Event · M41

Waaagh! Skullkrak

Waaagh! Skullkrak was an Ork Waaagh!, a migratory Ork crusade, led by the Warboss Skullkrak, which invaded the Targus System in 862.M41 and went on to devastate a sector of the Imperium adjoining the Forsarr Sector. Its principal early theatre was the hive world of Targus VIII, where the Orks held orbital defences that threatened Imperial operations in the system. Among the Imperial forces sent in response was the Raven Guard 3rd Company under Shadow Captain Kayvaan Shrike. Detailed to destroy the Ork orbital defences on Targus VIII, the company completed the task but was stranded when its extraction Thunderhawk was destroyed in near orbit, and Shrike conducted a two-year campaign behind Ork lines, striking vulnerable positions while passing targeting and intelligence data to naval vessels in orbit. He went on to fight the Orks on dozens of planets, and his assaults on Ork conquests in the Donara and Yakhee systems made him a figure of popular veneration; other Imperial forces fought the invaders across the sector after his example. One account presents Shrike as still waging war on Skullkrak’s forces, while another records that his strike force was recalled before 966.M41 to meet the growing threat of Waaagh! Garaghak, leaving the Imperial Guard and Imperial Navy to contend with Skullkrak alone. The Waaagh! continued to overrun Imperial worlds, among them Aldeb and Suphuron. In 997.M41 the Targus Home Warden force was all but destroyed in battle, and agents of the Administratum resolved to study the threat before committing further reinforcements. Skullkrak later led his warriors to the ghost world of Fordris in pursuit of rumoured ancient weaponry, but the world proved to be inhabited by Necrons, and in the ensuing battle he was killed and his Orks defeated. The effect of his death on the wider Waaagh! is not recorded.

See where Waaagh! Skullkrak occurred on the galactic map in the 41st Millennium.

Open in universe