Badab War

"I don't care who the Imperium sends! I'm not paying taxes!"

– The Badab War in a nutshell.

Badab War
Date	from 901.M41 to 913.M41
Scale	Multiple planets
Theatre	Badab Sector, Segmentum Ultima
Status	Loyalist victory, Astral Claws flee, other Maelstrom Wardens and Executioners sentenced to penitence crusades.
Belligerents
Loyalist Astartes Chapters	The Maelstrom Wardens (composed by renegade and misguided loyalist Astartes Chapters)
Commanders and Leaders
The Inquisition, multiple Astartes Chapter Masters	Lugft Huron, multiple Astartes Chapter Masters
Strength
Carcharodons, Exorcists, Fire Angels, Fire Hawks, Howling Griffons, Marines Errant, Minotaurs, Novamarines, Raptors, Red Scorpions, Salamanders, Sons of Medusa, Star Phantoms, Executioners (eventually), Ordo Hereticus and other Inquisitorial allies, Imperial Guard reinforcements.	Astral Claws, Lamenters, Mantis Warriors, Executioners (at first), baseline human auxiliaries and Planetary Defense Force troops.
Losses
Considerable astartes losses	Massive astartes losses, some chapters are almost wiped out, millions of human deaths due to the major destruction of the planetary structure.
Outcome
Considerable damage to the planets. Astral Claws chapter turned to Chaos and becomes the Red Corsairs. Lugft Huron presumed slain, and later reemerges as Huron Blackheart. Multiple Loyalist chapters suffer heavy losses. Badab Primaris is sentenced to Exterminatus.

The Badab War was a major rebellion in the Imperium's history, led by Lugft Huron and the Astral Claws and basically what happens if you don't pay your taxes and got the IRS knocking on your door. Huron first conquered the Badab Sector and decided he should rule all of it, like the Ultramarines ruling Ultramar. Then Imperial forces demanded the tithes. He refused, and three other chapters were honour-bound to fight with him. And thus began the most bloody rebellion in the 41st Millennium as well as the most famous appearances of a shitton of minor chapters that most people haven't heard of, who will probably never appear again outside a few novel cameos and the Imperial Armour books. Unique among Imperium wars in that almost all fights were between Space Marines, with few Guardsmen (traitor or otherwise) in sight. It was the largest Space Marine civil war since the Horus Heresy, not counting Chaos Space Marines.

The Conflict

Phase One: Huron and the Maelstrom

Many years ago, there was an asshole actually quite decent fellow at first called Lugft Huron, who controlled the Astral Claws and a sector called Badab. With the aid of the Lamenters and Mantis Warriors (collectively known as the Maelstrom Warders), he ruled the Maelstrom Zone, so named for the warp rift it contained. He had one job, namely making sure whatever came out of that hellhole got booted back into it posthaste, and he did it well. So well that at one point, Huron asked the High Lords of Terra to start a crusade into the Maelstrom. They laughed at him didn't even hear his request out, as attacking it would be suicidal. They also rejected some of his more reasonable requests, like founding a new Chapter to replace the fourth Warders Chapter they had taken away or sending a larger navy because most of the threats that the Maelstrom Zone faced were pirates, heretical pirates, or Xeno pirates.

So Huron got mad. Disgruntled, he decided he'd do the job all by himself and withheld his geneseed and planetary tithes, and blockaded the trade routes of other worlds. He started laying down the exterminatus on planets that were uninhabited but had pirate caches on them. He also built a fleet out of captured (non-Chaotic) pirate ships After 150 years, the High Lords had enough and set a fleet to take the tithe, which Huron fired upon, claiming they threatened him. The local trade lords attempted to send fleets because he was fucking over the economy with his blockades, but they vanished. Due to these events, Huron (now self-proclaimed as "The Tyrant of Badab") cut off all ties between the Maelstrom Zone and the outside galaxy, further pissing off the Trade Lords. The Trade Lords then asked the Fire Hawks to sort this mess out, secretly hoping that their fiery temperament would result in them clashing with Huron's forces. They agreed, seeing an opportunity to settle an old grudge with the Astral Claws.

Phase Two: The civil war begins

The Fire Hawks entered the Endymion Cluster, the home of the Mantis Warriors. Problem was, the Mantis warriors were bestest bros with the Astral Claws (kicking deviant asses for hundred of years together tends to do that), and they saw the intervention of the Fire Hawks as nothing but a crude ploy by the Adeptus Terra to bully their pals so they promptly shot them down. Thus the Badab War truly began. The Marines Errant jumped in to lend a hand to the Fire Hawks while a company of the Executioners came to help the Separatists (though the Executioners were loyal they owed the Astral Claws a favor for saving their asses a few hundred years ago). Wishing to end the conflict as fast as possible, the Trade Lords and Fire Hawks attemped to strike at the heart of the Separatist war effort which turned out to be a trap laid down by Huron and they both got their asses handed to them. To make things worse, the Mantis Warriors managed to lure the Marines Errant into yet another trap and they too got their asses kicked and ran off with their tail between their legs. The score was now Huron 2, loyalists 0.

Phase Three: The conflict escalates

The High Lords noticed this and asked everyone to stop for a moment but the Astral Claws & Co refused. Slightly miffed, the High Lords sent the Red Scorpions, Raptors and Salamanders to sort the the Secessionists out with extreme prejudice. The Marines Errant and Fire Hawks came back for round 2, this time aided by the newcomers of the Novamarines. The newly assembled loyalist force of six Chapters scored a few wins against the Tyrant, and gained enough of a foothold to stop the fighting for some negotiations. But the negotiations were short: some Chaos dudes jumped out of the huge warp-rift everyone forgot to defend and exploded the Chapter Masters of the Red Scorpions and Mantis Warriors, hope for the war ending dying with them. The Marines Errant were also too mauled by now, and had to retreat from the war, not that the loyalists cared cuz the Howling Griffons, Sons of Medusa and Fire Angels arrived to replace them. Command of the Loyalist forces was given to Carab Culln. Under Culln's command, the loyalists would seize the momentum and strike against the rebellious Malestorm Warders. But relief would soon come the Tyrant's way, as the rest of the Executioners Chapter arrived from the Loyalist's rear and buttfucked the bulk of the Howling Griffons chapter which was stationed there. The resulting slaughter would leave the Griffons unable to keep fighting the war. The score was now 0-3 in favor of the Tyrant.

It was during this period of the war that an Astral Claws Apothecary was captured and interrogated, revealing precious secrets. He was actually a part of the Tiger Claws chapter, who nearly died out and merged with the Astral Claws. It turned out the Geneseed tithes were withheld for greater reasons than defiance: Huron was expanding the Astral Claws to beyond Codex Astartes norms and dreamed of creating a force equal to the ancient Space Marine Legions. Further investigation revealed that the Astral Claws Apothecarion had also been conducting gene-seed experiments.

Phase Four: The Tyrant stands alone

The Novamarines, Raptors, and Howling Griffons were dismissed, officially to combat an Ork invasion, but the truth was that the High Lords thought they were too nice to be trusted to kill off the Secessionists. The Salamanders refused, but the Inquisition kept arguing with them, knowing they were bros with the Executioners and the nicest chapter around. To fill the numbers left by the other chapters, the Exorcists were called in. The loyalists then launched an assault spearheaded by the Fire Angels, Red Scorpions and Exorcists that managed to seize the lynchpin of the Maelstrom zone's warp routes, confining the Astral Claws to the Badab Sector and isolating them from their allies.

Then the Minotaurs arrived outta nowhere, and using their one and only advantage of numbers boarded the Lamenters' ships. They killed all but 300 Lamenters, who surrendered (their weapons were completely depleted) like the unlucky bad-asses they are. Nothing happened for a while until the Carcharodons showed up and defeated the Mantis Warriors. The Fire Angels withdrew due to heavy losses and hating having to serve with the sharky assholes. The Executioners learned that the Astral Claws were stealing the geneseed of the chapters they killed regardless of the source, and became a rogue element, fighting both loyalist and secessionist. Eventually they found themselves in a standoff with the Salamanders, who convinced them to surrender and bargained a pardon from the High Lords in exchange for having the Executioners undergo a penitent crusade, souring relations with the Sons of Medusa who had lost the Strike Cruiser Warspite with all hands and were demanding retribution. Huron, having fallen deeper into madness over the years, fully seceded from the Imperium and made the Imperial Cult illegal, as well as all Imperial iconography.

With these victories, the loyalists were now tied with Huron 3-3.

Phase Five: The fall of Badab

Now that the Astral Claws themselves were the only renegades remaining, Carab Culln decided it was time to take the fight to Badab itself. With the help of the Exorcists and his own Red Scorpions, he led an invasion into the gates of the system. Since the place was obviously a vital strategic point for the campaign, Huron was awaiting them and the ensuing battle caused heavy losses on both sides. In the end the Tyrant's forces managed to repel the Loyalists, but in doing so they lost what remained of their fleet and were left with no choice but to go on the defense and await the inevitable Loyalist attack.

The Star Phantoms appeared, presumably because the author wanted to insert as many chapters as he can into this clusterfuck (or maybe because their planet got sucked into the warp and they were looking for somewhere to crash). The loyalists tore out a part of a sun and threw it at the planet's orbital defense system (known as the Ring of Steel), exploding a hole in it that exposed the space station that controlled it. The Exorcists and Sons of Medusa conquered the station, turning the defenses against the Astral Claws in the system and the Siege of Badab Primaris began. The Exorcists went out to blockade the system, ensuring that no Astral Claws escaped. The Carcharadons decided to sabotage the planet's reactors, destroying all life on it, while the Star Phantoms, supported by Titans of the Legio Crucius, assaulted the Palace of Thorns, the Fortress-Monastery of the Astral Claws and Huron's seat of power. Huron killed a captain of the Star Phantoms, but had half of his body destroyed when the dying Captain pulled the trigger on his Combi-Melta, blowing Huron's arm to a smoking ruin and tearing his side apart. In the chaos as the ships retreated from the dying planet, the Exorcists accidentally shot down a few loyalists, letting Huron and his followers escape, Huron barely alive in a coma. Oops.

Aftermath

In the aftermath, the Star Phantoms became the new rulers of the Badab Sector. The planets and goods of the Mantis Warriors, Lamenters and Executioners were given to the Fire Hawks, Minotaurs and Salamanders respectively as the secessionists were forced into 100 year penitent crusades. The surviving Astral Claws who hadn't managed to escape were executed. The Fire Hawks let the Carcharodons pillage the geneseed and worlds of the Endymion Cluster. The Space Sharks forced the youth to fight to the death and recruited the winners. Just after the war the Fire Hawks were called into action against some Eldar, but vanished in the Warp with no trace.

Huron was dying, the shattered remains of the Astral Claws that weren't caught and executed retreated into the Maelstrom. He prayed for survival for him and his chapter, and four nice fellows heard him. Years later, a Chaos Space Marine warband known as the Red Corsairs appeared. Their leader's name was Huron Blackheart.

THE END, OR IS IT? (protip: IT'S FAR FROM OVER)

Traitor Forces

• Astral Claws (Went renegade after they lost and became the Red Corsairs.)
• Tiger Claws (Technically, as they were absorbed back into the Astral Claws chapter, their progenitor Chapter, after devastating casualties and their last fleet going MIA in the Warp before the Badab War started, any survivors are either Deathwatch Blackshields after surrendering to loyalists or with the Red Corsairs.)
• Mantis Warriors (Got anally raped by the Space Sharks. Surrendered to the loyalists and sentenced to 100-year penitent crusade.)
• Lamenters (Figures that they'd join the losing side. And give much better than they got. Surrendered to loyalists and sentenced to 100-year penitent crusade.)
• Executioners (Later went rogue and fucked up both sides' shit after realizing the Astral Claws had been robbing gene-seed off their dead. Surrendered to the loyalists and sentenced to 100-year penitent crusade.)

Loyalist Forces

• Fire Hawks (Got lost in the Warp after the war, not to reappear until after becoming the Legion of the Damned)
• Marines Errant (While they were busy getting rammed in Badab, the Night Lords pulled a sneaky on them and raided their gene-seed reserve in Vilamus. Now the entire chapter risks extinction. Lol, pranked.)
• Carcharodons (Lead by Tyberos the Red Wake, only known wielder of LIGHTNING CHAINCLAWS. Replenished most their losses by plundering the Mantis Warroirs homeworld. The war probably resulted in a slight net benefit for them.)
• Red Scorpions (Forge World's personal favorite chapter. Has significant losses, but gained a great amount of glory and recognition. The High Lords of Terra awarded them personally for leading the Loyalist war effort)
• Exorcists (Participated in two of the most costly battles, but entered the war late. This wasn't a campaign out of the ordinary for them.)
• Salamanders (The only Chapter in the war that most people would recognise. The Badab war wasn't too costly for them)
• Fire Angels (Had to withdraw due to heavy losses. Also, they refused to fight alongside the Sharks)
• Raptors (Mostly notable for their appearance in Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior. They were dismissed befoe they could take heavy losses)
• Minotaurs (The big winners of the Badab War. They got to plunder the Lamenter's armoury and steal most of their ships, only to trash them later during the Orphean War.)
• Sons of Medusa (Lost a Strike Cruiser and were denied retribution against the Executioners by the Salamanders, seriously souring diplomatic relations)
• Howling Griffons (Got absolutely fucked over by the Executioners. The disaster at Khymeara forced to spend the rest of the war on patrol missions, and one of their Chapter heroes got killed.)
• Novamarines(Dismissed before they could take heavy losses)
• Star Phantoms (Came at the very end, right in time to deliver a sweet multi-melta blast into Huron's face and be given lordship of the Badab Sector for it)
• Titan Legio Crucius (Warmongers)