Editing Imperium Asunder Campaigns (section)

==Great Crusades==

===1st===
Loyalists push back. Judgement Bringers and Negators fight their way toward Amaranth but get stalled eventually. Loyalist forces are sent packing back beyond the Tempestus Gap.

===2nd===
Waaagh! The Beast is in full swing and the loyalists attempt to take advantage. The Maelstrom Zone is retaken and holdouts are established throughout Segmentum Tempestus. Engerand loses an eye to Kashaln.


===3rd===
Spearheaded by the Judgement Bringers and Iron Hearts Legions, the forces of the Dark Imperium swarm Segmentum Tempestus in an attempt to scour it of loyalist holdouts. The loyalists respond with a furious counter-offensive, the entirety of the Forgespace and the Unyielding Vigil mobilized to combat the forces of Chaos.

===4th===
The Void Lords locate a tenuous passage through the Firewall into the Dark Imperium. The Astra Telepathica is mobilized to light the way and a vast host is assembled from every Crusader State, accompanied by household fleets and militant orders. They tear into the unguarded, unprepared worlds on the other side of the Firewall, establishing a beachhead for further offensives. Several gains are lost when the Crimson Warhawks unexpectedly diverge from planned operations, Raydon having heard tell of the Warmaster's location. He boards the Warmaster's flagship and bests the daemon prince, but cannot kill him, and is executed by Kashaln.


===5th===
The Firewall's light flickers, and a passage opens between the Jade Empire and the Unyielding Vigil. Both Crusader States mobilize to stem the inevitable tide of traitor forces that surge into loyalist space. The fight is bitter and bloody, but comes to an abrupt end when Xun vanishes into the Firewall and it mysteriously reignites.

===6th===
A champion of Khorne achieves eminence among the warbands of the Chaos Marches, and is given Balthasar's blessing as Huntmaster. The resulting frenzy of violence spills out over the borders of the Storm Kingdoms, worlds burning in its path. By the time the forces of the Kingdoms and the Protectorate have put a stop to the devastation, Engerand has lost his left arm and the border worlds of the Kingdoms lie in ruins.

===7th===
High-Marshal Engerand, seeking to preserve his domain from further attacks, proposes that the loyalists seek to extend their beachhead on the other end of the Firewall across its northern stretch, creating a defensive line. Forces of the Jade Empire, Unyielding Vigil, Forgespace, and Imperium Minorum push from the beachhead, while Storm Kingdom and Protectorate armies attempt to fight their way around the northern edge to join them. The Warmaster's response is swift and the campaign proves a shambolic failure, the loyalist forces constantly harried by Warp Raider efforts. Engerand is killed by Aodhan, though he manages to teleport them both into the bridge of his burning flagship as it careens out of orbit. The traitor Primarch is not seen again for many years.

===8th===
Anshul, in an act of ritual sorcery centuries in the making and only possible due to the accumulated slaughter of past crusades, punches a flaming tear in the fabric of realspace, creating an immense Warp rift in the Grey Stars region just above Imperium Minorum and to the right of the Kor Protectorate. Bolstered by hordes of daemons and slavering worshippers, the Silver Spears and the Arms of Asura swarm from the breach, later accompanied by forces from the Negators, who transition out of the Webway for opportunistic raiding sprees throughout the crusade. They wreak immense havoc amidst the Grey Stars, targeting the Black Abbeys and the Telepathica houses that keep the Crusader States connected. The loyalist response is massive, but uncoordinated and panicky, with the forces of Imperium Minorum and the Protectorate arriving first and often butting heads. 

As much of the 8th Crusade is fought in space, over massive void citadels, the Void Lords excel throughout, and the the campaigns of the crusade see many heroes immortalised among them. The turning point of the Crusade comes when Aodhán of the Negators, seeing the Saturnine Blade, his gift to Raydon, slung as a trophy upon Kashaln's belt, enters a terrible rage and turns upon the Silver Spears forces. Quick to take advantage of the sudden opening, the Void Lords use the resulting chaos to chart a course around enemy lines. They spearhead the daring final assault on the key planet at the mouth of the great Warp fissure, now known to loyalist historians as The Eye of Anshul, where a slew of arcane constructs consume psykers by the thousands to keep the breach open. 

Grahanak and his close companions ambush Anshul and, with the assistance of the Sisters of Silence, drive him back, Grahanak closing the rift while still planetside, the entire world vanishing with him on it. The last anyone hears from him is a garbled transmission vowing that he will never stop fighting, ending in the Void Lords' mantra of "Save Yourself." For millennia to come, late into the sleep cycles of ships in Warp transit, lonely crew members swear to have picked up a stange transmission that sounds strangely like an Imperial vow...

===9th===

Necrons wake up

===10th===

Fists of Mars go huntin relics

===11th===
Saul Sheridan is brought forth from the Warp as a Daemon Primarch of Nurgle, triggering the Nuglite Schism. Nurgle forces throughout the galaxy mount relentless attacks against all living beings, the Crusader States put aside their differences to form a cohesive counterattack.  He launches his omnicidal campaign with the simple command "Apocalypse now."

===12th===

In the Grey Stars near the western border of Imperium Minorum, an upstart race called the Tau suddenly begins expanding and claiming territory across the stars. Expanding out from their homeworlds of Tau and Tau'n, the xenos begin to encroach upon imperial settlements. Colonial PDFs prove ineffective at holding back the highly advanced technology of the Tau, and many human lives are lost in the name of the Tau's greater good.

In the Imperial Senate on the throne world of Terra Nova, Alexios the White and his angels petition for a united crusade against the xenos upstarts. Anders Kor, who had held himself aloof from the Senate since its founding, came to speak for the Tau. The Primarchs debated the Tau question for many months, Alexios presenting his arguments clearly, and Anders retorting with confident rebuttals. Alexios spoke of many practical concerns, of duty, honor, and the unity of the human race under the God Emperor of Mankind. Anders spoke of morality, of the wrongness of exterminating a species.

As the primarchs debated in the senate, war against the Tau raged on Imperium Minorum's borders. New chapters of Angels were founded, and the Varangiran Guard began entrenching the border worlds. In the border system of Kythera, the Gryphonwing Chapter uncovered the involvement of Blackshield Paladins supporting the Tau military. The Blackshields and their Tau puppets are defeated at Kythera, and word of the Paladins' involvement soon reaches the ears of the Senate.

Due to the destructive nature of the battle that took place on Terra Nova after Alexios' death, records are unclear as to how or why exactly he was killed. in Imperium Minorum it is said that Anders struck down the White Angel when his treachery was revealed. In most of the crusader states, it is said Anders knew nothing of the treachery of one of his rogue elements, and when Alexios called him a traitor to his face, he lashed out in anger. In some more conspiratorial corners of the galaxy, it is whispered that Alexios threw himself onto Anders' blade, knowing that his death would ignite a war. In the Protectorate of Kor, to even speak of the incident is to incur the wrath of Anders Kor, for regardless of reason, Anders' grief is beyond doubt.

The Angel of Light cohorts who came as Alexios' retinue fell into incomprehensible fury when news of the White Angel's death reached their ears. The first shots were fired by the honor guards outside the senate chamber itself. 19 days of open warfare between the Angels and the Paladins took place on Terra Nova before the Custodes could put a stop to it. The Astartes returned to their crusader states, and as soon as fighting on Terra Nova ended, fighting across the galaxy began.

The war between the Angels and the Paladins was bloody, gruesome, and costly. Black Paladins and the Tau were pushed back quickly by the rapid assaults of the Angels, but war on the eastern front against the Protectorate did not go as easily. Prolonged naval battles with many losses strained the industrial capacity of both crusader states, and the high lethality of combats strained the recruitment resources of the Astartes and guardsmen alike. Eventually the war becomes far too costly for both sides, and a peace accord is called on Terra Nova by the ruling council of the Jade Empire. The Sky Serpents pressure the two sides into peace by threatening to join the conflict themselves. The terms are twofold: a neutral demilitarized zone is established between the Protectorate and the Angels of Light, and the Tau are exterminated. The homeworlds of Tau and Tau'n are given the Rite of Exterminatus, the surviving Tau are exterminated with callous efficiency, and the Mechanicus claims what it can of the Earth Caste's technology. A small enclave of Tau lead by Shas'O Vior'la Shovah Kais Mont'yr survives in a nomadic flotilla, a people without a home.

===13th===
Chaos warbands of the Behemoth Guard, the Judgement Bringers, and the Arms of Asura, gathering across Segmentum Tempestus for years in preparation, converge on the Providus Sector of the Unyielding Vigil, just below the Firewall. After a mercifully brief series of battles, the offensive appears to crumple, and the Loyalist forces chase their foes through the upper arch of the Segmentum, hoping to rout their enemies and deal a significant blow to the Warmaster's forces. Soon after these forces set sail, the Warp becomes turbulent, and the Silver Spears appear to strike at key targets within the Loyalist ranks. The Traitor Legions previously thought scattered turn to continue the fight, additional enemy forces revealing themselves to be waiting amidst the Tempestus, and the Crusade transforms into a protracted game of cat-and-mouse that stretches on through the first segment of M42.

As the Crusade in the upper Tempestus grinds on with no end in sight, the Crusader States watching with apprehension and uncertainty at the true severity of the situation, the ancient bindings that preserve the Firewall's glory begin to flicker and wane, and, for the second time in recorded history, a Great Maw begins to yawn open, this time in the contested zone of the Antonine Gulf, between the Unyielding Vigil and the Jade Empire. With speed that speaks of readiness, forces of the Bloodhounds domain, the Second Sons, the Fortress Worlds, and the Eyes of the Warmaster swarm the Gulf, establishing a series of fortified footholds in the mostly unclaimed territories. Forces from both nearby Crusader States are diverted to contain the onrushing threat, but internal difficulties on both sides slow down this process. Much of the Vigil's military arm is tied up on the Tempestus Front, while, in the Jade Empire, there are quarrels regarding the severity of the breach - many shadowy internal projects, considered essential to victory by their political proponents, hoard defensive forces further into the Empire, denying the Front their presence. Reinforcements from the other States are slow to respond, partially due to their own misgivings, but in no small part due to the worries of groups inside the Unyielding Vigil and the Jade Empire. In the Vigil, those engaged in sensitive heretek experimentation have no wish to evade yet more watchful eyes, and in the Empire, esoteric research foundations fear that heavy interference in the Realm could lead to the destruction of their projects.

This state of affairs continues for almost a century, the traitors advancing quickly to take the majority of the Gulf, eventually pushing upon the border worlds of both nearby Crusader States. It is amidst this atmosphere of distrust and chaos that an unexpected rallying cry emerges from the depths of obscurity. Borne back from the Front along with her fallen brethren, Sister Agathys Thera of the Order of the Dolorous Blade rises from the sleep of death, and the procession is diverted towards Amaranth. Bestowed with a gentle strength and authority, she enters the Tomb-Fortress of the Undying Scions, seeking an audience with Sarco Funerus himself. When she returns, she is another creature entirely: in her hands, she bears the flaming sword of the Emperor himself, ferried back to Amaranth along with his corpse. Her eyes blaze with fire and her command is absolute: the Servants of the Emperor will fight, and fight, and fight, until the day the Warmaster stands at the feet of his Maker. Promising not only to oust the traitors, but to cut like a blade into the depths of the Dark Imperium, she returns to the Front alongside the forces of a galvanized Unyielding Vigil. News of the Agathyian Miracle spreads quickly, and armies from across the Ultima Segmentum converge to fight and die for the dream of an Imperium once again in Loyalist hands. The traitor forces are deeply entrenched by now, however, given plenty of time to reinforce their positions by the indecision of the Crusader States, and pushing them back from whence they came will require yet another miracle.

All the while, the sprawling, disorganized wars fought in Segmentum Tempestus continue in earnest, a vast open maw slurping eagerly at the lifeblood of the Crusader States, constantly demanding more meat for the grinder. The Silver Spears, drawn together by the appearance of a being calling itself Slaanesh Incarnate to assault the worlds of the Eldar Empire, are seen less and less in battle with Loyalist forces, while an assemblage of Undying Scions successors fight their own battles with the Eldar, trying and failing to cut through the center of the xeno dominion under the rally of Idrias Stern, hoping the encircle the traitor Legions. The Orders the Broken Blades fight a bitter war of vengeance against the forces of Chaos, news of the Agathyian Miracle spurring many of them to push recklessly for the Fortress Worlds of the Iron Hearts. All around, traitors, loyalists, and mercenaries of all species continue to fight and die in the mire of Segmentum Tempestus.