Franke-7 Atlas

I decided to map out the world that Peter and I had been playing on.  I've published some battle reports, close to half a dozen or so now, on various Facebook Group pages and the narrative settled around an isolated and abandoned Imperial world designated as Franke-7.



Dotted with automated Promethium refineries and storage tanks, this world was covered in ash from the many battles fought there in antiquity.  What is known is that several decades ago orks landed there and easily subjugated the human population.  The Planetary Defense Force lasted for a time but was eventually surrounded and overrun in an apocalyptic combat.

Yet the population of this planet was far lower than it should have been when the orks arrived.  Due to their depredations little of the information about that time period has survived.

Within the last year the enigmatic Eldar of the Biel-Tan Craftworld arrived near Haver's Fall.  Cutting directly for the capitol city of Retep, the Eldar engaged ork forces for several weeks.  Following the a warp inversion which swept Weirdboy Thunka-Rah and the Eldar Exarch, Kethil, the Eldar forces withdrew in order and departed the system.

Thunka-Rah was an enthusiastic and potentially very powerful psyker and it is theorized that the Eldar sought out conflict with this rising force in the ork ranks in order to prevent a future catastrophe for Biel-Tan.

The orks had been fighting each other prior to this intrusion.  The arrival of the Eldar galvanized the ork forces on Franke-7.  After the departure of the Eldar old rivalries were starting to reemerge just as Imperial forces arrived in the system in order to reestablish control of Franke-7.

The current levy of Imperial troops dedicated to retaking this system include:

The 8th Necromunda Regiment of the Imperial Guard
Elements of the following Space Marine Chapters:
-The Crimson Fists
-The Imperial Fists
-The Ultramarines
Agents of the Officio Assassinorum
Agents of the Inquisition

Planet fall was made west of Retep City and the Crimson Fists comprised the main elements of the landing.  Able to bring their hard earned experience of battling orks to bear, they were able to secure a landing zone and to take the northern city of Mero's Hold.  Subsequent to that, however, the orks have proven resourceful.  Almost a dozen veterans of the Crimson Fists 1st Company were killed, their geneseed and suits of Terminator armor lost.  Even the Ultramarines forces led ostensibly by Captain Quintus of the 2nd Company and supported by the mighty Chief Librarian Tigurius had great difficulty in engagements with the orks.  Tigurius took it upon himself to try to retrieve the lost treasures of the Crimson Fists but ultimately failed in this task.

Even as he quit the field he began to search the warp, wondering if the Eldar's arrival weeks earlier wasn't meant to prevent a catastrophe for the Eldar but instead to unite the warring ork factions just in time to oppose the Imperial forces.