#badab

Horus Heresy: On one hand they had a full nine legions of the God-Emperor's Angels of Death. On the other hand, they only even came close to succeeding because of the Istvaan Dropsite Massacre and the Ruin Storm, neither of which would work on the others.

War of the Beast: The Krorks are basically unfallen Orks, the Orks that lived during the War in Heaven. They were from before the Immaterium became the Warp. They were also a complete failure to write a coordinated story, so who knows what they could actually accomplish. Other than the fact they combined a Super-Duper Warboss with a Super-Duper Wyrdboy. They could probably ignore warp storms.

Siege of Vraks: This was kept going by bureaucratic incompetence, which the Imperium has an abundance of.

War for Armageddon: Everyone was fighting everyone. It would only take an extremely small change to completely change how things unfolded.

Badab: Badab was defeated by the shear inevitability of plot. The only way the Imperium could defeat Badab was by... completely retconning everything about Badab. This could only be done by a villainous pact with the ruinous powers. The Tyrant's ultimate discipline was turned into buffoonish villainy.

The Badab War was an internal conflict within the Imperium between 901-912.M41 that led to tremendous casualties and, ultimately, the loss of a Space Marine chapter to Chaos.

The conflict began when Lufgt Huron, Chapter Master of the Astral Claws, began refusing to send tithes from worlds under his control to the Administratum. He also refused to send some of the chapter's gene-seed to Terra for purity checks. The Astral Claws were, along with the Lamenters and Mantis Warriors, tasked with defending Imperial space around a large Warp storm, the Maelstrom, and were frustrated with the glacial movement of the Imperial bureaucracy and the demands of merchants in neighboring sectors who coveted the valuable minerals and other resources on the worlds under the chapters' control. When a tithe fleet sent to collect the Emperor's due was destroyed under unclear circumstances, the three chapters issued articles of secession, saying they would remain loyal to the Imperium and continue to patrol space around the Maelstrom, but that they were sovereign and independent from other institutions.

Eventually, the Fire Hawks chapter attempted to intervene against the secessionists and were fired upon. The Marines Errant later joined them, but initially, the secessionists held their ground. Gradually, more and more loyalist chapters arrived to end the crisis: the Red Scorpion, Raptors, Salamanders, Fire Angels, Novamarines, Howling Griffons, Sons of Medusa, Exorcists, Minotaurs, Star Phantoms, and Carcharodons. The deployment of particularly brutal chapters such as the Sons of Medusa, Minotaurs, and Carcharodons were instrumental in turning the tide to the loyalists.

Ash and Bone

Provisionally identified as a combat squad belonging to one of the Star Phantoms’ Battle Companies, this unidentified kill team is known to have participated in the assault on the Palace of Thorns, though at what stage of the conflict these pict-captures were taken remains unknown. Scattered accounts place them in the accompaniment of the 9th Company’s Apothecary Novuther some time adjacent to the battle’s conclusion, though by the nature of the scattered withdrawal from the dying planet, little substantial evidence remains.

By Chainblade and Carnifex

Assigned to one of several strike forces participating in the apocalyptic assault on the Palace of Thorns, Apothecary Novuther was attached to Zhrukal Androcles’ squadron in the dying hours of the Badab War. Though he parted ways with the good Captain to head a separate squad of Star Phantoms breaching teams as the drop strike came to its climax, ironically this would come to save the healer - distanced as he was from the final battle of the throne room, and the 9th Company Captain’s dying blow upon the Tyrant of Badab.