The Haven Campaign: Ork Counter-Offensive Reverses Imperial Gains

The long and grinding war for Haven, a battle-scarred world on the edge of the Rifts of Hecate, persisted into early 025M42 with no decisive resolution in sight. Locked in a brutal war of attrition between the Orks and the Imperium, the fighting across the planet’s single supercontinent had devolved into a nightmare of scattered trench lines, cratered battlefields, and perpetual offensives that rarely resulted in strategic breakthroughs.

Despite making modest gains in late 024M42, the forces under Crusade General Maximus remained chronically under-resourced. Compared to the major theatres of war in the Perseus Deeps, the Hadron Expanse continued to be treated by the Imperial High Command as a secondary front, a relative backwater even as the Tyranid threat steadily increased in the region.

Nevertheless, Maximus had managed to maintain a tenuous grip on two key bastions of Imperial presence in the region—Ergura’s Fall in the Hecate Gap, and the fortified zones on Haven itself. While Ergura’s Fall remained securely under Imperial control, the frontlines on Haven had long since settled into a grinding stalemate, with Imperial forces and Ork warbands locked in a seemingly endless cycle of attack and counter-attack.

In 03.025M42, the precarious balance on Haven was shattered when the Orks launched a massive offensive, throwing their full might against the Imperial trench networks and fortified positions. The Imperial Knights, long the backbone of Maximus’ defensive doctrine, were deployed in force to blunt the xenos onslaught. In the ensuing battle, many of these noble war machines were destroyed in brutal close-quarters fighting, as the Orks overwhelmed their positions with brute strength and sheer numbers.

With the Knights eliminated and reinforcements lacking, the Imperial lines collapsed, and the Orks were able to reclaim the hard-won territory lost in 024M42, undoing months of bloody campaigning in a matter of days. By the end of the offensive, the situation had largely reverted to the stagnant frontlines that had characterised the earlier years of the campaign.

The war on Haven had returned to a tense, static stalemate, with both sides heavily entrenched and exhausted from ceaseless combat. Though the Imperial crusade under General Maximus continued, it remained starved of resources, its efforts overshadowed by grander battles elsewhere in the sector. Yet Haven remained strategically vital, a foothold in the Rifts of Hecate, and a bastion that the Imperium could ill afford to lose.

For now, the world teetered on a knife edge, with neither side able to deliver a final blow. As 025M42 progressed, the question remained: would Haven remain a war of inches, or would some new force—be it Tyranid, Ork, or Imperial—shift the balance at last?