Warhammer 40K: Warzone Charadon Campaign Surprises
Warzone Charadon has a full detailed Chaos vs Adeptus Mechanicus campaign. Here’s what caught our eye!
Warzone Charadon is hitting the shelves this weekend. We have already been talking about what it means for the game itself with its new 9th Edition Detachments, but there is a lot more than that inside its covers. First, take a look at our video overview of the book to get acquainted:
The Campaign
Fundamentally this book is an opening chapter (ACT 1) in a much larger campaign set in the Charadon Sub-sector – located in the vicinity of Ultramar, to the galactic east. The entire campaign is focused on Typhus leading a Chaos invasion of the Forge World of Metalica. Here’s the map of the Charadon sector with its two key sub-sectors: Obolis & Lirac. Note Metalica up in the north sub-sector.
The campaign begins with series of dire portents (they are grim and dark) all ignored by the Imperial authorities, followed by a typical multi-pronged invasion by a dastardly and quite competent Typhus. The main folks facing off here are:
Typhus The Traveller – Chaos You know him, you love him.
Fabricator-General Khleng – Metallica A super-heavy-sized ruler of the Metalica with almost no biological bits left, and supremely confident in his mechanical realm. You just know how he’s going to take things as the campaign rolls on.
Along the way we get many, many, many lieutenants, underlings, and callouts. Most of these are utterly forgettable, but there are some great callouts:
Savlar (Chem-Dog) Reigments of the Astra Militarum
Traitor Guard – formally named “Traitoris Militarum” (hint, hint)
Ork Freebooterz – just flying around causing trouble for all sides – like a proper Orky pirate should!
Dark Mechanicus – several mentions of these from individuals up to cohorts causing all kinds of techno-warp problems for their loyal counterparts. They have a particular rust based warp-contagion they are planning to release into the all-metal Forge World.
Balequeen Lathfyr the Drowned – Princeps Senioris of Legio Moribundus – A nightmare apparition floating in her titan’s amniotic command tank – creepy, but sadly no art!
Rotigus Rainfather – Leading a Nurgle daemonic invasion of a waterworld (where those Ad-Mech hovercraft transports turn out to be very handy)! Apparently, Rotigus is attended by a bodyguard of Great Unclean Ones.
Skitari Marshals – gotta get in some mentions of the new guys!
Standout Events
We get to see what Miasmic Malignifiers actually do. Typhus seeds an entire world (St.Bartolph’s Throne) with untold numbers of the infernal devices which … collapse the entire world into a festering Nurgle warpgate in free space.
This gate “The Sore” is of course a handy way straight into the Metalica system for Typhus fleet, sidestepping Fabricator-General’s Khengs perfectly planned sub-sector defenses.
We get to see an underground war between Alpha Legion / World Bearers cultists and a Genestealer Cult saying … “wait, wait, wait, we were here first!” The climax of that sideshow being the Patriarch getting beat up and captured by a Keeper of Secrets who has plans for it… ewww.
We also get to see conflict described at all scales. Of course, we get the typical “Warhammer 40K” scaled battle descriptions, but we also get some more personal struggles that would play out just fine in Kill Team, all the way up to Titan vs Titan face-offs between Legio Moribundus (see the Balequeen above) and the Iron Skulls Legio from Metalica. I’m sure this is a campaign that is designed to plant seeds for 40K fans no matter what game they play.
The Conclusion
This is an opening chapter, so we end with Typhus outsmarting the Fabricator General and the invasion of Metalica about to begin. For an introductory volume, it is fitting. The mighty Astartes are a sideshow – but I fully expect them to show up in greater numbers in future chapters. All in all The Book of Rust feels like a slimmer and trimmer version of Vigilus Volume I, setting up the main event, and teeing up a cliffhanger.
We will have to wait to see just how many volumes the campaign spans and how many 40K armies are going to get Detachments out of it before the end.
