Aeldari Exodite world; Loebos

Loebos was once an Aeldari Exodite world, until an Imperial invasion slaughtered the populace and rendered its world spirit violently insane.

As the war in the Konor System reaches its crescendo, dire vox reports filter in from the far edge of the region. The death world of Loebos hurtles across space like an enormous wrecking ball, trailing a vast cloud of spore-ridden asteroids and noxious gases. This is Mortarion’s final gambit for the conquest of Konor – a world weaponised, powered by continent-sized engines and the fell power of the warp. If Loebos’ furious momentum is not stopped, the system-wide war still raging will be rendered irrelevant. The death world will barrel through the system like a plague comet, trailing corruption and death in its wake, infecting world after world with Nurgle’s pestilential gifts.

Long-range scans of the onrushing world have revealed the source of its momentum. Gargantuan warp-engine arrays cover Loebos’ southern continent, flaring with the power of a supernova. These are engines that once powered a number of the Death Guard’s vast space hulks, grotesque vessels from which Nurgle’s chosen launch their raids into Imperial space. Through some form of dread warpcraft, these enormous devices have been transferred to the surface of the death world, and their colossal power has wrenched Loebos out of its circumsolar orbit and sent it speeding towards the heart of Ultramar.

The only option left to Imperial high command is to order an all-out assault upon the world, in the hope of sabotaging the warp engines or destroying the planet itself with a well-placed cyclonic charge. Such a task will not be easy. The Death Guard have established towering fortresses across the only viable landing sites on Loebos, and holo-picts indicate that Chaos forces are stationed across the equatorial belt in unthinkable numbers.

Such a fearsome garrison would be terrible enough, but the planet of Loebos itself is perhaps the gravest threat to any who set foot upon its surface. Long ago the Imperium attempted to settle Loebos, only to discover that it was in fact an Aeldari world, populated by Exodite tribes. The fighting that followed was brutal, and the Aeldari population was massacred by regiments of heavy tanks and campaigns of intense firebombing. This wholesale slaughter sent Loebos’ tormented world spirit mad with grief and rage, and it lashed out at the invading humans with every weapon at its disposal. Loebos’ flora and fauna fell upon the Imperial forces. Regiments of infantry were torn apart by razor-thorn vines, and tanks were dragged into bubbling acidic swamps. Only a fraction of the Imperial invasion force escaped Loebos alive.

The corruption of Nurgle has only exacerbated the world’s vengeful insanity. Moats of foul corpse-water ridden with every toxin imaginable keep the Chaos defenders safe within their fortifications, but any troops fighting in the wilderness will have no such protection. Every available force must be directed towards Loebos immediately, for time runs short. The coming battle will be like nothing the Konor System has ever experienced, a nightmare of apocalyptic proportions. Thousands of vehicles and millions of warriors will be ground up in a murderous meat grinder, and the environment itself will seek to slaughter and devour the combatants, no matter their allegiance. Yet the Imperium must destroy Loebos, by whatever means and no matter the cost, lest the war for Konor ends in system-wide devastation.

TKS Exodite Showcase

Chaos Victory on Drenthal

Drenthal has been claimed in the name of the Ruinous Powers. Oceans turn blood-red as butchered corpses bob and float upon the surging tide, while Daemon-forged drakes whirl and screech overhead.

Smoking wreckage fell across Drenthal’s endless oceans like a meteor shower as the armies of Mankind sought to scour the legions of Chaos from the face of the planet. The enormous seasteads were aflame, ignited by daemonic fire and hammered relentlessly by traitor artillery. The virulent plagues of the Death Guard spread with horrifying speed amongst the remaining civilians. Imperial High Command swiftly came to a grim realisation – Drenthal could not be saved. Instead, it must be denied to Chaos. By overcharging the titanic fusion drill housed at Terebral Station Sigma, the Imperials would unleash a tectonic catastrophe upon their hated foes.

As the brutal fighting escalated in the cramped alleyways of floating hive cities, warriors splashed though tides of bilge water and spilt blood, past bloated corpses and shimmering promethium slicks. The sense of havoc and confusion was only exacerbated by the actions of a hidden cult of xenos-worshipping traitors that had long lain dormant amidst the vore-whale tanneries and promethium refineries of Drenthal. Forced to the surface by the war erupting all about them, these mutant killers slipped from sewer access hatches and bilge tunnels to fall upon any intruders, striking with swift and deadly force before retreating to their hidden lairs with purloined weapons and ammunition. Rumour spread of even worse horrors that crawled out of dark hiding holes to snatch away unsuspecting soldiers, dragging them screaming into the pitch blackness of the underwarrens.

The battle also raged across Drenthal’s scattered island archipelagos. Bikes and speeders roared across treacherous coral-dunes, the air echoing to the ceaseless chatter of pintle-mounted bolters. As vicious as the ground war had become, the battle in the air was just as deadly. The full might of the Aeronautica Imperialis was unleashed upon the Chaos invaders, and vast wings of Stormravens and Valkyries met with flying Daemon Engines in a murderous storm of flak-bursts and blossoming explosions.

At Terebral Station Sigma, the forces of Chaos launched furious assaults against the Imperial occupiers, while enginseers tried in vain to enact the machine-rituals necessary to sabotage the fusion drill, chanting desperate prayers to the Omnissiah as they worked. It was too late even for such desperate measures. A cabal of Chaos Sorcerers channelled the aura of savagery and carnage rippling across Drenthal, and tore open a wound in reality, spilling Daemons into the cavernous drill chamber. In an orgy of bloodshed, the enginseer work crews were slaughtered, and the destruction of Drenthal averted. The ocean world would make a fine staging point for the ongoing assault upon Ultramar.

Pethapus

Pethapus

An Aeronautica Campaign Expansion

Pethapus is an aquatic planet located just beyond Yaisdra IX and the system's triple suns, It was inhabited by the Pethapuians a race of short, engineering type beings who were regarded as an abhuman species that tended to keep to themselves.

Pethapus an Aquatic world is mostly water or swamp land, which makes it ideal for aquatic life. Unfortunately, for most races this makes it a planet that does not easily sustain life forms. Because of this it is one of the extreme planets in the Yasidra system which require additional technologies or racial abilities to be able to survive in this environment. Due to this most of the cities remain high in the skies above Pethapus, while many of its primary mining facilities are situated on or even below the ocean.

Pethapus is rich in one or more of the raw strategic materials required by the Imperium's manufactoria and Forge Worlds. The people of this mining world report to the offices of the Adeptus Arbites; Pethapuians live out their lives mining and transporting massive quantities of metallic ore, rock, minerals, frozen gases or some other useful, strategic or precious substance.

The Battle for Drenthal

A seemingly endless ocean covers Drenthal, dotted by island archipelagos and vast floating habitations. It is home to a number of large Aeronautica Imperialis training academies.

Situated near to the forge world of Konor, Drenthal is a vast blue orb ringed by burning orbital stations and warring battleships. The remnants of the Konor Defence Fleet are trapped in orbit around the planet, encircled by a Chaos armada that vomits more landing ships into the Drenthal’s upper atmosphere with every passing minute. The ocean world’s close proximity to Konor has made it an invaluable target for both Chaos and Imperial forces, as it is perfectly placed to stage counter-attacks and naval bombardments of that vital war zone. The planet’s orbital shipyards and gun platforms have already been atomized by macro-cannon fire and hull breaching missiles, but Drenthal’s planetside defences have not yet been overrun.

Due to its stable atmospherics, Drenthal has long been used as a training center by the Aeronautica Imperialis. Oceans cover almost ninety-five per cent of the planet’s surface, so the flight academies of the Imperial navy are contained upon colossal carriers, each as large as a small city and covered with landing strips, hangars and barracks. The rest of the world’s population exists upon floating metropolises known as seasteads, or else make their home upon scattered archipelagos of bleached shard-coral. Most of these seaborne habitations are now aflame, set alight by incendiary rockets and bombs unleashed by Chaos flyers.

In those seasteads that still stand, and across the island archipelagos, Imperial defenders fight savagely for every scrap of land, fending off massed aerial assaults and naval invasions. Imperial drop troops and Space Marine Inceptor Squads fearlessly hurl themselves into the fray, hurtling down from low orbit to smash into the enemy ranks. Bikes and speeders roar across banks of treacherous shard-coral, knifing into the flanks of advancing columns with bolters blazing. The ground battle is ferocious, but Drenthal’s terrain is ill-suited to massed formations of armour and infantry, and so the fiercest battles rage in the skies above. Hell-forged drakes screech and whirl above the devastation, snatching Imperial transports out of the sky, or swooping low to incinerate terrified soldiers and civilians. Every Aeronautica Imperialis aircraft available is in the air, launching endless sorties against these Daemon-forged monsters, supported by the Stormraven Gunships of the Adeptus Astartes.

Burning wreckage falls like rain across Drenthal. The Imperium, dreading the prospect of a Chaos victory, begins to prepare a doomsday strategy to deny the heretics their prize. Should all appear lost, Drenthal’s fusion-powered drill platforms, which mine vital fuel-crystals from beneath the planet’s crust, will be set to overcharge. The resultant geothermal trauma will tear Drenthal apart in a last act of spiteful defiance.

Chaos forces had taken Vanitor!

Vanitor writhes with corruption, and the roiling warp storms that ravage its surface bring vast hosts of Daemons into reality. The Imperium’s vital astropathic relay now acts as a beacon to the creatures of the warp.

Chaos forces had taken Vanitor early in the war for the Konor System, slaughtering its unprepared Imperial defenders with ease. By maintaining the furious momentum of their planetary assaults, the followers of the Dark Gods had managed to keep their foe staggered and confused, and unaware of the potential cataclysm that was brewing upon the isolated wilderness world. Yet the growing psychic disruption caused by its tormented choir of astropaths could not be masked for long. Finally freed from the apocalyptic wasteland of fire-ravaged Nethamus, Imperial fleets made for Vanitor at top speed.

Having been unsuccessful in their attempts to starve the Konor System into submission by destroying Nethamus’ food production capability, it was vital for the Chaos forces to maintain control of Vanitor and its twisted psychic beacon. Vast armies of Heretic Astartes, mortal cultists and corrupted war machines flocked to the planet, establishing a fearsome network of fortifications and killing zones. Led by the Daemon hunters of the Grey Knights, the Imperial armies crashed into these defences, blasting them apart with ceaseless barrages of bunker-breaking artillery, and relentless assaults by infantry and towering war machines. The loyalists were buoyed by their victory upon Nethamus, and were reinforced and well supplied. The sheer sledgehammer might of the Astra Militarum’s tank regiments ground millions of cultist defenders to bloody paste beneath their relentless advance, and even the elite Heretic Astartes were sorely pressed by the sheer ferocity of the attack. It was only the endless seeping of daemonic entities into reality, drawn like sharks to blood by the power of Vanitor’s psychic emanations, that sealed the doom of the Imperial forces.

Slowly, inevitably, the momentum of the Imperial assault was reversed, until its armies were in full retreat. Trapped between the murderous mountain forts and tides of Daemons sweeping in from warp breaches across the plains of Vanitor, the Imperials were soon surrounded. The subsequent carnage was appalling, as the hungry denizens of the warp glutted their eternal hunger upon mortal flesh. Less than half of the invasion force escaped alive. As the tortured screams of the astropathic choir reached a piercing crescendo, the skies above Vanitor split apart like an open wound.

The Imperial Navy - Konor Expeditionary Fleet

The Imperial Naval and Konor Expeditionary Force (IN&KEF) began forming following a request by the Praetorian government at the launch of the Plague Wars in Konor. The objectives of the force were the manufactorum stations at Astaramis in the Konor system. The force was assembled under the guidance of Praetorian Colonel Command, and was separate from the main Ultramarine and Imperial Forces forming under Roboute Guilliman. The IN&KEF comprised one battalion of Cadian infantry of 1,000 men enlisted in Cadia's surviving "Steel Host", plus 500 Praetorian naval reservists and ex-sailors who would serve as infantry. The 1st Battalion, IN&KEF was commanded by Colonel Kelly, while the naval reservists were formed into six companies under Commander Beresford. Also included were two mortar gun sections, a signals section and a medical detachment.

Resources

BFG Rules

BFG Fleet Registry Sheet
BFG Ship Name Generator

The Battle for Vanitor

Vanitor is a harsh and windswept world that houses the Konor System’s astropathic relay. Without this key communications outpost, the system would be left completely isolated from the wider Imperium.

The Konorian Astropathic Relay, situated upon the wilderness world of Vanitor and guarded by a vast fortress basilica, once linked the Konor System’s Imperial defence force to the greater war effort across Ultramar. It was one of the first targets overwhelmed in the initial blitz of the Chaos invasion, for severing this line of communication left the Konor System shrouded in darkness and confusion. Despite a brave stand, the Munitorum forces responsible for maintaining and defending the facility were encircled and slaughtered. The relay’s astropathic choir were ritually bound and excruciated by Chaos Sorcerers, and the sheer agony of their torment – amplified by the unfortunate beings’ raw psychic power – became a shining beacon to the ravenous monstrosities of the warp.

This piercing psychic scream soon came to the attention of the Grey Knights, who had swiftly identified the growing conflict in Ultramar as a potential lodestone that would draw entities from the roiling depths of the immaterium into realspace. The grim brotherhood of Daemon-hunters knew that to allow this beacon to continue to broadcast its vile signal would ultimately invite the horror of a sector-wide daemonic incursion. Gathering allies to their side, the Grey Knights assembled several strike forces and fell upon the corrupted defenders of Vanitor with merciless brutality, hacking apart Chaos-spawned horrors and their wretched masters. Yet even the Grey Knights could not accurately grasp the nightmare that was spreading across this windswept wilderness world.

Upon the great plains, vast warp breaches vomit the rancid deluge of the empyrean into reality. Amidst the soaring Tremantaen Mountains, Heretic Astartes and their foul minions have dug in like ticks, creating a circle of rockcrete redoubts around the relay, which rests atop the highest peak. Blizzards of frozen blood and transmutative hurricanes whip through these mountain passes, birthing new flyblown horrors or flaying the flesh from those foolish enough to brave the open air. At the Konorian Relay itself, Chaos forces defend their tortured wards with savage determination, unleashing blistering cascades of gunfire and artillery upon those who look to breach the basilica walls. If the Imperials cannot break through this formidable barrier, the agony of the tortured astropaths will only flare brighter, drowning Vanitor in the surging tides of the warp. Surely the damnation of the entire Konor System will swiftly follow.

The Battle for Nethamus

The breadbasket of Konor, Nethamus’ vast crop oceans and synth-silo complexes feed countless trillions of loyal souls across the system.

Having brought the horror of total war to both the Konor System’s manufacturing capital and its central source of recruits, the Chaos invasion fleet next seeks to deny the Imperial defenders sustenance. By corrupting the breadbasket of Nethamus – a massive, temperate agri world whose enormous crop oceans stretch for thousands upon thousands of miles – the forces of Chaos will starve their prey. Without Nethamus’ vital food supplies, the enormous military engine of the Astra Militarum will grind to a halt. Even more deviously, the Death Guard and their allies can begin the process of distributing tainted produce throughout Ultramar. Once consumed, this plague-ridden foodstuff creates an unending hunger that would tempt millions of mortal souls toward embracing the bountiful gifts of Nurgle.

Yet the Imperium, by now all too aware of the doom approaching Nethamus, has prepared a doomsday response. Soldiers and agri-workers have loaded crop reserves upon vast factory-crawlers, as well as synthesizer silos capable of producing enough food to sustain the ongoing defence of the Konor System. Orbiting Imperial battleships rain magmatic bombs across the planet, incinerating vast swathes of land. As the first Death Guard troops make planetfall, they unleash their virulent contagions into the atmosphere. The spreading blight is met all on sides by colossal walls of swirling flame, or vast stretches of barren wasteland, where clouds of ash mix with daemonic spores to create a putrid toxic rain.

The corruption of Nethamus has been stalled, but if the Imperial defenders cannot hold the attackers at bay, it will be for naught. The Chaos forces’ armoured formations have launched assault after assault upon the mobile factory-crawlers. Thus far, the bravery of the Astra Militarum and Adeptus Astartes tank crews has held them at bay, but many isolated crawlers have been surrounded and blasted apart, or boarded by vengeful Chaos warriors, the agri-workers inside butchered and their precious cargo despoiled. Should the Imperial forces continue to lose their factory-crawlers at such a rate, famine will spread across Konor and the surrounding region in a matter of weeks.

Scythes of the Emperor arrive on Konor

After days of bloody fighting, the Imperium has regained control of the forge world of Konor. Even now, its sprawling manufactorum districts pump out fresh munitions and weapons for the war effort.

Their armies reinforced by fresh conscripts and supplies after the victory at Astaramis, the system’s defenders entered the raging battle for the forge world of Konor with eager fury. They found themselves battling through a nightmarish hellscape of industrial devastation, a maze of shattered manufactorums and debris-strewn labour-halls where they were as likely to be sliced into pieces by malfunctioning machinery as they were to be slain by one of the roving bands of Chaos marauders that haunted the ash-choked streets.

Worse still, hordes of opportunistic Orks had descended upon the stricken forge world, seeking to strip as much scrap metal and fuel as possible from Konor’s vast reserves. These violent looters were equally dangerous to the forces of the Imperium and the Chaos invaders, as they rampaged across Konor in their smoke-spewing war machines, hacking and bludgeoning to death any unfortunate enough to cross their path.

Nevertheless, the soldiers of the Imperium went about their task with grim courage, pushing through the ravaged districts towards vital strategic targets. In a bloody and attritional grind, elite units of Adeptus Astartes warriors forced back their hated foes, the Traitor Marines. Terminator and Aggressor armour clashed and sparked under ceaseless volleys of bolter fire, and Dreadnoughts and monstrous Daemon Engines rumbled through the carnage, crushing and blasting the life from their foes. Many heroes fell in this crucible of slaughter. Yet, with freshly bolstered detachments of well-armed Astra Militarum veterans at their side, the loyalist counter-assault overwhelmed the embattled Chaos forces.

Though victory came at a heavy cost, Imperial control of Konor was secured, and a sizeable percentage of its precious production capability remained operational. Within hours of the battle’s end, the forge world’s recaptured manufactorums and assembly halls were sanctified with machine blessings and reactivated, and began to churn out vital equipment and machinery for the escalating war effort.

News from the Front............

The forge world of Konor is a vital cog in the war machine of Ultramar, its sprawling manufactorum districts pumping out a ceaseless stream of weapons, ammunition and battle tanks.

Konor is the manufacturing and fuel-producing capital of its eponymous system, and thus this forge world is a vital target for both Imperial and Chaos forces. The Death Guard and their allies have assembled a vast invasion force for the conquest of the planet, including detachments of xenos mercenaries and millions-strong hordes of fanatical cultists.

Manpower will be vital in the attritional conflict to come. The Chaos assault on Konor opened several days ago with an apocalyptic orbital bombardment, plague-ridden space hulks and Despoiler-class warships ravaging the holdings and armies of the Adeptus Mechanicus with waves of inferno missiles and toxin cascades, churning the planet’s atmosphere into a hellish cocktail of flesh-melting viruses and choking smoke. Almost half of Konor’s industrial capability has already been utterly demolished, and the invaders are landing an increasing tide of troops planetside. The prodigious level of destruction has been judged appropriate by the Heretic Astartes commanders responsible for prosecuting the slaughter, for even with so many manufactorum districts shattered, Konor is still capable of pumping out colossal quantities of battle tanks and munitions. With the billions of slaves claimed by the invasion fleet put to work in the manufactorums, the forge world would produce even more still should it fall under Chaos control.

The Imperium of Mankind’s war effort in the Konor System, and indeed the wider conflict raging across Ultramar, will be severely derailed if Konor is lost to Chaos. Thus, Imperial high command has authorised the dispatching of several armies to relieve the besieged defenders. Archmagos Gother Zymus and his Skitarii legions yet retain control of Forge Temple Cladis and its surrounding domain, and are aided in their stubborn defence by Imperial Knights of House Raven. Yet outside their rapidly receding kill-quadrants and excoriation zones, the enemy presses ever closer, with heavily armoured assault troops and Daemon Engines grinding their way through the shattered innards of manufactorums and hab-arcologies. In this hellish no man’s land, squads of dead-eyed killers stalk the choking sprawl for fresh prey, looking to secure key objectives such as vox relays, promethium refineries and precious intact generatorums.

Imperial Victory on Astaramis!

Astaramis stands. The forces of Chaos brought terror and death to this gleaming hive world, but the Imperial Aquila yet flies from its tallest spires.

The forces of Chaos fell upon Astaramis like slavering wolves, bringing ruin and terror to this once proud monument of Ultramar’s glory. Yet, as the smoke cleared and the echo of gunfire ceased, the hive world remained standing, battered but unbroken. Despite suffering horrific casualties during the early stages of the Chaos onslaught, the armies of the Imperium dug in with rugged determination, hurling back each fresh assault with blistering cascades of las and bolter fire, turning to knives, makeshift weapons and fists when the slaughter boiled over into hand-to-hand combat.

Try as they might, the Chaos invaders could not break the defenders’ spirits, nor scour them from their fortifications. Their rage and frustration was only exacerbated by a series of lightning attacks by the Aeldari of the craftworlds, who emerged from the hidden labyrinth of the webway to slice into the rear of the Chaos formations. There was no formal alliance between the Imperium and these deadly raiders, but the Aeldari ever follow their own mysterious whims. Fusillades of shuriken fire and pinpoint lances of searing energy tore through the unsuspecting ranks of the invaders, and even as they regrouped and reformed, the xenos disappeared from whence they came, leaving nothing but the smoking bodies of their victims behind.

This flanking assault badly stalled the Chaos advance, buying precious time for Primaris Space Marine reinforcements to arrive on Astaramis. Unable to force a breakthrough at the vital Praxima Skyport, the massed heretical legions could only watch with furious hatred as fresh regiments of grim-faced warriors and columns of heavy armour made planetfall, rushing to shore up gaps in the Imperial line wherever they emerged. Inch by bloody inch, the Chaos invasion force was pushed back to the outer hab-zones of the hive cities, and the flag of Ultramar was raised proudly upon the highest spire of Saviour’s Landing – a symbol of defiance and Imperial might that girded the heart of every loyalist warrior.

In the wake of this vital victory, Imperial High Command immediately ramped up the production of munitions on Astaramis, and issued a decree requiring every human of fighting age to take up arms in the defence of Ultramar. Such a vast resource of manpower will be vital in the battles to come, for the war in the Konor System is far from over…