+++THE BATTLE FOR ARMAGEDDON+++

On the day of the Feast of the Emperor's Ascension. 40,941. a massive Ork assault on the hive world of Armageddon began. System ships from space hulk Alveus Alpha Alpha Sextus smashed through the orbital cordon of the planet, annihilating the obsolete orbital monitors. A massive space drop swiftly overwhelmed most of 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 continent the forces of humanity were driven into retreat. Due to criminal negligence on the part of Overlord von Strab (cross-reference to Administratum file: Armageddon 40004, Prosecutions for war-crimes), the ill-prepared human forces were nearly swept away under the green tide. Divisions of the Planetary Defence Force were sent out piecemeal by von Strab only to be outflanked and destroyed by the enemy.

Endless columns of Ork war machines raised plumes of dust hundreds of metres high as they raced across the ash-wastes of Armageddon Prime. The voices of a hundred thousand Orks roared their brutal cries of victory. Reports came in from battlefield after battlefield where the blood of brave human warriors stained the multi-coloured sands. It became obvious that von Strab had seriously underestimated the cunning and strategic ability of his foe Warlord Ghazghkull Thraka, Overboss of all the Goffs, Prophet of the Waaagh!

Von Strab fled to the relative safety of thc south, to Armageddon Secundus, the industrial heartland of the hive world. Two days later the Orks invaded Armageddon Secundus and the true battle for Armageddon began. Armageddon Secundus contained 80% of the world's industrial capacity, vital not only for fighting the campaign in hand but also for securing surrounding star systems against alien threats. Ghazghkull wished to rip the industrial heart out of his foe. The only hope of relief was from the Space Marine Chapters but von Strab refused to call for help, still believing he could defeat the Orks and claim victory for himself.

The Orks' assault started in the Season of Shadows when the volcanic mountains of Armageddon erupt, sending great clouds of smoke and dust swirling across the turbulent blood-coloured skies. Massive armoured columns smashed into the thinly-held Imperial border positions. War buggies raced across the blazing sands towards the human lines. A howling mass of green-faced devils overran the hard-pressed human defenders. By the flickering light of the Palidus Mountains, as Mount Eschatus itself erupted and lava bubbled and hissed down its slopes, man and Ork fought and died. Bolters thundered relentlessly. Gargants lumbered forward, dwarfing fleeing human warriors, myriad turrets spitting death. The Orks punched holes through the human lines and drove south. Two tribes swept east of the Palidian range heading south towards Hades hive. The remaining Ork tribe struck out west towards the port of Helsreach.

As the Season of Storms broke, blowing the clouds from the sky, the Orks' drive south continued. They punched through the pitiful improvised defences the human survivors had built along the riverbanks and swept round the Palidus Mountains to Infernus hive. Demoralised by continuous news of defeat, with no faith in the promises of the planetary overlord and dismayed by the sheer size of the mechanised Ork hordes, the Governor of Infernus surrendered without a fight. Bike-mounted Ork outriders harried the hundred kilometre-long refugee columns that fled the city, herding them back to Infernos and slave labour in the factories.

Given the fact that the Orks measured senior citizens, women and children against their own inhuman standards of toughness, hundreds of thousands were to die in captivity.

Soon Hades hive cluster was besieged and the site of the heaviest fighting yet seen during the campaign. The legendary Commissar Yarrick supervised the defences. In those dark days he seemed to be everywhere, supervising the welding shut of the great blast portals, personally negotiating treaties of allegiance with the hive gangs and inducting them into the army, raising the spirits of a people demoralised by starvation and defeat with his own unquenchable belief in ultimate victory. Amazingly he welded together a ragtag army capable of standing off the Orks. At Hades they halted.

One can only imagine what it must have been like. The hundreds of kilometres of earthworks hastily thrown up by the slave gangs overseen by whip-cracking Ork Runtherdz, the giant Gargants blasting away at the distant hive spires, guns thundering like the laughter of mad gods. Hundreds of thousands of red hate-filled eyes glaring at the prize, so near and yet so unreachable. The human population scuttling through the shadows of the hive, endless kilometres of corridor darkened from the need to save power. Thousands starving or eating rats and roaches. Who knows what feats of heroism and horror took place in that place, at that time? Those who survived do not talk much about it, save to praise the bravery of Yarrick.

In the west the defenders of the port of Helsreach, heartened by the resistance in Hades, put up a brave fight. They defended the dock yards and refineries bravely. Street gangs using improvised weapons ambushed the Orks at every turn. Hastily converted armoured supertankers were pressed into service to evacuate non-combatants. There was not enough room to take everyone so lots were drawn for berths on the ships. Weeping families parted knowing that they probably would never see each other again.

Once the last ship had sailed the defenders knew there was no refuge for them; each member of the assembled Hive Defence Units swore a mighty oath to sell his life as dearly as possible. Driven by hate and rage they fought the Orks with the fury of a berserk rhinodon. Suicide bombers leapt amid Ork patrols and detonated their chest bombs. The corridors of Helsreach ran with blood. The drivers of the great loading cranes in the harbour welded themselves into their vehicles and attacked the Gargants. Wave after wave of Ork attacks were repulsed until even the Ork generals began to doubt the wisdom of their attack. Messages of hope from Hades hive were broadcast over the comm-net in Helsreach.

It was the people of Helsreach's darkest hour when the port finally fell. Defeat, when it came, arrived from a most unexpected quarter. Ork Weirdboyz summoned a monstrous psychic storm. Waves of pain burst into the minds of the hive's defenders. Some went mad, some died of shock, the heads of some exploded. Under cover of this storm the Orks entered Helsreach and wiped out the defenders to the last man. When word of the fall of Helsreach reached Hades Commissar Yarrick ordered an hour of silence and then locked himself in the Emperor's Chapel to pray. Some say that the old man communed with the deity and found fresh inspiration. Those who knew him well say he wept.

Ghazghkull himself arrived to supervise the siege of Hades. He had heard tales of bitter human resistance and thought he'd better oversee the defeat of Yarrick personally. For weeks a long duel was fought out under the dreadful yellow sky. Ghazghkull tried every stratagem. He feinted assaults on one part of the hive while the main strength of his troops attacked elsewhere. He airdropped Stormboy kommando units onto the peaks of the hive spires and ordered them to seek entrance through the ventilation system. He ordered his Mekboyz to build him mighty siege engines, enormous towers with huge jackhammers, modified Gargants with earthmoving blades and great scoops, giant earthboring drills which sought to eat through the surface of the hive.

For every strategy implemented by the Orks Commissar Yarrick found an answer. Mobile reserves used the hive's transport infra-structure to respond to the feints. The kommandos were met by volunteer cadres of tunnel fighters, drug-crazed madmen chosen from the depleted ranks of the city's maintenance engineers, many of whom had lost all their loved ones during the siege. These men slipped into the maintenance shafts stripped naked, armed only with bolt pistol and knife and an extensive knowledge of the system that enabled them to lay traps and ambushes. These men fought a lonely and unsung war in the terrible darkness but they did their job. Not a single Ork kommando emerged from the air shafts alive. Suicide squads from the Hive Defence Force sallied out at night and assaulted the siege machines with melta bombs and power axes.

While the siege of Hades continued Ork columns rolled south from Helsreach and Infernus. They were heading for Acheron and what appeared to be the last bastion of human resistance. It was the beginning of the Season of Fire and temperatures outside the hive cities had started to soar. The hardy Orks and the specially equipped human military didn't have to worry but the refugees who had escaped the Orkish net began to die in droves.

The Acheronians steeled themselves for battle. They knew their time had come. Looking out through their hive's ocular monitors they could see the endless ranks of Orks approaching. Horn-helmed bikers, kustomised war buggies and great siege engines stretched out to the horizon. The only promise of support they had was from Overlord von Strab. It consisted of his personal good wishes and twenty of his elite personal bodyguard who had displeased him. With an earthshaking roar the Orks advanced, the air itself vibrating with the thrum of thousands of powerful engines. They swept through the outer hives of the cluster and laid siege to the core hive itself. Poorly provisioned and inadequately armed as his forces were, the hive governor refused to surrender. "We will fight to the last man," he announced. "And then our ghosts will come back to haunt the Orkish scum."

The Orks charged, confident of victory. Suddenly great holes were torn in their ranks. Mighty explosions tossed their vehicles into the air like chaff. The inhabitants of Acheron looked on in amazement as the orbital bombardment continued. Great ships filled the sky and Imperial Thunderhawk gunships dropped earthward, delivering advance squads of Space Marines into the fray. Taken by surprise, the Orks reeled back. The Space Marines continued to pour from their landing craft, bolters spitting death. The hive defenders rallied and emerged to aid their saviours. For the first time since the campaign started the Orks tasted defeat.

A relief force headed by the Salamanders, the Ultramarines and the Blood Angels raced north in an effort to relieve Hades hive. Just as the Space Marines broke through the Ork front lines, Hades fell. Ork boyz scoured the corridors, the last blast doors were cracked and fighting raged through the former homes and workplaces of the people. In the last few hours the fighting was deadly and virtually hand-to-hand as battle raged through the last secure areas of the hive. Commissar Yarrick was one of the few survivors. His terribly wounded body was found in the ruins, dozens of Ork bodies heaped about him. Fortunately for the Imperium this exceptionally brave warrior lived to fight another day.

In the west a new wave of Ork reinforcements had arrived and a massive push against Tartarus hive began. The Imperial lines had been stripped bare in order to mount the ill-fated relief operation on Hades hive and the Orks easily broke through and pushed on south to besiege Tartarus hive. Ghazghkull himself took personal command of the assault and launched his last desperate attempt to win the war. For days everything hung in the balance. If the Orks could take Tartarus they could break the back of Imperial resistance, devastating the South's industrial base to the point where the war would become unwinnable. It looked for a while as if the Warlord might succeed as headlong assaults swept over the city.

In a desperate gamble the Blood Angels returned to their ships. The Space Marines descended by drop pod and Thunderhawk gunship behind the main body of the Ork spearhead, cutting off an entire Goff Ork tribe and Ghazghkull himself. A thin line of red-armoured Space Marines held the handful of intact bridges across the viscid flow of corrosive sludge known as the Skeletus river.

Unless they recaptured the bridges over the Skeletus the Orks could not retreat from the trap Tartarus had become and would soon run low on food and ammunition. Soon the Salamanders, Ultramarines and Imperial Guard forces returning from Hades hive would crush the Orks once and for all. The only way the Orks could escape would be to overrun the bridgeheads and fight their way across the Skeletus.