Chapter Summaries

Enke and the Astartes discovered a hidden chamber beneath the palace, where an ancient AI trapped them until they summoned Mororis, who defeated it and recovered an STC fragment. Evan’s forces began preparing the island as a fortress and research base, while Bars approached the two rescued mortals as the Baina Robe promised it could help the Chapter escape the system.

• Enke and Rogier detected a concealed passage beneath the palace floor, and Enke’s Techmarines opened it to reveal an underground chamber filled with ancient machines.
• The chamber’s dragon construct activated its defenses, sealed the entrance, trapped the Astartes, and destroyed their Warp teleportation beacon.
• Enke led the warriors to a recessed wall and had them call for Mororis, who appeared through a psychic teleport and tore apart the dragon’s defenses.
• Mororis extracted the STC fragment and handed it to Annos, while Evan’s forces planned to turn the island into a fortress and research zone.
• Bars approached the rescued Sak and Ternos while the Baina Robe promised him it could help the Chapter cross the Warp safely.

Ternos and Sak agreed to join Bars after he promised them new ingredients, while the Crimson Tide Chapter spent ten years developing Hou Wenk World and preparing to leave. Their passage through the Warp led them to a corrupted Ark Mechanicus, where the Eternal Mountain charged into battle.

• Ternos persuaded Sak to join Bars and the Astartes after learning they could explore other planets for ingredients.
• Over ten years, the Crimson Tide Chapter unified Hou Wenk World, studied its unusually psychic-inert population, and developed new technology, including Grav-free Jetbikes and the armed Supply Transport One.
• Annos reported that the system's resources could not sustain the Chapter, and Evan led the fleet into the Warp after a tournament.
• Bars guided the fleet into a vortex and revealed that a Dark Mechanicum stronghold lay at its center.
• The Eternal Mountain and the Ark Mechanicus exchanged fire as the Ark's corrupted weapons attacked.
• The Ark Mechanicus transformed part of its hull into a vast, flesh-and-bone maw, and the Eternal Mountain flew directly into it.

Vlorus and Ashlan led their squad through the corrupted flesh of an Ark Mechanicus, where daemons attacked and a Tzeentch Daemon entered Vlorus through a crack in his armour. The daemon explored Vlorus’s peaceful inner world as a newcomer, then encountered Vlorus’s projection at the public service facility.

• Vlorus joined Ashlan’s squad for its first boarding action, carrying a Thunder Hammer and wearing armour engraved with the names of his fallen mortal brothers.
• Ashlan led the squad through the Ark Mechanicus’s flesh passages, where Vlorus smashed barriers and fought mutated Skitarii while the warriors resisted a psychic blast.
• A Tzeentch Daemon and two Possessed warriors attacked the squad in a daemon-filled mist, and the daemon slipped through a crack in Vlorus’s armour into his heart.
• The daemon took the form of a stranded traveller, gained work and lodging at the Peace of Mind Inn, and observed the town of Fuanteit while searching for a way to corrupt Vlorus’s inner world.
• The daemon visited the town’s public service facility and found Vlorus’s subjective projection waiting inside.

The Tzeentch Daemon tried to infiltrate Vlorus’s heart-lake by posing as Sasa and manufacturing a Tyranid attack, but the townspeople’s resolve and Vlorus’s fallen comrades overwhelmed its deception. Vlorus confronted the daemon as the heart-lake became a battlefield, and a blazing moon descended to aid him.

• The Tzeentch Daemon posed as Sasa and sought temporary identification, then planned to win Vlorus’s acceptance by staging a disaster.
• The daemon conjured ninety-nine Tyranids, but the townspeople fought outside town to protect those behind them and refused Sasa’s calls to retreat.
• Vlorus beat a war drum and rallied the townspeople, whose convictions summoned the fallen warriors Vlorus remembered; they destroyed the Tyranids and formed crimson armor around him.
• The town vanished, and Vlorus faced the revealed Tzeentch Daemon across an endless grassland as armies appeared behind him.
• The daemon corrupted the heart-lake with blue flowers and lethal psychic attacks, while Vlorus charged it with his Warblade and World-Cleansing Flame.
• The moon transformed into a blazing sun and descended toward the Chaos Beast as an unseen voice cursed the daemon for attacking its brother.

Evan reached Archmagos Christina aboard the Ark Mechanicus and tried to secure her people and their knowledge for his Chapter. When Chaos began a powerful ritual, they agreed to work together on an escape plan that would sacrifice the Ark Mechanicus.

• Evan used his Blank-bone shield to fight through the flesh construct, helped Ashlan's warriors, and drove three daemons away with the Iron Train and its melta fire.
• Evan found Vlorus sinking into the Chaos-flesh floor and ordered Ashlan to pull him free before continuing toward the distress signal.
• Evan met Archmagos Christina, who explained how her Blank nature had helped her seize control of the Ark Mechanicus after Chaos corrupted a senior Adeptus Mechanicus figure.
• Evan proposed taking Christina's people and knowledge aboard his ships, offering access to STC fragments while arguing that the Imperium might persecute them if they returned alone.
• As Chaos began a massive ritual, Christina revealed that her people had built a new Warp Engine, and Evan proposed detonating a Gellar Field-equipped ship in the vortex to create an escape opportunity.
• Christina agreed to cooperate and asked Evan to join her on the front line while her people transferred resources from the Ark Mechanicus.

Christina’s firepower bought the Mechanicus time to evacuate, and the Eternal Mountain escaped the Warp vortex after the Ark Mechanicus was destroyed. A hidden Alpha Legionnaire was exposed and killed aboard the ship, while the chapter also recounted Anthony’s forces joining Dante’s counteroffensive and earning the Crimson Tide Chapter an official place in the Imperium’s war effort.

• Christina shielded a retreating Tech-Priest and held the defensive line with a towering, heavily armed Firepower Fortress until the Mechanicus evacuation was complete.
• The Chaos Cultists were pulled into a Warp vortex, where Asloken Vendro arrived, but the Mechanicus’s explosives destroyed the Ark Mechanicus before he could devour it.
• Rogier identified Esposito as an Alpha Legion infiltrator and killed him after the assassin attacked; Situval and Enke examined the corpse and found concealed weapons and surgical enhancements.
• Evan ordered an investigation into how the Alpha Legionnaire had boarded the Eternal Mountain, but the crew found no answers or evidence of accomplices.
• Anthony and the Crimson Tide Chapter fought alongside the Lamenters, Salamanders, and Sons of the People at Favna World during Dante’s counteroffensive against Huron’s forces.
• Dante granted the Crimson Tide Chapter a Strike Cruiser and Imperial supplies, while the Atris Astra Militarum and a Lunar-class Cruiser were sent to another battlefield.

Evan reunited the Crimson Tide forces, heard William and Anthony’s reports, and began screening the Blackshields who had joined them. The screening turned to fighting Genestealers, while the chapter also learned how a band of Orks had adopted the image and battle cry of Sanguinius’s sons.

• Anthony persuaded Chapter Master Maturio to take the Lamenters to aid William, while Dante’s force advanced into an ambush.
• William gathered supplies and rescued people across Imperial worlds, recruited Blackshields, and brought his force to Langjuxu after Evan summoned him.
• Evan, William, and Anthony reunited their forces and showcased their spoils before the Lamenters joined them in a long, tearful ceremony.
• The leaders exchanged reports, screened the Blackshields, and agreed that Leon could lead a company if his warriors passed loyalty checks.
• Evan’s forces tested the Blackshields for Chaos corruption and then sent them to fight Genestealers.
• A Blood Angels successor Chapter’s Black Rage battle left an Ork survivor inspired by a fallen Space Marine, and the Orks repaired the Power Armour and began fighting under Sanguinius’s image and the cry “For the Emperor!”

Evan led the Crimson Tide Chapter to Shumassaya, where Orks and a Genestealer Cult were fighting while wearing the armor of the Dawn Angels, the Chapter’s former benefactors. After Evan ordered a full-scale assault to avenge the Dawn Angels, the battle began with devastating orbital bombardment and the deployment of the Chapter’s armored forces, Titans, and newly equipped Psyker Dreadnought.

• Evan’s fleet arrived at Shumassaya, found wreckage from a fierce space battle, and discovered that the ground forces were shouting both Imperial and Genestealer slogans.
• Scouts sent footage of Orks and purple Genestealer Hybrids fighting in Dawn Angels armor, prompting Evan to call a Red Plan assembly in the Chapter Memorial Hall.
• Evan recalled how the Dawn Angels had rescued the Crimson Tide after its near-destruction and vowed to bring them home, then ordered a full deployment and intense orbital bombardment.
• Worstan led Orks in a Dawn Angels Dreadnought as Bone Bigteeth carried ammunition, but bombardment destroyed the Ork rear camps and killed many around them.
• Crimson Tide tanks, Titans, and mechanized forces advanced across the battlefield, while Annos awakened Mororis in a modified Psyker Dreadnought equipped with psychic-controlled weapons and flight gear.

The Crimson Tide Chapter attacked the Genestealers and Orks with overwhelming force while Leon led a strike on the Genestealer patriarch. Leon’s squad killed the patriarch but became surrounded, as the chapter’s forces also entered a brutal duel with the Orks.

• The Crimson Tide Chapter arrived and overwhelmed the fighting, while Evan delivered Terminator Armour and other equipment to Leon’s Blackshields.
• Scouts located the Genestealer patriarch in the Underhive, and Leon led an assault through a Tarantula-pattern Mole Drill as Brother Iron Face commanded the frontal attack.
• Leon and his squad killed the patriarch by cutting off its escape and grinding it beneath the Mole Drill, but its Purestrain Genestealers attacked and trapped the Astartes.
• A train whistle sounded as Leon prepared to hold off the Genestealers, hinting that help had arrived from the surface.
• Kazhaniv challenged and killed an Ork Takt in single combat, then an Ork Dreadnought landed in the dueling ground and Chief Librarian Mororis dropped in roaring a Waaagh challenge at Warlord Worstan.

Chief Librarian Mororis defeated the Ork warlord Worstan, allowing the Crimson Tide to rout the greenskins. Meanwhile, Chapter Master Maturio’s Battle Barge tried to rescue a mining base, but an Ork warship’s wreckage crashed into it, leaving the mortals’ fate uncertain.

• Mororis and Worstan traded taunts before battling, with both sides’ forces cheering them on.
• Mororis outmaneuvered Worstan and destroyed his Dreadnought, killing the Ork warlord and breaking the greenskins’ command.
• The Crimson Tide charged the disoriented Orks, while Rogier hurried to reinforce the main force.
• Chapter Master Maturio led the Mother of Tears toward the besieged mining base as Ork ships began turning on one another after their command collapsed.
• An Ork warship collided with the mining base after a Space Torpedo split it apart, and Maturio watched the disaster from the Battle Barge.

The Crimson Tide Chapter fought Orks across the star system while Iron Face’s Blackshield force advanced through the Hive City and Osk’s squad captured a military warehouse. Aboard the Eternal Mountain, Ternos served experimental desserts at a banquet, and Xiao Lan’s apparent enjoyment of them left the recruits awestruck.

• Maturio sent the Mother of Tears against the Ork warships as Iron Face’s Terminators fought Genestealers in the Underhive and took casualties.
• Osk supplied Iron Face’s warriors with ammunition, then led his squad in a coordinated ambush to seize the enemy military warehouse.
• Osk’s warriors killed the warehouse guards, shot the Genestealers that attacked them, and began removing supplies as more Genestealers gathered in the ducts.
• The Crimson Tide Chapter pursued the Orks across Red Rock, and orbital bombardment destroyed the fleeing force while Maturio returned to the fleet after smashing three Ork warships.
• Ternos prepared experimental desserts for the banquet, and Xiao Lan ate the chili-filled dessert before praising it to the recruits.
• The recruits recoiled from Ternos’s unusual desserts, but Xiao Lan ate the Yellow Orchid Jelly without complaint, prompting them to regard him as a true warrior.

Doverlit awoke interred in a Dreadnought, while Evan reorganized the Chapter and led the Eternal Mountain on an expedition to the Eastern Fringe. After establishing a base and learning the region’s tangled politics, Evan landed on Sorok World and began an ideological contest with its T'au-influenced government.

• Annos told Doverlit that his poisoned body had been replaced by a Dreadnought, and Doverlit chose to return to dormancy after learning the Chapter had survived.
• Evan assigned forces and missions to William and Anthony, then devised the Psyker war drum as a last-resort rally signal for the Chapter.
• In year 158 of the Chapter calendar, Evan’s fleet departed for the Eastern Fringe and reunited with Loken’s scouts, who had found a Warp route and mineral-rich planets.
• Evan established a mining colony and an Adeptus Mechanicus world, then reviewed the surrounding threats, including the T'au, Necrons, Aeldari, and Drukhari.
• Evan’s fleet arrived at Sorok World, destroyed a defense emplacement after its forces fired warning shots, and demanded an explanation from the local ruler.
• Evan began landing troops under the pretext of rest and resupply, while the T'au and local officials concealed their influence and goods; he prepared to offer the planet’s people an alternative to the Greater Good.

Rogier pretended to negotiate an Imperial inspection of Sorok World while the Crimson Tide Chapter secretly seized control and prepared to purge its T'au influence. The Chapter cut off T'au resistance by paying soldiers to surrender alien weapons and offering Underhive residents a path to better lives, leaving Sorok World undergoing rapid change.

• Rogier destroyed surveillance devices, intimidated local officials, and demanded supplies while claiming the Chapter would inspect Sorok World.
• Sorok World's rulers planned to stall the Astartes until a T'au relief fleet arrived, but Rogier's demands for inspections and rest disrupted their expectations.
• Evan and the Crimson Tide Chapter attacked the T'au fleet and strategic sites, cut communications, and swiftly took control of the government.
• The Chapter offered soldiers gold for surrendering heretical weapons and T'au heads, prompting the Planetary Defense Force to fight the T'au.
• Wang Ergou and other recruits persuaded Underhive residents to join the new order by demonstrating improved housing, factory jobs, and training opportunities.

Evan’s Crimson Tide Chapter secured more than twenty worlds and prepared to confront the T'au, whose leaders sent a fleet to investigate the lost colonies. The T'au vanguard was destroyed by Maturio’s Battle Barge and the Chapter’s cruisers, while the commander-in-chief mobilized the nearby Defender Fleet to defend its Homeworld.

• Evan explained his economic and political strategy to Jonel as the Chapter halted its expansion after reclaiming more than twenty worlds and gathered Imperial warships.
• T'au Ethereal nobles debated how to respond to the lost colonies and sent a vanguard fleet under a Fire Caste commander to investigate.
• The T'au vanguard entered the star system and attacked the Mother of Tears, but Maturio followed Evan’s advice and fought from a distance.
• The Eternal Mountain and nine Lunar-class Cruisers arrived, destroyed the T'au Hero-class Cruiser, and pursued the fleeing ships, annihilating their escorts.
• The T'au commander-in-chief ordered his remaining fleet to disperse and raise the alarm, prompting the nearby Homeworld to mobilize its Defender Fleet.

The Secret Cult and T'au leaders learned that an Imperial offensive was approaching and prepared their forces, while Evan planned reforms across Sorok World and organized his coalition for war. The T'au massed troops and fortified the border as Evan prepared a direct assault, though he intended to finish consolidating his worlds before launching a full-scale campaign.

• The T'au supreme leader confronted the Secret Cult over the unexpected Imperial threat and their failed efforts to find allies, while Number Two suggested the attack might not become a major conflict.
• Evan reviewed Sorok World's declining production and planned reforms centered on education, military training, public health, collective identity, and rewards tied to labor.
• Evan decided to unite more than twenty worlds before attacking the T'au and planned to wait until Christina had completed her research and built a promised warship.
• The T'au assembled Defender Fleet forces, Gue'vesa troops, battlesuits, KX139 Heavy Titans, and aircraft while their covert operatives sought help from the Alpha Legion.
• Both sides fortified their frontier worlds, and Evan recruited Underhive Gang members and deployed his forces for an overwhelming head-on assault.

After three years of preparation, Evan launched a major assault on a fortified T'au system, where his fleets defeated the T'au defenders and captured a Warden-class Mothership. The T'au survivors fled toward their next fortress, while the Crimson Tide Chapter turned toward the heavily defended planets.

• The Fire Caste commander-in-chief fortified the evacuated system with decoys, mines, and concealed weapons while the Ethereals ordered him to preserve the fleet.
• Evan assembled his forces, sent the Mother of Tears through a Warp route to raid the enemy rear, and led the main fleet into the T'au fortress system.
• The T'au fleet pursued the retreating Crimson Tide ships, leaving its stern exposed to William's arriving reinforcements at the Mandeville Point.
• The Crimson Tide fleet struck from both directions, and the Infinite Loyalty fought off five T'au ships as the Imperium's Nova Cannons and lances inflicted heavy losses.
• The battered T'au fleet retreated, but Shadow Wasp fighters disabled a Custodian-class Carrier and the Eternal Mountain captured a Warden-class Mothership.

Evan chose to pursue the T'au fleet rather than waste time capturing planets, and his forces launched a surprise attack that drove the T'au into a succession of defensive battles. After discovering that a planet was a Vespid colony, Evan continued the assault while Kazhaniv led Terminators onto a carrier, where they fought toward its Engine Room and Shield Room.

• Evan explained to William that the Chapter should destroy T'au fleets and shipyards instead of occupying planets, then weighed a direct advance against leapfrogging supply bases.
• Evan's fleet ambushed the T'au in a new system, but the Air Caste admiral sacrificed merchant transports in explosions that let the main fleet withdraw and prepare layered defenses.
• Evan's fleet attacked around a Vespid gas giant, and William realized that the ships' targets were falling into a populated colony rather than an energy station.
• The Eternal Mountain endured ground-based missile fire and attacked a Custodian-class Carrier while Evan ordered Kazhaniv to board it by Warp teleportation.
• Kazhaniv and the Terminators fought Vespid, Kroot, and T'au battlesuit forces aboard the carrier, advancing toward its Engine Room and Shield Room.

Kazhaniv’s Terminators boarded and captured a T'au carrier while Evan’s fleet devastated the enemy force with a Cyclonic Torpedo that triggered a towering wave across a gas planet. The T'au regrouped at Vior'la, and Evan’s fleet paused for Chaos inspections as he broadcast a call for humanity to unite.

• Kazhaniv and the Cataphractii Terminators fought through the T'au carrier, broke onto its bridge, and captured it as the command staff escaped in a pod.
• Evan’s fleet advanced on the T'au flagship, but the Light of Dawn was blinded by burning gel while the T'au carrier withdrew.
• Evan’s Bipolar Cyclonic Torpedo unleashed a planet-wide wave that damaged and scattered the fleets, allowing the surviving T'au ships to escape.
• The T'au commander abandoned the forward worlds and concentrated forces at Vior'la, while High Elder Tuk'ro used psychic influence and a speech to rally the troops.
• Evan’s army swept through three star systems, then stopped to inspect its ships for Chaos; Sisyphus found and killed a corrupted human during the purge.
• Evan broadcast an address calling on humanity to unite and resist the Imperium’s enemies.

The Crimson Tide watched the T'au and Blood Legion devastate each other before launching an assault on the retreating Chaos forces. Evan's fleet destroyed a daemon-engine warship and defeated a boarding party, leaving the battle's survivors in its hands.

• The T'au fleet attacked the damaged Mother of Tears Battle Barge, but the Blood Legion emerged from the Warp and engaged the T'au instead.
• Tuk'ro and the Nicassar fought the Blood Legion with psychic powers as the T'au fleet tried and failed to use the star's radiation to destroy it.
• Evan brought the Crimson Tide into the system after the Blood Legion and T'au had exhausted each other, then ordered an attack on both retreating forces.
• The Light of Dawn rammed a damaged daemon-engine warship, and the Eternal Mountain destroyed it with orbital bombs.
• Leon, William, and Iron Face led the defense of the Righteous Vigil, killing the Chaos boarding party at the cost of Terminator and Primaris casualties.

The Imperium destroyed the T'au fleet at Vior'la and began a ground invasion, using warship wreckage and infiltrating Astartes to break the planet's defenses and seize its stores. On T'au, the secret cult restored Tuk'ro from copied memories and ordered every world to force the Imperium into ground battles.

• The T'au navy retreated from Vior'la after Khorne's forces and the Imperial fleet devastated it, while a Tzeentch Daemon returned to report Khorne's defeat.
• The Crimson Tide Chapter bombarded Vior'la with warship wreckage, destroyed its planetary shield emitters, and sent Astartes into shielded areas under cover of the bombardment.
• The Astartes destroyed a shield system, trapped T'au troops in underground shelters, and looted strategic warehouses.
• The Nicassar used a ritual to transfer Tuk'ro's memories into another Ethereal, creating a new Tuk'ro.
• The secret cult learned that the Imperium had attacked Vior'la and ordered every T'au world to copy its defenses and force the enemy into ground combat.