Altid Crusade

The Altid Crusade was a decade-long punitive crusade that the bellicose Imperius Ravagers Space Marine Chapter took part in from 299-309.M38. Through the use of strategically brilliant tactics and precision decapitation strikes against heavily-populated cities, they quickly garnered an infamous and bloody-handed reputation as a Chapter of ill-repute.

History
Six decades after taking part in the Belrath Crusade, the Imperius Ravagers had finally build up their Chapter's numbers to an acceptable level. They immediately volunteered to take part in the recently declared Altid Crusade, an Imperial campaign to take back the rebellious Altid Sector which had rejected the rule of Terra decades before and declared independence from the Imperium. The Imperius Ravagers' Chapter fleet launched a bloody war of retribution upon one recalcitrant world after the other, using the same tactics upon each.

Hailing from the outer darkness, the Imperius Ravagers would fall upon an unsuspecting world by launching a lightning assault, destroying the planet's pitiful orbital defences. Then they would enact a ruthless bombardment of the planet from low orbit and immediately commenced preparations for a ground assault. Then came the bellicose Imperius Ravagers to enact their bloody judgement. Any resistance was swiftly obliterated as entire cohorts of planetary militia and their overseers were crushed beneath the Imperius Ravagers' unrelenting assault. Seats of government were blasted to rubble and those of power that had aided the secessionists or sided with their cause were methodically hunted down and executed.

As a final warning, the Imperius Ravagers would then launch orbital strikes upon the most densely populated cities of the planet, passing sentence upon both the secessionists and those who had knelt before them. There were no 'innocent bystanders', no civilians to be given quarter, only loyalists and traitors - to the death. The full roll taken by this independent Astartes battlegroup is impossible to collate. Nevertheless, the fragmented account of almost a dozen separate battles are extant in the scattered records of this era, and soon the name of this notorious Chapter became a byword for destruction and ruthlessness.