Recaps

Sith and his Deathwatch squad fought through a Genestealer uprising in Vigilus’s Underhive, following Daviro into the lower hive to uncover the corruption. They encountered a Zoanthrope, whose psychic question failed to frighten Sith or his veterans.

• Daviro confirmed that Genestealers had instigated the rebellion and led the squad toward a branch in the lower hive.
• Sith’s squad fought through waves of Genestealers and hybrids as Daviro charged ahead, splitting away from the group.
• Sith’s veterans found a dead Deathwatch warrior and followed his path into a dark area the Genestealers avoided.
• Daviro attacked a floating Zoanthrope, but a spatial force suspended him in midair as the creature asked what they feared.
• Sith resisted the Zoanthrope’s mental assault and shouted that they were afraid it would run.

Sith and his veterans killed the Zoanthrope and fought their way back to the tower summit, where they reunited with Brunok and Ana. As Imperial forces proclaimed victory over Vigilus and bombarded its fallen Hive Cities, Sith saw the war’s grim reality and sought a moment of peace in the water.

• Sith killed the Zoanthrope, breaking its hold on Daviro, and urged him to return with their intelligence as Genestealers closed in.
• Daviro ordered the mission team to withdraw, and Sith led the veterans into the Genestealer tide to fight their way back.
• After Ana’s message arrived, Brunok ordered the 101st Regiment to retreat to the tower summit and collapse the passages behind them.
• Sith and more than seventy veterans returned in the elevator atop a heap of dead Aberrants, astonishing the soldiers waiting at the summit.
• Imperial broadcasts announced that Vigilus was under control as the Navy bombarded fallen Hive Cities, while Genestealers and Orks continued their assaults.
• Sith watched the fleet and then submerged his head in the water, seeking quiet as the war for Vigilus began in earnest.

Sith refused the nobles’ request for elite troops to escort them and their property from the spiretop, then ordered Ana to prioritize giving them her blue starch. The chapter ended with Ana puzzled by Sith’s decision as he allocated the remaining supplies to soldiers and refugees.

• Two nobles met Sith in his office and asked him to assign elite troops to escort them and their attendants and property to safety.
• Brunok reacted with disgust to the nobles’ demand, while Sith calmly refused to arrange their escort.
• After the nobles left, Ana asked Sith whether he was displeased with them.
• Sith told Ana that she could never have too much starch and ordered her to give the nobles priority for blue starch, distributing the rest to soldiers and refugees according to his list.

On Vigilus, Calgar used the Senate to enforce a no-retreat policy and demanded recognition and support for Sith’s 101st Regiment, which was holding out beyond Imperial lines. The Astra Militarum promised the regiment formal induction, an aerial supply route, combat suits, and storm trooper equipment.

• Calgar ordered that no Imperial position be abandoned and that any retreat without his personally signed order be treated as treason.
• Calgar questioned why the 101st Regiment had not received top-priority supplies, commendations, and recognition for its victories.
• A noble blamed the Astra Militarum for the regiment’s neglected rewards, then offered Sith master-crafted Power Armour and public commendations.
• The Astra Militarum commander promised commendations, formal induction of the 101st Regiment, an aerial supply route, and 150,000 fully enclosed combat suits.
• The Astra Militarum commander added that the regiment would receive 5,000 sets of storm trooper equipment.

Sith received ten thousand combat suits and saw his soldiers enjoy a rare, comfortable evening amid the war on Vigilus. The Imperial Fleet departed to fight xenos in space, leaving Sith to realize that the fighting on Vigilus was about to intensify.

• An Astra Militarum officer delivered ten thousand fully enclosed combat suits and asked Sith to sign a photograph of his wife and child.
• Sith learned that his 101st Regiment’s equipment now placed it among the Imperium’s elite mortal forces.
• Sith inspected his soldiers as they donned black combat suits and received a hearty dinner, tobacco, and synthetic coffee.
• Sith heard a radio report that Calgar was leading the fleet against xenos in space as the Imperial warships stopped firing and departed.
• Sith watched his soldiers savor their brief comfort and remarked that Vigilus was getting livelier.

Sith recognized that the Imperial Navy’s supposed victory was propaganda and prepared the 101st Regiment as the Black Crusade approached Vigilus. When Genestealer rumors sparked a refugee riot over water, he learned that the nobles had hoarded the clean water inside the fortress.

• Sith silenced the propaganda broadcast and saw that the remaining Imperial ships were falling from orbit while the pamphlets proclaimed victory.
• Sith ordered the 101st Regiment to follow a strict training schedule, reinstate curfew, and triple its guard strength.
• After a small clash, Brunok reported that refugees were rioting and Genestealers were spreading rumors that the water purification facility had been captured.
• Sith identified the crisis as a struggle over Vigilus’s clean water and ordered water rationing and the preparation of purification and recycling equipment.
• Brunok revealed that the nobles had taken all the water and hidden it in the fortress, and Sith crushed his canteen in anger.

As unrest spread across the Imperium, Sith stormed a nobles’ fortress to seize its water supplies and received Calgar’s order to retake the water purification station. The mission appeared nearly suicidal, but Sith’s spirits rose when he saw the Artificer Power Armour delivered for him.

• Ana reported that civilians were joining the Genestealers by the hundreds of millions as nobles barricaded themselves in their fortresses.
• Sith and Daviro breached the fortress gate with Melta Bombs, and Sith used an autocannon to kill the nobles’ private soldiers and subdue the nobles.
• Brunok led men in hunting down the remaining private soldiers, while Ana organized water tankers to carry supplies to Sith’s headquarters.
• A herald delivered two thousand Jump Packs and told Sith that Calgar planned a large offensive while Sith retook the water purification station.
• The herald unveiled a suit of Artificer Power Armour, lifting Sith’s spirits despite the danger of the assignment.

Sith trained the 101st Regiment to climb the space elevator while Calgar’s forces fought Orks and Genestealers across Hyperia. After three months of accusations that Sith had delayed his mission, the recapture effort passed 50 percent, and Calgar saw the regiment fighting its way up through the Genestealers.

• Sith donned his master-crafted Power Armour, raised the 101st Regiment’s standard, and ordered two thousand veterans to climb to the spire’s tip one hundred times every day.
• Orks attacked mortal soldiers across the Hive Cluster as Calgar bombed Genestealer-held Hive Cities and faced reports accusing Sith of delaying his mission.
• Calgar dismissed the accusations after seeing reports that Sith’s troops were training to climb.
• A Tech-Priest announced that the water purification station’s recapture progress had passed 50.01 percent.
• Calgar watched a projection of the 101st Regiment climbing through the space elevator and fighting its way upward against the Genestealers.

Calgar and the command centre watched Sith and the 101st fight up the space elevator toward the Genestealer-infested water purification station, while their hopes of success collapsed when a Lictor appeared. Sith killed the Lictor, prompting Calgar to order a retreat and announce that Sith and the 101st had reclaimed the station.

• Servo-skulls transmitted footage of two thousand 101st troops fighting their way up the space elevator, astonishing the command centre and Calgar.
• Calgar ordered the offensive to continue, though Purestrain Genestealers increased the veterans’ casualties as they neared the top.
• A Lictor appeared, and the Tech-Priest assessed the operation’s chance of success as zero while the command centre assumed Sith’s force could not survive.
• As Sith fell through the shaft, he kept fighting until his Power Sword struck the Lictor; his jump pack then held him aloft as the Lictor plunged to the ground.
• The Tech-Priest raised the operation’s success probability to 97.75 percent, and Calgar ordered all forces to retreat and announced that Sith and the 101st had reclaimed the water purification station.

Sith and the surviving veterans restored the water supply at the top of the purification station, only for Abaddon's Chaos fleet to destroy it with a Macro-cannon shell. Sith returned to the battle on the tower top and found Brunok's forces had inflicted heavy losses on the Chaos Astartes, leaving the enemy commander stunned.

• Sith and the veterans reopened the purification station and restored its water supply while the Adeptus Mechanicus brought in an enormous ice crystal.
• Sith spotted Abaddon's fleet and ordered everyone to jump from the station just before a Macro-cannon shell destroyed it.
• Sith landed on the tower top, asked for Brunok, and gave the returning 101st storm troopers half an hour to rest and refit.
• Sith found Brunok directing the fighting amid extensive casualties and saw fifty recruits bring down a Chaos Astartes.
• Brunok's forces had killed so many Chaos Astartes that their commander wondered whether fewer than fifty mortals had traded away his warriors.

As Chaos forces attacked Vigilus, Sith and the 101st Regiment inflicted severe losses on Black Skull’s warband, while Hyperia fell into riots and lost its supply route. Dujiao tried to avoid fighting Sith by volunteering to face the Genestealers emerging through a demolished gate, and the confused factions prepared to fight.

• Black Skull watched the 101st Regiment trade few casualties for Chaos Astartes and concluded that the Emperor was blessing them.
• Black Skull ordered Dujiao to prove his loyalty, and Dujiao led his men toward a warped gate to avoid confronting Sith.
• Brunok told Sith that Chaos had cut off supplies to Hyperia, destroyed its water purification plant, and sparked riots requiring Astartes to suppress.
• An explosion opened a passage near the battlefield, revealing Genestealers and stunning Sith’s soldiers, Black Skull’s warband, and the Genestealers already nearby.
• Dujiao volunteered to hold back the newly revealed Genestealers, who raised their weapons and declared that anyone approaching would be shot.

The 101st Regiment held its position while Chaos and Genestealers fought nearby, and Sith finally prepared to confront Black Skull. When the Chaos Astartes charged, Sith swung his Power Sword, and Black Skull fled toward a transport aircraft, desperate to escape.

• Sith rotated the 101st Regiment’s troops and had hot food brought to the front as they watched Chaos fight the Genestealers.
• Brunok insulted Black Skull, provoking him and the Chaos Astartes to prepare an attack on the human position.
• Sith drew his Power Sword and artificer boltgun, and Black Skull sensed a terrifying threat in the mortal wearing Power Armour.
• Black Skull rallied his warband and sent the Chaos Astartes charging while he stayed behind with Dujiao.
• The Chaos Astartes suppressed the 101st Regiment, but when Sith swung his Power Sword, Black Skull ordered his ship ready and ran for the transport aircraft.

Abaddon learned that Black Skull had fled after Sith’s forces drove it off, but he dismissed the incident and ordered the siege of Hyperia to continue. As Sith led the 101st Regiment out of the Hive City, an extermination torpedo fell from the sky toward them.

• A Chaos light cruiser broke formation and left Vigilus, prompting Abaddon to learn that Black Skull had departed.
• Abaddon reviewed information about Black Skull and, after seeing that Sith’s mortals had driven it off, ordered the force exterminated while keeping his focus on Hyperia.
• A Chaos light cruiser carrying a Cyclonic Torpedo changed course toward Sith.
• Sith ordered the 101st Regiment to abandon the line and fight its way out of the Hive City as Genestealers pressed their position.
• Sith led the soldiers through an opened exit passage into the warped world below the Hive City.
• Sith recognized the object falling through the clouds as an extermination torpedo dropped from space.

Sith led the 101st Regiment away from a Cyclonic Torpedo’s destruction of a hive city and charged into the battle between the Orks and Chaos, declaring that Vigilus still belonged to the Imperium. At Hyperia, Calgar learned that a mortal regiment remained in the field and was still attacking.

• A Cyclonic Torpedo struck the hive city, collapsing it and devastating the surrounding area while Sith and the surviving recruits watched from outside.
• Sith ordered his soldiers to march toward Hyperia across the transformed battlefield, where Orks, Chaos forces, and Warp daemons fought.
• Sith led the 101st Regiment into battle, ordering them to raise their banner and open fire as they charged the Orks and Chaos army.
• At Hyperia, an Ultramarine delivered a report to Calgar that a mortal regiment remained in the field and was still launching attacks.

Sith led the exhausted survivors of the 101st Regiment across the glass-smooth battlefield toward Hyperia after defeating vast numbers of Chaos forces and Orks. An Imperial fighter crashed nearby, and its Servo-skull projected Lord Calgar, who saw the heaps of enemy dead and asked Sith if he had killed them all.

• Sith ordered Brunok to gather the surviving soldiers and move toward Hyperia.
• The remaining soldiers of the 101st Regiment gathered and followed Sith across the mirrored battlefield.
• An Imperial fighter crashed nearby, and Sith approached it with several stormtroopers.
• A Servo-skull projected Lord Calgar, who was directing the Imperial defense of the outer fortress and its Void Shields.
• Calgar surveyed the battlefield, saw the heaps of Chaos Astartes and Ork corpses, and asked Sith if he had killed them all.

Calgar recognized Sith’s achievements and gave him command of Imperial troops stranded outside the defensive lines as Sith’s force continued toward Hyperia. Along the way, Sith’s column encountered a ruined Chaos ritual site and pressed onward, conserving fuel for the fight ahead.

• Calgar told Sith that the Imperium had recorded his exploits and that his name had reached Hyperia.
• Calgar transferred command of the Imperial troops outside the defensive lines to Sith and hoped to see him in Hyperia.
• Sith led nearly two hundred thousand surviving soldiers across a scorched landscape toward Hyperia.
• Sith and Ana found a destroyed ritual site surrounded by the corpses of countless civilians, and Ana suggested using flamers.
• Sith ordered the column to conserve fuel, climbed onto a surviving Leman Russ, and commanded the troops to advance toward Hyperia.

Sith led more than two hundred thousand battered mortal troops in a charge through the Chaos army toward Hyperia, despite believing they faced the main axis of the assault. He reached the city with survivors after breaking the Chaos lines, leaving the defenders stunned and newly inspired.

• Sith saw the devastation around Hyperia and learned that his left flank had been spotted as Chaos forces turned toward his troops.
• Sith drew his weapons and told the survivors to follow him as Krieg soldiers and Leman Russ tanks led the charge.
• More than two hundred thousand mortal troops surged from the craters, forcing the Chaos army to abandon its assault on the walls and confront them.
• Calgar watched Sith's force break through the Chaos lines and ordered a side gate opened, with Ultramarines sent to cover their retreat into Hyperia.
• Sith entered Hyperia with his chipped Power Sword as the defenders watched in shock, realizing he had led the battered force to break Chaos.

Sith returned to the defensive lines with the few survivors of his force after helping drive back the Chaos assault, and Calgar publicly honored him as the legend of Vigilus. Calgar offered to rebuild and equip Sith’s regiment, then assigned it to board the enemy flagship as part of a plan for total victory.

• Sith led the battered survivors through the gates as Calgar’s bombardment helped rout the Chaos army, and the defenders cheered for him and Calgar.
• Calgar approached Sith, stopped him from saluting, and named him the legend of Vigilus.
• Calgar announced Sith’s promotion into the Astra Militarum and promised to restore and re-equip the 101st Regiment.
• Sith realized that Calgar’s generous support meant he expected a dangerous mission, and remembered the Imperium’s eventual plan to destroy Abaddon’s flagship with Aeldari help.
• Calgar told Sith that he and his regiment would serve as a boarding party and attack the enemy flagship.

Sith returned to the 101st Regiment’s quarters amid worsening civilian suffering and learned that Daviro would join his force for the boarding of the Vengeful Spirit. Daviro delivered Sith’s new Astra Militarum designation, leaving Sith stunned to learn the regiment would be called the Black Watch.

• Sith saw starving civilians in the Hyperia Hive Cluster resort to drinking a fallen woman’s blood before bailiffs killed them.
• Sith returned to the 101st Regiment’s quarters and signed a supply authorization while replacements trained.
• Daviro told Sith that he had volunteered to join the regiment as its required Astartes for the boarding parties.
• Daviro presented Sith with a military order promoting his force into the Astra Militarum with senior command authority.
• Sith read that the regiment’s new designation was Black Watch.

Sith led the newly formed Black Watch into a boarding action during Calgar’s desperate duel with Abaddon. After landing on a Chaos ship, he stopped his troops from charging to their deaths and ordered them to seize a boarding craft and escape to an Imperial warship.

• Sith gathered Daviro, Brunok, Ana, and the Black Watch before boarding a transport bound for the battlefront.
• Sith’s transport reached a shipboard bay, where the crew directed the troops into a boarding craft as their Imperial warship came under attack.
• The boarding craft crashed into a Chaos ship, and Sith and Daviro shot down cultist crewmen emerging to attack them.
• Daviro charged toward the fleeing traitors, but Sith knocked him unconscious before the others could follow.
• Sith ordered Brunok and the Black Watch to seize an enemy boarding craft and escape to an Imperial warship, shouting at them when they did not understand.

The First Captain discovered that Sith and the Black Watch were carving a path through the Vengeful Spirit and ordered mortal forces to intercept them, then sent their combat footage to Abaddon. As Abaddon and Calgar paused in confusion over the report, Sith and his men boarded an Imperial frigate, only for a huge explosion to rip open the Warp and begin pulling nearby ships into it.

• The First Captain learned that one Imperial force was advancing through the Vengeful Spirit and that a single warrior was killing Chaos Astartes and mortals alike.
• After reviewing footage of Sith and the Black Watch, the First Captain recalled the Astartes interceptors, ordered mortals to wear down the force, and sent the information to Abaddon.
• Abaddon paused his fight with Calgar after receiving the message, and both men reacted in confusion to the words "Black Watch" and "possessed by the Corpse Emperor."
• Sith and the Black Watch seized boarding craft and returned to an Imperial Sword-class Frigate, stunning its crew.
• A vast explosion tore open the Warp between the fleets, and its powerful suction began dragging nearby ships toward the breach.

After Calgar’s victory ended the battle for Vigilus, Sith and the damaged Sword-class Frigate were dragged into the Warp with its Gellar Field disabled. Sith and the Black Watch survived two months of fighting daemons, and the chapter ended as a powerful blessing restored Sith’s strength in red light.

• The Aeldari warship detonated inside the Chaos Fleet, ending the battle for Vigilus, and Abaddon teleported back to the Vengeful Spirit as Calgar watched the rift consume the ships.
• Sith, Brunok, Ana, Daviro, and the second officer were swept into the Warp aboard the wreck, where they discovered the Gellar Field had failed.
• Warp daemons invaded the damaged Vengeful Spirit, while Sith’s frigate remained trapped inside a growing sphere of daemons; the Vengeful Spirit’s Gellar Field was eventually restored.
• After two months of relentless combat, Sith and fewer than two thousand Black Watch remained alive aboard the frigate, while Chaos and Imperial observers watched in awe.
• A blessing gathered in the Warp and entered Sith’s ship, restoring his strength beyond its former level as Abaddon reacted in shock.
• Sith saw that the blessing’s light was red and wondered why it had turned red again.

Sith and the Black Watch received the blessings of both Khorne and the Emperor, slaughtered the Warp daemons, and were carried out of the Warp aboard their crippled frigate. Daviro welcomed Sith to the 42nd millennium and showed him the galaxy split by the Great Rift.

• Sith and the Black Watch were blessed by Khorne and the Emperor, gaining power that stunned Abaddon and the onlookers.
• Sith and the Black Watch faced the Warp without a Gellar Field and killed daemons so completely that their enemies fled.
• The divine light gathered into Sith’s armor and sword, and another golden light pulled the Sword-class Frigate out of the Warp.
• Psykers across the galaxy experienced visions of two thousand men facing the Warp, while Sith and the survivors emerged into Realspace.
• Daviro welcomed Sith to humanity’s 42nd millennium and revealed the Great Rift and the burning galaxy beyond the viewport.

On a heavily fortified Forge World in Imperium Nihilus, Imperial leaders learned of a prophecy about mortals who fought daemons in the Warp and received the God-Emperor’s blessing. The Inquisition searched for the mysterious warriors, while an ordinary Sword-class Frigate’s crash on Oumia’s Third Moon was dismissed as unimportant.

• Adeptus Astra Telepathica scribes recorded desperate pleas from Imperial Worlds, but Tech-Priests destroyed the reports and an Inquisition Tempestus Scion discarded the compiled data.
• The Fabricator-General asked the Inquisitors to share what they knew about a galaxy-spanning prophecy.
• A Warp-specialist Inquisitor said roughly two thousand mortals had fought daemons in the Warp for two months and received the God-Emperor’s blessing.
• The Inquisition admitted it could not locate the mortals, so it told Inquisitors across the Imperium to watch for unusual people.
• A Tempestus Scion reported that an Imperial Sword-class Frigate had emerged from the Warp and crashed on Oumia’s Third Moon, but the Inquisitor dismissed the wreck and returned to wondering where the prophesied warriors were.

A crashed Sword-class Frigate brought the Black Watch to Oumia III, where a local convoy mistook them for possible Xenos before meeting their leader, Sith. Sith presented the soldiers as a Planetary Defence Force, while Daviro began to suspect the God-Emperor had sent them somewhere as dangerous as Vigilus.

• A convoy from Oumia III’s hive city raced toward the crashed warship and cautiously approached the black figures beneath its smoke.
• The locals recognized the figures as human Astra Militarum soldiers, and a noblewoman asked whether they had come to reinforce the world against the Xenos.
• The noblewoman and the crowd mistook Daviro for the God-Emperor’s angel, but he stepped aside to reveal Sith with his Crimson Sword.
• Sith asked whether the noblewoman’s people were a Planetary Defence Force and agreed that his own force counted as one.
• Daviro reflected on the Black Watch’s campaigns and began to fear that the God-Emperor had sent them to another world as perilous as Vigilus.