Salvation's Reach

‘Throughout the year 781.M41, Warmaster Macaroth’s main battle groups remained deadlocked at the frontiers of the Erinyes Group, despite his strenuous efforts to force a breakthrough. Macaroth’s primary crusading strength was held off by a formidable defensive line composed of the forces of Archon Gaur, the Archenemy overlord.

‘Meanwhile, trailwards, the Warmaster’s second battle group had repeatedly failed to dislodge the legions of Magister Anakwanar Sek, Gaur’s most capable lieutenant, from the Cabal Systems. Senior advisors urged Macaroth to break off from his bull-headed prosecution of the Erinyes Line, and concentrate on quashing Sek at the Cabal Worlds. With the threat of Sek removed, they counselled, the Crusade could safely resume an assault of the Archon’s position. But Macaroth rejected the notion, claiming it would give the Archon enough time – perhaps two or three years – to rebuild and retrench to such an extent that the Erinyes Line would become unassailable.

‘Split between these two concentrations of resistance, Macaroth’s Crusade was haemorrhaging momentum and materiel. The Crusade had become two crusades, and even Macaroth’s vast war-tithes, and massive support from the sector lords, could not sustain his ambitions. Furthermore, there was a general and growing fear that, if properly co-ordinated, the forces of Sek and Gaur might combine with such effect, the Sabbat Worlds Crusade force would actually be annihilated.

‘During this critical period, a series of covert operations was planned and executed at key sites across the Sabbat Worlds. The most critical, and the one upon which all the others depended, was undertaken at Salvation’s Reach in the remote Rimworld Marginals. Seen as a huge gamble, and with atrocious prospects for success, the mission was authorised by Macaroth on the basis that, if accomplished by some miracle, it could alter the balance of the war entirely.

‘This was the twenty-sixth year of the Sabbat Worlds Crusade, and Macaroth was increasingly looking like a man prepared to try anything, and risk everything, to secure a victory.’

– from A History of the Later Imperial Crusades