The St. Valentine’s World Massacre

Howdy folks - my mate Ben and I are planning a WH40K 2nd Edition narrative style campaign. It's focussed on Imperials vs Eldar in the first instance, although we have built in scope to widen the field of combatants so nothing is out of scope.

The basic plan is to have a few meet ups over the year to get some games in, and hopefully follow up with some decent battle reports, but we are also going to invite other members of the Middlehammer community to join in the fun and fight their own battles as part of the campaign and Ben even has a 'Cunning Plan'™ to calculate results no matter what system people use so the only thing to worry about is getting some minis on the table, rolling some dice, and coming up with a kick ass story to feed into the campaign!

Here's the background from the Imperial point of view to whet your appetite:

The St. Valentine’s World Massacre

St Valentine’s World, an M Class Imperial Shrine world, is home to the reliquary of St. Valentine the Ever Ready, leader of the ecclesiarchal crusade which recaptured the sub sector from the vile xenos greenskins more than a millennia ago. Some 30+ years before the present day the Orks returned, invading in a great Waaarrrggghhhh that almost swallowed the system whole. Various forces across the sub sector were redirected to the relief effort and St Valentine’s world was held against the odds. A crusader force of space marines from a number of chapters now garrisons the shrine world along with a patchwork of PDF and Imperial Auxillia forces, slowly pushing back against the Ork menace, but never quite purging them fully from the planet. The ongoing turmoil has allowed various heretical and xenos cults to flourish, and rebellious factions to foment…

The Inquisition’s eye was beginning to turn towards St. Valentine’s World even before the sign of even greater calamity to come. The entire astropathic choir of St. Valentine’s World simultaneously broadcast at full power, likely burning out and killing every single one of them, a message of impending doom for the planet and indeed the whole system. That it was spoken by human voices but in the ancient and eldritch tongue of the alien Eldar, made the event even more alarming. Ordo Xenos archeolinguistic technicians poured over possible translations for many hours before presenting the following transcription to their Ordo masters:

 

“As the echoes of the scream of it’s birth carry across on the tides of the great sea of souls so the Gate of Krynn shall shake. Where once there were three but now are two, there shall be three again, the keys will align and the Gate of Krynn shall open.” 

The enigmatic meaning of the message, and whether such obvious xenos heresy should just be purged from the record and ignored, was still being debated years later when dawn broke over the primary shrine fortress of St Valentine’s World and the pale red light of the local star illuminated a third moon hanging in the sky when previously there were two, fixed in their orbits so that one was always bathing in the light of the star, the other lying forever in darkness in the planet’s shadow. This new moon, a dusky rose red in the early morning light was immediately seen as a harbinger of doom by the local population. They were not wrong… 

The third, alien moon began to have a catastrophic effect on the other two moons and the planet below. Shifted from the previously stable positions the moons accelerated into increasingly erratic orbits and satellites, defence platforms and docking stations were smashed to pieces or thrown adrift into the void. Worse still was happening on, and to, the planet below. Tides changed, the ground shook and buildings crumbled as tectonic plates shifted apart and crunched together under the unexpected gravitational pressures. St Valentine’s World was tearing itself apart!

The planet in turmoil, the remaining Orks rising up in new offensives, Imperial command falters and fragments. It was almost inevitable that the various sects and cults would choose this moment to rise up and add to the growing chaos. Most mysteriously of all, reports of the Eldar started filtering back from outposts and patrols of sightings of great caravans of Eldar and their strange, too tall walkers and floating vehicles traversing the rad-wastes and passing through destroyed and deserted settlements at what seemed like funerary pace, only pausing in their journey to defend against any human or Ork obstruction. 

Enter the Inquisition then, to this strange theatre of war, bringing with them their agents and allies of choice to deal with such a pronounced moral threat. Their retribution for such a monstrous act by the hated xenos Eldar as the destruction of Imperial shrine world would be terrible to behold. 

The stage was set for the St Valentine's World Massacre!