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What do you think was the greatest battle in the history of 40k? I would say the battle of the Iron Cage because of how it proved the Codex Astartes would be valuable in the future of the Loyalist Space Marines.

Define greatest though.

Longest, maybe the second war of Armageddon.
Coolest, War of dakka.
Biggest, anything with the nids involved.
Most important, one of Abbadon's crusades.

And if you include 30K then the Horus Heresy is probably in there for sure.

All of these and more are pretty significant in the fluff and the setting of 40K in general.

cody.d. wrote:
Define greatest though.

Longest, maybe the second war of Armageddon.
Coolest, War of dakka.
Biggest, anything with the nids involved.
Most important, one of Abbadon's crusades.

And if you include 30K then the Horus Heresy is probably in there for sure.

All of these and more are pretty significant in the fluff and the setting of 40K in general.

I get Abbadon's crusade destroyed Cadia and all, but why is it important? Didn't he fail horribly 13 times?

He didn't remotely fail. Each Crusade was designed to achieve specific goals (which he did).

Each Black Crusade wasn't a failed war. They were a collection of battles (most of which were largely successful in accomplishing Abaddon's incremental goals) leading to an ultimate goal of complete and utter destruction of the Imperium, a goal that Abaddon is perilously close to achieving.


EDIT: Also, my vote for Greatest Battle goes to the Siege of Fenris during the Months of Shame. Rule of cool is my only criteria, really.

Siege of terra, no other battle is or was as important in all of 40k, had the emperor died then everything would be dead, no nids, no orks, nothing, the entire universe would be overrun by the warp and chaos.

Battle of Terra. There are no battles has more significant impact on the "history of Warhammer 40k" than this one. This one defines the history for the next 10000 yrs and maybe even more.

I would say the battle of Maccrage. Hive Fleet Behemoth was a breath away from destroying the Realm of Ultramar and almost the entire fleet of the Segmentum. Should it have triumphed, the Imperium would have its most prosperous and productive Realm, it's best Chapter of Space Marine and a huge portion of its fleet. It would have been far weaker to repel Hive Fleet Kraken a century later and would have made the Tyranid threat even larger then it currently is.

 Jimsolo wrote:
He didn't remotely fail. Each Crusade was designed to achieve specific goals (which he did).

Each Black Crusade wasn't a failed war. They were a collection of battles (most of which were largely successful in accomplishing Abaddon's incremental goals) leading to an ultimate goal of complete and utter destruction of the Imperium, a goal that Abaddon is perilously close to achieving.


EDIT: Also, my vote for Greatest Battle goes to the Siege of Fenris during the Months of Shame. Rule of cool is my only criteria, really.

At least thats what his PR team wants you to think...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Most organic matter? Octarius War.

 Jimsolo wrote:
He didn't remotely fail. Each Crusade was designed to achieve specific goals (which he did).

Each Black Crusade wasn't a failed war. They were a collection of battles (most of which were largely successful in accomplishing Abaddon's incremental goals) leading to an ultimate goal of complete and utter destruction of the Imperium, a goal that Abaddon is perilously close to achieving.


EDIT: Also, my vote for Greatest Battle goes to the Siege of Fenris during the Months of Shame. Rule of cool is my only criteria, really.

That achievement may be harder for Abaddon to complete, now that Primarch Guilliman is resurrected and with the arrival of the Primaris Space Marines.

 Jazzylee wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:
He didn't remotely fail. Each Crusade was designed to achieve specific goals (which he did).

Each Black Crusade wasn't a failed war. They were a collection of battles (most of which were largely successful in accomplishing Abaddon's incremental goals) leading to an ultimate goal of complete and utter destruction of the Imperium, a goal that Abaddon is perilously close to achieving.


EDIT: Also, my vote for Greatest Battle goes to the Siege of Fenris during the Months of Shame. Rule of cool is my only criteria, really.

That achievement may be harder for Abaddon to complete, now that Primarch Guilliman is resurrected and with the arrival of the Primaris Space Marines.

Honestly, if you played your cards right it would be much easier. You just need to stop looking at it from a war perspective and use a corruption perspective.

Neophyte2012 wrote:
Battle of Terra. There are no battles has more significant impact on the "history of Warhammer 40k" than this one. This one defines the history for the next 10000 yrs and maybe even more.

This. Scale itself is huge and impact more so.

Beta Garmon is also pretty big one seeing titan warfare on scale never seen before or after(mostly because most of titans were destroyed there...Hard to top that when you don't have near as much stuff that participiated in the battle!)

Hmm... 16 threads on the 1st page. Some kind of record?

On topic, I would tend to agree with the siege of Terra as most important "battle".

In terms of campaigns, either the original expansion of humanity in the dark age of technology, or the Great Crusade that sets up the Imperium.

 Flinty wrote:
Hmm... 16 threads on the 1st page. Some kind of record?

I think the background forum is particularily prone to new people going crazy with questions for a week, then disappearing forever more.
At least this is better than the last guy who kept posting things like "The Emperor is a Moomin, prove me wrong"!

On topic;
The invasion of Alaitoc by the Imperium is a conflict that continues to capture my imagination, I'd love to do a campaign of that someday.

The War In Heaven, between the C’tan/Necrons and the Old Ones. It shaped the galaxy to be and set up the Eldar fall to come and the wars of mankind after that.

 Kroem wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
Hmm... 16 threads on the 1st page. Some kind of record?

I think the background forum is particularily prone to new people going crazy with questions for a week, then disappearing forever more.
At least this is better than the last guy who kept posting things like "The Emperor is a Moomin, prove me wrong"!

On topic;
The invasion of Alaitoc by the Imperium is a conflict that continues to capture my imagination, I'd love to do a campaign of that someday.

That's interesting hearing how the Imperium managed to get a craftworld off guard to invade them, you'd think the Eldar would know how to evade the Imperium like that after years of experience with their own ships.

 Stormonu wrote:
The War In Heaven, between the C’tan/Necrons and the Old Ones. It shaped the galaxy to be and set up the Eldar fall to come and the wars of mankind after that.

I would like to say this but we're only ever given glimpses of what actually happened.

That said, the levels of destruction once the C'Tan power up on all those millions of souls and destroy stars and solar systems willy nilly must have been insane

dapperbandit wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
The War In Heaven, between the C’tan/Necrons and the Old Ones. It shaped the galaxy to be and set up the Eldar fall to come and the wars of mankind after that.

I would like to say this but we're only ever given glimpses of what actually happened.

That said, the levels of destruction once the C'Tan power up on all those millions of souls and destroy stars and solar systems willy nilly must have been insane

It was insane enough to make the first propper warp entities to my knowledge, so atleast galaxy spanning. Oh and it wiped out the old ones, gaveus the krok and aeldari and slaanesh by consequence. And a lot of disgrunteld Necrons and Trollzyn thefaboulous.

When Khaine absolutley pasted Eldanesh.

We are your *GODs*. You think you *matter*?

Imagine what the universe would look like if that had gone any other way.


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Not Online!!! wrote:

dapperbandit wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
The War In Heaven, between the C’tan/Necrons and the Old Ones. It shaped the galaxy to be and set up the Eldar fall to come and the wars of mankind after that.

I would like to say this but we're only ever given glimpses of what actually happened.

That said, the levels of destruction once the C'Tan power up on all those millions of souls and destroy stars and solar systems willy nilly must have been insane

It was insane enough to make the first propper warp entities to my knowledge, so atleast galaxy spanning. Oh and it wiped out the old ones, gaveus the krok and aeldari and slaanesh by consequence. And a lot of disgrunteld Necrons and Trollzyn thefaboulous.

With the T'au being either an Eldar or Chaos plot, depending on whom you ask, and the Fall giving us the Imperium, aren't Nids the only faction the War in Heaven *didn't* give us?

epronovost wrote:
Should it have triumphed, the Imperium would have its most prosperous and productive Realm, it's best Chapter of Space Marine and a huge portion of its flee.

Ultramar is not the most productive realm, the Black Templars weren't even there, the sector fleet wasn't relying on the Macragge to survive. It is a productive realm and the Ultras are alright, if you like killing disabled babies by leaving them to die.

Frazzled wrote:At least thats what his PR team wants you to think...

Ultras and Abaddon have warring PR agents in Nottingham. I'm less annoyed by Abaddon boosting because 40k needs a competent big bad, but some of it is still nonsense.

Greatest battle in 40k history? The one you are about to have.

And possibly that one time on Armageddon, where the steel legion were fighting Orks inside a giant chimera factory, and won when they mounted up in chimeras rolling off the assembly line and performed an armoured assault on the Orks at the other end.

The Siege of Vraks.

It's not the most "important", nor is it the "biggest", but it's the one I read about over and over.

 Jazzylee wrote:
What do you think was the greatest battle in the history of 40k? I would say the battle of the Iron Cage because of how it proved the Codex Astartes would be valuable in the future of the Loyalist Space Marines.

Beta-Garmon is my choice. That was one hell of a titanic event.

 Togusa wrote:

Beta-Garmon is my choice. That was one hell of a titanic event.

I see what you did there.

As for the greatest battle I'm not sure, but in my Bias I love the Schism of Mars, if that one went the wrong way the Imperium would have fallen pretty quickly.

If not the Siege of Terra then the land war on Mars?

Battle for Tallarn during the heresy. Biggest tank battle in history and raged for a whole year.

I would say, since greatest can mean a lot of things

Either
Ishtvan 3 or 5
Siege of Terra
Gothic war
War for armmagedon
Cadias fall
Or the mars rebellion

I don't think anyone has mentioned yet, but the one that really served as a gateway into the 40k hobby for so many of us: The cover of the 1st edition rulebook and the last stand of the Crimson Fists on Rynn's world.
It opitimised the game universe - the hopelessness, the fall of heroes, but them fighting on to the last despite knowing that every one of them was going to die. I don't think there has been a story or piece of artwork that have summed up the ethos of the game so well since.

Battle for Terra hands down. Name one other occasion when 10+ SM legions where active in the same battle, primarchs included.

The drop site massacre of Istvaan 5 is a very important turning point in Imperial history.

I don't remmember the specifics but wasn't there a huge battle at the end of the age of apostasy where something like 13 space marine chapters participated?

Battle for Ultramar is epic in scale. There where warlord titans falling from hormagaunts. Like ants they swarmed them and covered every inch of them untill the eventual death of the titans.

Personal favourite: Ichar 4. Or well, the entire kraken invasion really. Hive fleet kraken attacked in a huge wave that destroyed 4 space marine chapters and nearly decimated the Eldar craftworld of Lyandel. The Decisive battles where on Lyandel and on Ichar 4.

Bharring wrote:
When Khaine absolutley pasted Eldanesh.

We are your *GODs*. You think you *matter*?

Imagine what the universe would look like if that had gone any other way.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Not Online!!! wrote:

dapperbandit wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
The War In Heaven, between the C’tan/Necrons and the Old Ones. It shaped the galaxy to be and set up the Eldar fall to come and the wars of mankind after that.

I would like to say this but we're only ever given glimpses of what actually happened.

That said, the levels of destruction once the C'Tan power up on all those millions of souls and destroy stars and solar systems willy nilly must have been insane

It was insane enough to make the first propper warp entities to my knowledge, so atleast galaxy spanning. Oh and it wiped out the old ones, gaveus the krok and aeldari and slaanesh by consequence. And a lot of disgrunteld Necrons and Trollzyn thefaboulous.

With the T'au being either an Eldar or Chaos plot, depending on whom you ask, and the Fall giving us the Imperium, aren't Nids the only faction the War in Heaven *didn't* give us?

preety much, every other war and battle is basically a small insignificant minescule blip in the overall fluff.
Not even the heresy came close