It is the 40th Millennium.

For more than eighty-eight centuries, the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Terra. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.

Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor’s will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: The Imperial Guard and countless planetary defense forces, the ever vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants – and worse.

To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold trillions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim darkness of the far future there is only war.

Kalari is burning.

Imperial Governor Frim du Garaal has been accused of dissenting the Imperium of Man and has made wake for Valhulios, sector capital of Belgrani to renew his allegiance to the God-Emperor. In what expanded from a spat amongst the noble houses of Kalari to a globe-spanning conflict, Houses de Chalaal and Balthiafev openly declare succession to the title of Imperial Commander and the control of the planet’s output of Baneblade super-heavy tanks. Regiments of the Kalari Guards fall on all sides, ignorant of the true successor and simply following the orders of their commanding officers in order to secure a future of loyalty to Terra.

This is the chronicle of 213th Kalari Guards Regiment of Foot. In defense of the planetary capital Hive Romborn, the 213th prepare for a gruesome assault upon the hive from forces loyal to House Balthiafev to the East and Northeast of the outlying regions of the hive. BB034-Pattern Baneblades roll off the tracks of the assembly lanes deep within the hive center with crews ready to pilot the massive vehicles into position to repel the assault. With void travel halted and surface supply disrupted, materials are due to run out soon and the tithe of the planet will surely be expected despite the civil war.