Event · M41

Siege of the Fenris System

The Siege of the Fenris System was a Chaos assault upon the Space Wolves’ home system, followed by fighting among Imperial forces, dated to approximately 999.M41, in the final days of the 41st millennium. The same campaign is recorded under the title Wrath of Magnus. A shorter summary under that second title states that Magnus the Red withdrew, that the Fang did not fall, and that Great Wolf Logan Grimnar was committed elsewhere at the time; the longer campaign account instead records Grimnar’s return from Midgardia, the banishment of Magnus, and a Fenris System that was held but devastated. One account carries the consequences of the siege into the 42nd millennium, while the siege itself remains dated to about 999.M41. In the period preceding the attack, warp storms were rising, and the Wulfen returned openly among the Space Wolves, prompting eleven of the twelve Great Companies to search for them in the hope of finding Leman Russ. During this search, the Changeling deceived the Dark Angels into suspecting the Space Wolves of corruption. Brother-Captain Arvann Stern of the Grey Knights warned Grimnar that the Thousand Sons might move against Fenris, and Grimnar gathered the companies near at hand and set a course for the system. On Grimnar’s arrival, every world of the system save Fenris itself was already under attack. On Frostheim, the Alpha Legion lord Vykus Skayle led daemons against the defenders, and Harald Deathwolf met them in battle at Morkai’s Keep. On Midgardia, a world given over to Nurgle, Egil Iron Wolf and Grimnar fought the invaders, and Grimnar there encountered three daemon princes of an Infernal Tetrad, after which contact with him was lost. On Svellgard, Sven Bloodhowl fought a host led by the bloodthirster Vor’hakk, who was ultimately brought down by the Wulfen. On Valdrmani, Stern and Wolf Lord Krom Dragongaze fought together, and Stern killed the Dark Apostle Hekastis Nul, while the daemon prince Tzen’char was struck down in the same battle. Supreme Grand Master Azrael thereafter brought the Dark Angels and a wider coalition, comprising the Ultramarines 6th Company, the Iron Hands of Clan Haarmek, House Mortan, Legio Dominatus, and Imperial Army and Navy forces, to the system, and, from the deck of the battleship Invincible Reason, ordered the bombardment of Fenris itself, an order provoked by the Changeling’s deception. Azrael, Belial, Asmodai, Brother-Captain Arvann Stern, and Ragnar Blackmane, among others, then hunted the Changeling deep into the Rock. Aboard The Rock, Stern and Ragnar Blackmane exposed the Changeling for what it was, and the Dark Angels turned their attention from the Space Wolves to the true Chaos assault. The Thousand Sons descended upon Fenris within Silver Towers that evaded the guns of the Fang. On the third day of the assault, sorcerers within each tower completed a ritual lasting nine hours, nine minutes, and nine seconds, worked upon a captive Space Wolf, and the combined rituals summoned Magnus the Red into the system. Ahzek Ahriman arrived at his side, together with Nezchad Aratos, Aarthrat, and Omarhotec, commanders who had been banished following the Rubric; Ahriman and Magnus were reconciled for the duration of the attack upon Fenris. The towers then destroyed the power-nexuses of Fenris one by one until only the Fang remained, and Magnus teleported pyromancers and daemons under Xarax Throtep into the fortress itself, where Bran Redmaw, his Wulfen, and Dreadnoughts roused by the Iron Priests met them. Egil Iron Wolf brought Grimnar off Midgardia before a plague drawn from Mortarion overran the world, and Grimnar in response ordered Exterminatus upon it. At the Wolf’s Gullet, before the walls of the Fang, Grimnar’s force encountered Ahriman and the Scarab Occult. Magnus then took the field upon the plains of Asaheim, where he killed the Grey Knights Grand Master Valdar Aurikon and dragged orbiting vessels down into the atmosphere. Egil Iron Wolf charged Magnus with the Spear of Russ and was killed in the attempt, and Grimnar drove the Axe of Morkai into the daemon primarch before Grey Knights Purifiers completed a ritual of banishment. Magnus, the Thousand Sons, and their daemonic allies were drawn back into the warp, and the remnants left behind on Fenris were hunted down. Ahriman is not separately recorded as slain. In the aftermath, the Fenris System was saved yet left devastated, and most of its civilian population had died. The Grey Knights suffered heavy losses, among them Valdar Aurikon. Frostheim was stripped to bone, while Svellgard was evacuated and its seas boiled by storms following the destruction of Midgardia, before later being resettled. Valdrmani remained a wasteland and was subsequently rebuilt as an astropathic relay. The Ordo Hereticus and the Grey Knights purged the human survivors who had witnessed a daemon primarch, and Grimnar approved the deaths of the tribal warriors of Fenris. He then led most of the surviving Space Wolves toward the Cadian Gate, where the 13th Black Crusade was then under way. The recorded outcome of the siege is a strategic victory for Chaos, since Sortiarius was brought into real space, and a tactical victory for the Imperium, since the Fenris System itself was saved, though devastated and its population purged; the two verdicts are recorded separately rather than resolved into one. In the warp, Magnus treated the siege as a success in its own right, for a ritual fed by the sacrifice of Midgardia moved Sortiarius to desolate Prospero, opening a warp rift there. In the longer campaign account of the siege, Logan Grimnar and Egil Iron Wolf led the attempt to reclaim the world of Midgardia, besieged by the followers of Nurgle. Grimnar teleported down into the planet’s caverns, where he fought the daemon princes Mordokh, Arkh’gar, and Malyg’nyl; contact with him was lost, and Magnus the Red’s Thousand Sons, with their daemon allies, ambushed him there. Egil Iron Wolf brought him aboard the battle barge Allfather’s Honour before Exterminatus was launched upon Midgardia, ending the campaign there. On Fenris itself, at the Wolf’s Gullet on the plains of Asaheim, Grimnar fought Ahriman’s Scarab Occult. Egil Iron Wolf died charging Magnus the Red directly, bearing the Spear of Russ. Grimnar then drove the Axe Morkai into Magnus, and the Grey Knights banished the primarch from the material realm. A shorter campaign account, under the title Wrath of Magnus, places Grimnar elsewhere in the campaign at the relevant moment. On Fenris, Wolf Lord Krom Dragongaze, holding the Fang while other Great Companies fought across the system, awakened Bjorn the Fell-Handed for counsel. When Thousand Sons sorcerers and daemons later broke into the fortress-monastery itself, Bjorn was among the Dreadnoughts raised from the Lair of the Ancients who met the intruders in the Fang’s halls and helped turn the fighting within the mountain.

See where Siege of the Fenris System occurred on the galactic map in the 41st Millennium.

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