Shadow Wars

This article is about the Loyalist guerrilla actions; for the World Eaters/Word Bearers actions post-Battle of Calth, see Shadow Crusade.

This article is about the Heresy-era battles; for the Inquisition campaign, see Shadow War.

The Shadow Wars refers to a series of small-scale and clandestine conflicts during the Horus Heresy.

Overview

As the main battles of the Heresy waged, the Shadow Wars were fought largely unseen. The Shadow Wars were not fought by conventional Space Marine Legion fighting units. Rather, they were fought entirely apart from any structured authority or grand strategy. Most of the loyalist forces in the Shadow Wars were ad hoc and secretive forces, such as surviving bands of Astartes from the Shattered Legions, the Knights-Errant, and Blackshield warbands. Over the course of the Heresy, these small irregular units undertook thousands of separate engagements against the traitors loyal to Warmaster Horus.^[1]

Notable Actions of the Shadow Wars

• The missions of the Knights-Errant
• The missions of the Sisypheum
• The Tenebrae Mission
• The Traoris Raid
• The Battle of Ravendelve
• The artificial famine of the Isessos System
• The Officio Assassinorum Execution Force under Eristede Kell attempt to assassinate Horus on Dagonet
• The campaigns of the Dark Brotherhood
• The Perditum Incursion^[3a]
• The Xana Incursion
• The Battle of Arissak
• The Battle of Dwell
• The Sangraal Campaign
• The Battle of Nyrcon
• The Malagant Conflict
• The Battle of the Aragna Chain
• The Destruction of the Arca Silentus^[3b]
• The Battle for Aegis
• The Battle for Honourum
• Campaign in the Quintillus Sector just outside of the Segmentum Solar — war raged there for over 6 years, and nearly all Legions were inevitably drawn, some in a great scale armies, some - only in small squads.^[2]

Sources

• 1: The Horus Heresy Book Six - Retribution, pgs. 13–21
• 2: Warhammer World (saved archive page, dated Aug 2016, last accessed 2 December 2018)
• 3: Campaigns of the Age of Darkness: The Martian Civil War
  • 3a: pg. 22
  • 3b: pg. 47