Event · M41–M42
Raven’s Flight
Raven’s Flight is the name given to the withdrawal of the surviving Raven Guard from the Isstvan system after the Drop Site Massacre on Isstvan V. It followed the first open act of the Horus Heresy, when Warmaster Horus committed the loyalist Iron Hands, Salamanders and Raven Guard to a landing on Isstvan V, having already ensured that Legions loyal to him would fall upon them once they were on the surface. The Raven Guard, led by their Primarch Corvus Corax, were among the three loyalist Legions caught by the betrayal, and the escape is conventionally placed shortly after the massacre in the earliest phase of the Heresy, around 007.M31. The Legions that turned on the landing force are recorded as including the Sons of Horus, Death Guard, World Eaters and Emperor’s Children, supported by elements of other Legions that had declared for Horus. Under sustained bombardment and assault, the loyalist position on the Isstvan V surface collapsed, and the Iron Hands lost their Primarch Ferrus Manus to Fulgrim. Corax, who had fought on the surface, is recorded as extracting a fraction of his Legion, and the Raven Guard’s survivors passed through the Isstvan system by ship rather than committing to a last stand. Accounts differ on the exact numbers, and this page does not fix a figure. The Salamanders and Iron Hands survivors who also left Isstvan V did so under separate circumstances, and the fate of the Salamanders’ Primarch Vulkan was unclear to the loyalists at the time. The flight left the Raven Guard badly reduced but intact as a fighting force, and it set the character of their later part in the war: withdrawal to recover, followed by irregular operations against Horus’s forces rather than fleet-scale confrontation. It is therefore treated as the point at which the Legion’s war changed from a general campaign to one of survival and covert action. On the Orrery map the event is anchored to the Isstvan system, while its host location, Terra, reflects the Imperium’s eventual rallying point for the loyalist cause, where Raven Guard forces are recorded in the closing defence of the Imperium. For neighbouring events and the Legions involved, see the Drop Site Massacre, the Isstvan V campaign, the Raven Guard and Corvus Corax.
See where Raven’s Flight occurred on the galactic map in the 41st Millennium.