Event · M41
Dark Crusade
The Dark Crusade was a M41 campaign for control of the world of Kronus, contested by seven factions including the Blood Ravens Space Marines. Alongside the Blood Ravens, the war drew in a Word Bearers Chaos Space Marine warband, an Imperial Guard garrison, the T’au Empire, a Necron force, an Ork Waaagh!, and an Eldar contingent, each pursuing its own claim to the world’s provinces and strongholds. Kronus already hosted an Imperial Guard garrison when the Word Bearers moved to seize the world for Chaos, prompting the Blood Ravens, under the command of Davian Thule, to deploy in its defence. The near-simultaneous arrival of Necron, Ork, T’au and Eldar forces turned what might have been a single campaign into a many-sided struggle for control of Kronus, with no faction holding an unchallenged claim to the world at the outset. The war was fought as a shifting sequence of engagements across Kronus’s provinces rather than a single fixed campaign, as each faction sought to conquer territory held by its rivals in turn. Blood Ravens records, the fullest surviving account of the conflict, describe Thule’s forces relieving the Imperial Guard garrison before turning against the Word Bearers directly, with fighting converging on the stronghold of Victory Bay. According to Blood Ravens chapter record, later upheld during the Chapter’s campaign on Tartarus, the Blood Ravens prevailed, defeating the Imperial Guard forces at Victory Bay and driving off the Word Bearers who sought to claim the world. Whether the Blood Ravens were also responsible for the defeat of the T’au, Necron, Ork and Eldar forces on Kronus is not firmly established; accounts differ, and the fate of those combatants beyond the war’s central struggle remains uncertain. The Dark Crusade is remembered chiefly as a formative action for Davian Thule and the Blood Ravens on Kronus, preceding the Chapter’s later campaign on Tartarus.
See where Dark Crusade occurred on the galactic map in the 41st Millennium.