Origins of the Campaign
From "The First Great War Against the Beast" by Imperial scribes King and Chambers
"On the day of the Feast of the Emperor in the year 40,941, a massive assault on the hive world of Armageddon began. System ships from the space hulk Alveus Alpha Alpha Sextus smashed through the orbital cordon of the planet, annihilating the obsolete orbital monitors. A massive space drop swiftly overwhlemed the western continent of Armageddon Prime. Lightning assaults by the highly mobile Ork forces encircled hive after hive. Tens of thousands of Ork Boyz blasted through the hives' outer defences and massacred or enslaved the populations within.
Across the continet the forces of humanity were driven into retreat. Du to criminal negligence on the part of Overlord von Strab (cross reference Administratum file: Armageddon 40004, Prosecutions for war-crimes), the ill-prepared human forces were nearly swept away under the green tide. Divisions of PDF were sent out piecemeal by von Strab only to be outflanked and destryed by the enemy..."
There was little to no warning before the assault, although the astute tactician could have forseen that someting was amiss in the clusters of xenos-held planets to the galactic north of the system, had the information been available to the military intelligence, and not withheld by von Strab, who feared that control of the situation would be taken from him by the higher echelons of the Imperial warmachine and the office of the Ordo Prefectus. And so the Second War for Armageddon started with the advantage clearly in the favour of the Orks.
Forward Ork units scouting the remains of a PDF transport, Armageddon Prime ash-wastes.
Two days later the orks invaded Armageddon Secundus and the battle began in earnest. Although some notable rear-guard actions had been fought with distinction by Imperial stragglers, such as The Battle of Kuzmiu Gorge and Last Stand at Orun, these could not delay the Orks' advance with any significance. It is hard to designate this part of the campaign as anything other than a total rout, the ignominy of the situation something that would stain the pride and honour the the Armageddon officer-class for the years to come. The southern part of Armageddon contained 80% of the industrial capacity, and it was recognized by all Imperial commanders, civilian and Militarum alike, that the heartland of the planet must be held if the hope of pushing the Orks off the world again was ever to be entertained.
The Ork assault started in the Season of Shadows when the volcanic mountains of Armageddon erupt and cause clouds of smoke and dust to swirl across the turbulent blood-coloured skies. Massive armoured columns smashed their way through thinly held Imperial border positions beyond the equatorial jungles that seperates the two continents. As before, the horde of warbands that made up the Ork army had free range of operations throught the theater, while von Strab on his part released information and surveillance reports only piecemeal, each Imperial officer being granted only small sectors to operate within. The frustrated commanders pleaded and cursed over the vox as their units were flanked in turn and overrun by green-faced devils. By the flickering light of the Palidus Mountains, as Mount Eschatus itself erupted and lava bubbled and hissed down the slope, man and Ork fought and dies. Bolters thundered relentlessly, The heavy scrap-walkers of the Orks lumbered forward, dwarfing fleeing human warriors and civilians, myriad turrets spitting death. With great gaps in the human lines the Orks drove onwards south, two entire Warbands sweeping east of the mountain range heading south towards Hades. The remaining Orks striking out west towards the port-hive of Helsreach.
Remnants of Imperial forces prepare to sell their lives dearly at a barricaded strongpoint at the outskirts of Infernus.
As soon as the Season of Storms following the Season of Shadows broke, blowing the clouds from the sky, it became clear to the Imperials that their hives were surrounded and besieged. The hastily built defences, dug out by the survivors of the North, were demolished. The demoralized defenders, left to their own devices by a steady stream of bad news of defeats and with no faith in the promises of the planetary overlord, began surrendering. Perhaps hoping that this would in turn grant them a measure of clemency, the governor of Infernus Hive was the first to give up an entire hive and its population to the invading greenskins. The citizens that fled were soon rounded up and herded back into the hive for slave labour in the factories, which soon began churning out crude weapons and munitions for their new masters. Given the fact that Orks measure senior citizens and children against their own inhuman standards of toughness, hundreds of thousands were to die under these conditions. Famine and sickness soon followed, diminishing the workforce of the hive manufactorums.
PDF tank-hunters targeting Ork armour in the ruins of Hades Hive.
As the situation stabilized somewhat, and with the last human bastion of Acheron hive saved, the Imperial army reorganized and overall leadership of the campaign changed hands from local commanders to Astartes officers. While the records speak of a seamless merger between the two, the serious accounts paint a different picture. The Imperium works slowly, and the combination of arms is not something taken lightly in any theater of war. PDF commanders, now veterans in their own right, was not always quick to hand the reins to their Astartes saviours, and not all Astartes commanders were generous in their relief, some believeing that the Armageddon forces had given up ground to easily. They disdained the non-augmented humans for their early losses and willingness to withdraw rather than stand and fight. Indeed, many of the Astartes senior leadership entertained thoughts of relieving the entirety of Armageddon High Command of their duties overall and purge the PDF of any officer, commissioned or otherwise, who had not lived up to their standards of duty and honour. It was only the tempered wisdom of the Chapter Master Tu'Shan of the Salamanders that stopped the resentment from spreading into the overall strategy of the assembled Astartes. Justice and retribution would come, but first the Orks had to be dealt with.
With the Astartes reinforcements having made planetfall at Acheron, and a large portion of the Salamanders, Ultramarines and Blood Angels Chapters having pushed off towards Hades in an attempt to relieve the beleaguered defenders there, it was up to the remaining Imperial Army and the smaller contingents of the relief force to make safe the remaining hives on Armageddon Secondus. As the battle around Hades intesified new Ork warbands emerged in the west and the Ork commander, now known as Warlord Ghazghkull Thraka, Overboss of all the Goffs, Prophet of the Waaagh, took the main Ork force on Armageddon south, towards Tartarus hive in a massive push. Faced with defeat at Hades, this Thraka saw Tartarus as his last opportunity to break the spirit of the human forces and win the war. This final attempt would effectively break the back of Imperial production, devastating the industrial base of the south to a point where the war itself would become unwinnable to the Imperial forces gathered on Armageddon. It looked for a while as if the cunning ploy of the Warlord might succeed as headlong assaults swept over the city. However, in a desperate gamble a mixed contingent of Astartes redeployed to their ships in orbit and descended by drop pod and Thunderhawk gunships behind the main body of the Ork spearhead. It is known today that this action caused an uproar in both army and Astartes command, the different Chapters accusing each other for glory-hunting and breaking of oaths, with the human generals taking different sides in the conflict, either out of opportunistic ambition or conviction. None the less, the action was done, and a thin line of armoured warriors held the few intact bridges across the viscid flow of corrosive sludge known as the Skeletus river. On one side they had the main Ork army thundering towards them, and on the other they had the elite of the Orks under the personal leadership of Thraka himself. If they could hold the birdges they would deal the Orks a severe blow and stop their advance on Tartarus in its tracks. on the Ork side of things, Thraka and his closes warchiefs realized that unless they recaptured the bridges over the Skeletus the Orks could not retreat from the trap that Tartarus had become and would soon run low on food and ammunition. If the attack stalled, it would give the victorious Imperials at Hades time to regroup and return to crush the Orks once and for all, saving the industry of Tartarus and winning the war. The only way the Orks could escape and turn things around would be to overrun the bridgeheads and fight their way across the Skeletus...
