Event · M41
Operation Thunderstorm
Operation Thunderstorm was an Imperial Guard operation on Golgotha to recover the Baneblade (a super-heavy tank) Fortress of Arrogance. It took place on Golgotha, in a year not recorded, preceding the Third War for Armageddon, which began in 998.M41. Commissar Sebastian Yarrick asked that the tank be salvaged and repaired, but he did not take the field in the operation. The Imperial Guard 18th Army Group, known as Exolon, advanced under General deViers. The Army Group advanced on the tank’s last known position and found Orks besieging their supply base and forward posts; the tank itself had been moved. Working with the Adeptus Mechanicus, they tracked it to the ruins of Dar Laq, an abandoned city of possible Necron origin. In the battle that followed, the surviving Cadians found the tank under the command of an Ork warboss, destroyed its crew, and lost most of the three divisions sent; General deViers was killed by the warboss. A Mechanicum ark repaired the Fortress of Arrogance and took it off-world, and it was given to Yarrick on Armageddon; deViers did not live to present it. The tank was subsequently used in the Third War for Armageddon. Golgotha itself remained in Ork hands.
See where Operation Thunderstorm occurred on the galactic map in the 41st Millennium.