The Pale Forge

Like his namesake, the power of Moonface waxes and wanes. The Imperium counted themselves fortunate that the Catechism had not been seen in great force for a long time. This ended on 0502.012M42 when guard forces encountered tank regiments arrayed against them on Mordercai Tersisus. The Imperial advance halted and General Van Dorn demanded to know where these armoured legions had come from.

A worrying answer from a report by the Adeptus Psykanum. One unfortunate scryer of their order had opened his mind to the warp just as Moonface's tanks were transported onto the battlefield using the mysterious device. The scryer's fevered ravings were hard to comprehend, but in his more lucid state he reported a great forge, as pale as death, in which imperial war engines are constructed in a mockery of the Adeptus Mechanicus' factorums. Thousands of men go willing to their deaths in the forge, all the time chanting the catechism of Moonface. As they are slaughtered their souls are allowed no release and are instead bound into the tanks themselves.

All over the sector reports are arriving of the ghostly pale war machines lumbering across warzones, spreading terror into the hearts of good Imperial men. Supported by local troopers swayed to the cause of Moonface, the tanks and titans march on, crewed only by screaming souls.