Event · M41–M42
Crusade of Iron
The Crusade of Iron is a Horus Heresy-era campaign designation associated with the Iron Warriors Legion, recorded on Orrery with Terra as its host. Accounts differ on its precise scope, and the name is not tied to a single dated engagement in the established record, so Orrery treats it as an umbrella entry rather than a discrete battle. Its map anchor is given as various, reflecting operations spread across several theatres; Terra serves as the host location because the Iron Warriors’ Heresy-era efforts are recorded as converging on the Imperial Palace. The Iron Warriors, the Legion of Perturabo, were regarded during the Great Crusade as the Imperium’s foremost practitioners of siegecraft and fortress-breaking, and they sided with Warmaster Horus when the Heresy began. The principal figure in the entry is Perturabo, whose long-standing rivalry with Rogal Dorn of the Imperial Fists gives the Terran phase its chief interaction: the Iron Warriors are recorded as taking part in the assault on the Palace’s defences during the Siege of Terra, against defenders drawn from the Imperial Fists and their loyalist allies. Details of earlier phases, including dates and named objectives, are not firmly established, and this page does not supply them. The Siege of Terra ended with the death of Horus and the withdrawal of the traitor forces, after which the Iron Warriors retreated with the other rebel Legions towards the Eye of Terror. The Legion continued thereafter as one of the Traitor Legions, and its later history, including its Iron Cage strongholds, belongs to entries elsewhere on Orrery. On the timeline, the Crusade of Iron sits alongside the Siege of Terra, the Imperial Fists and Perturabo as its nearest contemporaries and graph neighbours.
See where Crusade of Iron occurred on the galactic map in the 41st Millennium.