The Arks of Omen series has finally drawn to a close with Arks of Omen: The Lion. The Primarch of the Dark Angels returned, Vashtorr the Arkifane’s plan reached its apex, and one of the most unbelievable battles of the era unfolded with consequences that will resound throughout the galaxy.
A lot happened, to say the least. But don’t worry if you didn’t manage to pick up your own copy of Arks of Omen: The Lion – Warhammer Community is here to make sure you don’t miss the biggest story beats.*
Spoiler Warning! If you don’t want to know how the Arks of Omen saga reached its epic conclusion, look away now.
Following Vashtorr’s failed assault on the Rock, the Dark Angels pried as much information as they could from captured traitors and Arkifane cultists. After days of interrogation, as if by some unseen trigger, every surviving prisoner suddenly surrendered the precise location where the Arkifane was collecting his Key-fragments – a remote system at the fringe of the Somnium Stars.
The convenient arrival of this answer would have prompted questions in any Chapter, let alone the acutely suspicious Dark Angels – but they were determined to act nonetheless. Before long, the might of the Unforgiven had assembled at the Rock. The Dark Angels were joined by the Angels of Absolution, the Consecrators, the Cowled Wardens, the Angels of Redemption, the Blades of Vengeance, and more, mustering their forces into an armada of immense strength set on a course for Vashtorr’s lair.
Though they expected a trap, none were prepared for what awaited them. As the fleet translated from the warp, they were confronted by a grotesque simulacrum of a planet, its crust riddled with cogs and chimneys, its surface covered in twisted iron forests and the signs of Vashtorr’s dark industry. The cogitators asserted that the planet before them was no fake – and was in fact one the Dark Angels should know well.
Hanging in the void, assembled from a thousand rocky fragments, held together by sorcery and artifice, was Caliban.
Seized by a profound spiritual outrage, Grand Master Azrael ordered his ships into the attack. His heart burned with the desire to rebuke such a flagrant taunt. Yet even as the Unforgiven prepared to launch themselves toward the twisted world, a new Chaos fleet approached from the glare of the system’s star. At its core, unmistakable amid a hundred other traitor ships, was the Vengeful Spirit – the flagship of Abaddon the Despoiler.
Assault craft rained down through the skies of Caliban – now named Wyrmwood by its profane master. Azrael had joined the attack personally, as his strike forces targeted elements of the planet’s defence batteries so the Rock could pull closer for a fatal Exterminatus-class bombardment. Auspex scans suggested Vashtorr himself could be found deep within a nearby maze of industrial horror, a place they designated the Warpforge Palace.
The Master of the Dark Angels pressed the attack, battering his way through Heretic Astartes and tech-twisted hordes beyond count. For hours, the ground forces battled legions of Vashtorr’s cultists, while in orbit the Unforgiven fleet clashed with Abaddon and the Ark of Omen Orac Myriad. Finally, Azrael and his forces broke through to the palace, finding themselves in a great complex of ancient towers dwarfed by a single colossal altar, hewn from beaten brass.
Before the Dark Angels could strike a blow, the altar exploded in a wave of blood, screams, and warp energy. Where once an assemblage of praying cultists had huddled, now stood Angron, Daemon Primarch of Khorne, who bore down on Azrael’s forces. Even for one as steeled to fear as a Space Marine, the sight was enough to cut a primal dread through their hearts.
In that same moment, new warp signatures appeared at the edge of the system, powering towards the battle raging above the planet. Despite their skill and fury, the Unforgiven were slowly being torn apart by Abaddon’s millennia of experience, and these new heretic reinforcements could not bode well – but then the choral beacons from the newcomers rang out. It was the Blood Angels, flanked by elements of the Imperial Navy.
How had the Blood Angels known about the Dark Angels’ operation, kept secret only to their own? All doubts turned to silence when Commander Dante announced that he was not alone – aboard his vessel was Lion El’Jonson himself, returned from the mists of time. Setting his fleet on an interception course with the battle, Dante prepared to join the war on Wyrmwood and come face-to-face with the Red Angel.
Even as Angron slaughtered his way through the Unforgiven, blood-red drop pods hurtled to planetfall and golden-armoured Space Marines tackled the maddened Primarch. Atop a tower strewn with the dead and dying, Angron fought Dante and his Sanguinary Guard in a titanic brawl, one that even the cream of the Blood Angels could not endure. None could stand before the Red Angel and live.
Save one.
As heroic as his effort had been, Commander Dante lay battered and motionless, with Angron poised to finally finish off the ancient Space Marine. That is, until a blazing golden shield intercepted his blow – from mist-wreathed passageways to a swirling, spectral forest, Lion El’Jonson emerged to defend the man who had reunited him with his sons.
As Dark Angels and Blood Angels rallied to throw back the World Eaters and defend the fallen Dante, a duel of epic proportions ensued. Angron fought like a howling, monstrous god, hurling battle tanks like stones and battering his brother with blows that would have pulverised mortal men, turned aside time and again only by the indestructible Emperor’s Shield.
Yet in the depths of Wyrmwood, the twisted forest of tangled machinery that had once been his home, the Lion earned the upper hand. With all the hunter’s cunning of a Knight of Caliban, aided by the strange new spectral abilities that had accompanied him out of death’s embrace, the Lion trapped Angron for the instant he needed. Without a shred of remorse for the creature that had once been his brother, he raised the Emperor’s Shield and smashed it through the Daemon Primarch’s skull, casting him back to the warp.
But despite vanquishing Angron, the Imperial forces could not claim victory in the land war, and were forced to fight a retreat back to their ships. Vashtorr was nowhere to be seen. While the armies and fleets busied themselves with merciless slaughter, the Arkifane had wormed his way inside the Rock’s systems until he came face to face with the Tuchulcha Engine – an ancient warp device possessed of its own alien intelligence and agenda.
Vashtorr’s drive for the Rock had left the Orac Myriad in a precarious position, but even as the Ark of Omen died under the guns of furious loyalists, the Arkifane spirited his prize away to his sanctum on Wyrmwood. His Key was now complete, and even as the Unforgiven sought vengeance on the surface, the planet itself began to buck and roil.
Battling their way to their landing zones, the Dark Angels evacuated the planet, not a moment too soon. Vashtorr’s Dissonance Engine had awoken, and energies beyond the ken of mortal minds bloomed from the planet’s surface. Slowly, reality began to twist around the daemon world until finally it broke, tearing a rent in the fabric of space that coalesced into a raging whirl of otherworldly power.
With a flash, Wyrmwood was swallowed into a maelstrom of silver light – taking with it Vashtorr and the battered traitor fleet. In its wake was left only an eerie, semi-visible wound in the fabric of space, appalling to behold. The Key had been forged. Now, its master hunted for the Lock.
A Primarch had returned, and Angron had been banished for a time – but Vashtorr and Abaddon had undoubtedly won a great victory. Their dark designs had come to fruition, and tremendous losses had been suffered by the Unforgiven Chapters, some of which may never truly recover. Even now, none can say what lies in store for the Imperium, or how the surviving Arks of Omen will react with their mission completed and their architect vanished.
This has been just a quick overview of the incredible lore from Arks of Omen V: The Lion – make sure you pick up your copy to find out all the details!
For now, our attention must turn to the other side of the galaxy, where Hive Fleet Leviathan threatens to consume vast swaths of the Imperium at the dawn of the new edition of Warhammer 40,000. Stay tuned to Warhammer Community for more news as it happens, and don’t forget to tune in this weekend for our in-depth coverage of Warhammer Fest 2023.
* We’re going to skim over quite a bit – if you have the chance to read the book, we recommend it!