evan and his forces broke the Khorne warriors’ assault, and Evan fought a Bloodthirster amid the collapsing hive levels. He forced the daemon to flee, then sat on Khorne’s altar throne and collapsed it, leaving himself buried and exhausted as the Warp rift vanished.

• Evan and the Emperor’s Angels of Death defeated the charging World Eaters, while the surviving Chaos warbands retreated to seek reinforcements and sacrifices.
• A Bloodthirster emerged from the altar, killed fleeing Chaos warriors, and attacked Evan as he inspected his troops.
• Evan fought the Bloodthirster with his anti-psyker armour and relic weapons, breaking its horn and soul-whip and inflicting severe injuries.
• Evan pursued the Bloodthirster through the hive levels and pinned it near the altar, forcing it to escape into the Warp before he could destroy it.
• Evan blocked the altar’s attempt to reopen the rift, taunted Khorne, and sat on the throne of Emperor’s Icon heads, collapsing the altar and leaving himself buried and weak.

Evan’s raid on Grosass triggered Khorne to launch a major invasion, while the Crimson Tide profited from the shrine world’s relics and prepared its own defenses. Guilliman mobilized to meet the Blood Legion, and an Inquisitor arrived on the Crimson Tide’s prosperous homeworld to investigate the Chapter.

• Evan survived an Alpha Legion assassin, and the Crimson Tide defeated the remaining Chaos forces, looted Grosass, and recommended Exterminatus before withdrawing.
• Khorne learned that Evan’s army had defeated his forces and launched a crusade toward Grosass, while Tzeentch secretly informed Guilliman.
• The Crimson Tide sold Grosass’s relics to competing shrine worlds, gained substantial resources, and attracted an Inquisition investigation.
• Guilliman reviewed the delayed report on Grosass, dismissed it as unrelated to Khorne’s advance, and prepared to lead the Imperial campaign while ordering Lady Euten to stay behind.
• After learning that the Blood Legion was advancing toward Grosass, Evan declined to answer the distress calls and ordered the Crimson Tide to build defenses in the Calixis Sector.
• An Inquisitor arrived on Oslosa 24 in disguise and began investigating the Crimson Tide by entering a tavern.

The Inquisitor infiltrated Evan’s government but was reassigned to help build a fortress, while the Crimson Tide’s investigations across the Calixis Sector traced widespread mutations to the Tyrant Star. As Khorne’s army advanced and Guilliman prepared to respond, Tzeentch manipulated Perturabo into considering an attack on the Imperium’s weakened defenses.

• The Inquisitor avoided a thorough psyker screening, forged government records, and was unexpectedly assigned to Evan’s new Defense Department to help build a trap fortress.
• Evan debriefed the surviving warriors about their casualties and warned them to prepare for threats such as tanks, Titans, and artillery.
• The Crimson Tide sent Astartes to investigate Underhives across the Calixis Sector, and years of reconnaissance linked the mutations and cult activity to the Tyrant Star.
• Khorne’s army attacked an obscure world and was stalled by the Valhallan Astra Militarum’s Thirtieth Army and other defenders while Guilliman assessed the enemy’s movements.
• Tzeentch used an apparent accident to tell Perturabo that Guilliman had left the Solar Sanctum, prompting Perturabo to consider exploiting the Blood Legion’s diversion to attack Segmentum Obscurus.

Guilliman's fleet fought Hongka's Blood Legion as daemons breached Macragge's Honour and Guilliman led the Victrix Guard into battle. In the Calixis Sector, Evan's forces waited for Komus while building a fortress, and Evan captured an Inquisitor who had infiltrated the workers.

• Hongka led the Blood Legion against Guilliman's fleet, and Imperial ships and five star fortresses resisted the assault.
• Hongka's flagship and another daemon attack opened Warp rifts in Macragge's Honour, so Guilliman rushed to the lower decks with the Victrix Guard.
• The chapter described Komus's appearances and the Crimson Tide's efforts to purge the Calixis Sector while waiting for the black sun's omens.
• An Inquisitor from Terra worked alongside the Sons of Iron Warriors and suspected the fortress was designed to lure attackers into traps.
• Evan detected the Inquisitor using his psychic abilities, ordered his capture, and had him taken for interrogation.
• The Inquisitor claimed his name was Kasef, but a Librarian challenged him and began questioning his purpose.

Evan investigated the Inquisition’s restrictions and received Lady Euten after a Tzeentch plot scattered her through the Warp. Meanwhile, Guilliman fought a Bloodthirster aboard Macragge’s Honour, then learned that Lady Euten had gone missing in the Warp.

• Evan studied the Inquisition’s list of forbidden regions and ordered the Shadow Wasp fighters to prepare while his forces investigated the Crimson Tide’s likely route.
• Tzeentch corrupted a deputy captain, who used a sabotaged hard drive to launch a fortress-class vessel at Lady Euten’s hidden refuge on Luna.
• Lady Euten and five Custodians activated her relics and teleported, but the Emperor and Tzeentch’s struggle scattered them through the Warp; the Baina Robe helped her survive and she emerged near Evan’s ship.
• Evan sent the unconscious Lady Euten to the Blackstone Prison infirmary and ordered his ships to search for suspicious vessels.
• Guilliman and his allies killed a Bloodthirster aboard Macragge’s Honour, but Greater Daemon Hongka rammed the ship with his flagship.
• An Adeptus Custodes transmission informed Guilliman that Lady Euten had gone missing in the Warp during an emergency teleportation.

Evan mustered the Crimson Tide and allied forces to investigate the Tyrant Star, which the Inquisition revealed as a vast Dark Mechanicum palace ruled by Vashtorr. The Imperial fleet attacked the palace, but its counterattack nearly destroyed Evan’s Battle Barge, exposed Lady Euten to the warp, and drew both Guilliman and Perturabo into the crisis.

• Evan discovered Lady Euten in his custody, placed her in a blackstone cage for protection, and ordered forces from the ten Chapters to assemble while arranging to alert Guilliman.
• Uprisings spread across worlds in the Calixis Sector as the Tyrant Star appeared, and the Crimson Tide and Dawn Angels forced their way past the Inquisition to reach it.
• Inquisitor Ulysses opened a rift near the black sun, revealing Vashtorr’s enormous Forge World palace, and the Imperial forces attacked it.
• Evan’s fleet struggled against Vashtorr’s transforming palace, and a powerful strike overloaded the Battle Barge’s shields and drove many mortals mad.
• The attack breached Lady Euten’s protection enough for the warp to detect her, allowing Tzeentch to reveal her location to Guilliman and urge Perturabo to support Vashtorr.

Evan led the fleet in an attack on Vashtorr’s Tyrant Star, destroying a vast section of its flesh-and-machinery crust with anti-psyker bombs before Annos rescued him. The fleet escaped through the Inquisition’s Warp rift, which became a dangerous stable passage, while Vashtorr and the Emperor briefly worked together to contain it; Evan awoke three days later to learn the Black Sun had lost a huge chunk.

• Evan ordered the fleet to bombard the Tyrant Star and rejected boarding, then flew a Shadow Wasp fighter toward it himself.
• Evan dropped a bundled mass of reality anchors into the planet’s hollow interior, erasing a vast region of its crust and escaping with his fighter badly damaged.
• Annos swallowed Evan and helped him reach the Inquisition’s Warp rift as the surviving ships fled through it.
• The rift reopened and threatened to expand, so Vashtorr and the Emperor briefly joined forces to suppress it; Perturabo arrived with a vast force of Iron Warriors.
• The Light of the People emerged from the Warp after losing ten ships, and Evan slept for three days before waking in the hospital.
• Situval told Evan that Komus’s psychic radiation had disappeared, a stable Warp passage remained, and the Black Sun was missing a huge chunk.

The Inquisition monitored the shrinking Warp Rift as Guilliman and the Ultramarines fought Hongka and the Blood Army aboard the Macragge's Honour. After Hongka fell and the Imperial counterattack began, a Librarian's prophecy pointed Guilliman toward Lady Euten on an ocher-colored planet, but he returned to battle without explaining his next move.

• The Inquisition debated the Warp Rift, the Black Sun, and the mysterious warships while the army withdrew toward its Homeworld.
• Guilliman charged Hongka aboard the Macragge's Honour, and Cato Sicarius, Titus, and the Ultramarines fought the World Eaters and Bloodletters around him.
• A Sister of Silence held Hongka long enough for Guilliman to pierce his skull with the Emperor's Sword, destroying the Greater Daemon.
• Hongka's flagship detonated, and an Inquisition Black Ship stabilized the resulting rifts as Imperial forces began a counterattack against the Blood Army.
• Guilliman realized the Blood Army was pressing toward another objective, and a Primaris Librarian's prophecy showed Lady Euten drifting to an ocher-colored planet where a black metal claw reached for her.
• A Combat Servitor delivered the Librarian's blood-written prophecy to Guilliman, who said, "The Emperor protects," and returned to battle.

Guilliman withdrew to evacuate worlds and gather a larger fleet as the Blood Legion advanced, while Perturabo struck a bargain with Vashtorr and led a vast Iron Warriors force into realspace. Evan used the Light of the People to ambush the pursuing fleet, and his boarding forces began overwhelming the Iron Warriors before the fleet departed with captured ships.

• Guilliman abandoned the pincer strategy, ordered evacuations, and called for more Imperial forces as the Blood Legion continued advancing.
• Perturabo agreed to protect Vashtorr's breach in exchange for thirty thousand soul-absorbing bolt weapons, then brought his fleet into realspace.
• Evan ordered civilians evacuated aboard damaged ships, sent the remaining people to fight, and directed his fleet to meet the Iron Warriors at Hecaris System 14.
• The Light of the People disabled enemy void shields and launched boarding assaults, while Evan used the Necrons' Cross-shaped Longsword to fight through a Battle Barge.
• Kazhaniv led the Chapter's Terminators against another Battle Barge as the Imperial forces captured enemy ships and Space Mantas began consuming them.

The Crimson Tide ambushed and destroyed much of Perturabo’s advancing Iron Warriors vanguard, while Guilliman redirected a huge fleet toward the threatened Chapter homeworld. A Genestealer Cult spread through Guilliman’s fleet, and the chapter ended with internal fighting underway as Guilliman refused to slow the advance.

• Evan led the assault that killed the Warsmith and cleared the enemy battle barge, though the boarding action cost 239 warriors.
• The Light of the People returned home, where Evan ordered underground shelters built and prepared to wage a tunnel war against the Iron Warriors.
• Perturabo’s forces advanced on multiple fronts, but Evan used the Light of the People and a bait fleet to ambush them and destroy roughly a hundred ships.
• Guilliman received urgent reports of Perturabo’s attack and the threat to the Crimson Tide, then led more than a thousand warships toward the Red River Chapter’s homeworld.
• Genestealer Hybrids infiltrated Guilliman’s fleet, killed a missing Commissar, and spread their cult from the lower decks to other ships.
• As the cult sparked fighting across the fleet, Guilliman ordered the ships to maintain maximum speed toward Oslosa 24 and told the commanders to handle the purge themselves.

The Iron Warriors’ Vanguard Force reached the Crimson Tide’s homeworld, where Kazhaniv forced fleeing planetary governors to help defend it while Evan’s fleet attacked enemy supply lines. After Evan’s forces won a major space battle, Perturabo redirected most of his fleet toward the homeworld, and Vasher prepared to conquer it before his Primarch arrived.

• Kazhaniv captured the fleeing governors’ transport fleet and ordered the governors and their forces to defend the Crimson Tide’s homeworld until Roboute Guilliman arrived.
• Evan’s fleet disrupted the Iron Warriors’ supply lines, prompting Vasher to split his two-hundred-ship escort fleet from the advancing force.
• Evan commanded a Battle Barge against an enemy Cyclops-class Battleship, destroyed it, and led the fleet to victory over the returning Iron Warriors.
• The Light of the People used another shield-breaking pulse to drive off Iron Warriors returning from the warp, and the fleet withdrew after the battle.
• Perturabo redirected nearly all of his main fleet toward the Crimson Tide’s homeworld after learning of the Light of the People.
• Vasher gathered the Vanguard Force’s remaining warships to conquer the homeworld before Perturabo arrived.

The Iron Warriors invaded Oslosa 24 with more than twenty thousand Astartes while the Crimson Tide prepared its defenses and the Imperial Navy harried the enemy fleet. The Crimson Tide revealed its anti-psyker warriors in a fierce defense of a planetary void shield module, and the chapter ended as one warrior stood before a Typhon Heavy Siege Tank and raised his Ion Storm against its loaded gun.

• The Executioners and Lamenters set out to reinforce Evan, while the Crimson Tide evacuated civilians and prepared Oslosa 24 for the invasion.
• The Iron Warriors entered the system, and the Imperial Navy ambushed their vanguard before fleeing deeper into the asteroid belt.
• Vasher committed more Iron Warriors to the planet after Imperial broadcasts provoked them, and their forces began bombing and occupying the surface.
• The Iron Warriors breached the defenses around an auxiliary void shield module and fought through its corridors toward the core.
• The Crimson Tide’s anti-psyker warriors stopped the Iron Warriors in the module’s hall, killing attackers without losses until heavy weapons finally killed one defender.
• A Crimson Tide warrior stood before the Typhon tank as it loaded a shell and raised his Ion Storm to attack.

The Crimson Tide lured the Iron Warriors into a planetary fortress and underground network, where ambushes and close combat inflicted heavy losses while the enemy’s supply lines remained cut. By the seventh week, Iron Warriors firepower had battered the fortress, but the decisive struggle shifted underground as their Mole Drills carried assault troops into the defenders’ tunnels.

• The Crimson Tide used hidden passages and false signals to draw Iron Warriors into close quarters, where anti-psyker warriors ambushed their Terminators and destroyed their teleport beacon plan.
• Primaris neophytes and mortal defenders fought Iron Warriors across the Hive City, while Warsmith Vasher realized the tunnels were a trap and ordered Titans sent against the defenses.
• In the fifth week, Iron Warriors bombers breached the Hive City’s tip and landed siege forces, but their ammunition dwindled as supplies failed to arrive.
• On the thirty-seventh day, the Crimson Tide launched a massive counterattack from underground, while White Scars Sons attacked Titan legs and Vasher ordered indiscriminate bombing of the battlefields.
• In the seventh week, the Iron Warriors concentrated their bombardment on the fortress, and both sides escalated their assaults as Reality-Anchoring Adamantium Orbs disrupted enemy teleport beacons.
• The Iron Warriors broke through dozens of fortress blockades, and their Tarantula-pattern Mole Drills carried assault squads deep into the underground network.