Event · M41–M42
Battle of Idolatros
The Battle of Idolatros is a conflict of the forty-first millennium linked to the Arks of Omen campaigns and the Primarch Lion El’Jonson. It is recorded on Orrery against Terra as its anchor, because the war of which it forms part is directed from, and answerable to, the Imperium’s central authority. The engagement takes place at Idolatros, a location that is not on Terra itself, and the map marker should be read as an Imperial frame of reference and not as the site of the fighting. The causes are best understood through the wider situation of the period. The Arks of Omen campaigns belong to the years after the opening of the Great Rift, when the Imperium was pressed on many fronts at once and its commanders committed forces to a small number of decisive theatres. Accounts associate Idolatros with the return of the Lion to the Imperium’s wars, and the engagement is remembered chiefly for that association. Beyond the identity of the principal commander and the general Imperial cause, the precise order of battle, the opposing forces and the sequence of actions are not established here, and this entry does not supply them. In the timeline graph the battle sits in the late forty-first millennium, with consequences carried into the forty-second. The aftermath is best read through its neighbours: the Lion’s wider role in the Imperium’s recovery, and the other Arks of Omen theatres fought during the same window. Later tradition may fix the losses, the fate of the defenders and the lasting strategic effect with more certainty; until then, this dossier records only what the surrounding campaign supports, and readers should follow the linked entries for the Lion and the Arks of Omen for the contemporaries and interactions that frame the battle.
See where Battle of Idolatros occurred on the galactic map in the 41st Millennium.