Armageddon

Armageddon is a hive world in Segmentum Solar whose name the Imperium uses as shorthand for industrial war. It forms part of the Armageddon System, sharing that name with the sector and cluster of settled worlds around it, and its ash wastes have hosted successive large-scale campaigns. Hive cities such as Volcanus, Hades and Tempestora anchor the fighting, and the Steel Legion, Armageddon’s native Imperial Guard regiments, continues to defend them from sealed armoured cupolas and tank columns.

The planet’s martial reputation begins with the First War of Armageddon, recorded as Angron’s earliest campaign there before his ascension among the Emperor’s primarchs, when the ash wastes were first scoured of ork infestation. Centuries later the Second War of Armageddon, fought in 444.M41, pitted Commissar Yarrick’s Steel Legion against the newly risen warlord Ghazghkull Thraka, whose Waaagh! overran much of Hive Volcanus before the ork advance was broken.

Ghazghkull returned in the Third War of Armageddon, begun in 941.M41 and remembered locally as the Season of Blood, drawing reinforcements from across the Imperium. Commander Dante led the Blood Angels to the world’s defence, Chapter Master Tu’Shan brought the Salamanders, and the Black Templars under Grand Master Helbrecht and Chaplain Grimaldus made their stand at Hive Tempestora, holding its cathedral district against the ork tide alongside Yarrick’s reconstituted Steel Legion.

Some later histories hold that Armageddon is in fact Ullanor, relocated after the War of the Beast; the Imperium has never resolved the claim. Irrespective of its origin, Armageddon lies closer to Terra than Cadia does, and it continues to absorb Imperial reinforcements as fast as it loses them. Across each war the planet has become the standard example the Imperium cites for a conflict of industrial attrition, measured in hive cities held or lost rather than territory gained.