Event · M41
Siege of the Palace of Thorns
The Siege of the Palace of Thorns was the Loyalist assault on the Astral Claws’ fortress-monastery on Badab Primaris during the Badab War in M41. The Palace of Thorns served as the seat of Lugft Huron, the Astral Claws Chapter Master styled the Tyrant of Badab, and stood at the centre of the Chapter’s holdings in the Badab system. It became a strategic objective because the war arose from Huron’s defiance of Imperial authority, a dispute in which accounts differ on the relative weight of tithe demands, Chapter autonomy and the conduct of Huron’s command. The siege belongs to the later phase of the Badab War, in which Loyalist Space Marine Chapters and Imperial forces closed on the secessionist heartland after fighting across the surrounding sectors. The defenders were the Astral Claws and the allies bound to Huron’s cause; the attackers were Loyalist Chapters operating alongside Imperial Navy and Imperial Guard elements. The fortress-monastery is recorded as the last major fixed position that the Astral Claws contested, so its investment marked the point at which the war turned from a campaign of manoeuvre into a struggle for the Chapter’s home. The fall of the Badab defences ended the war as a contest for territory, but it did not end the Astral Claws. Huron is recorded as escaping Loyalist hands with a portion of the Chapter and its fleet, and these survivors later reappeared as the Red Corsairs, operating from the Maelstrom in the Eastern Fringe. On the Orrery map the event is anchored to Badab, and on the timeline it sits within the Badab War alongside the Astral Claws’ transformation from a Codex-aligned Chapter into a renegade warband.
See where Siege of the Palace of Thorns occurred on the galactic map in the 41st Millennium.