The Imperial Navy

The Imperial Navy is the void-arm of the Imperium, a sprawling apparatus of battleships, cruisers, and escort squadrons that spans the galaxy in defiance of the warp's madness. Held apart from the ground armies by ancient decree, so that no single commander might turn fleet and legion together against Terra, its admirals answer to the Segmentum Lords and to the High Lords beyond them. Its warships are cathedrals of iron, kilometres long, their prows crowned with lance batteries and their bellies gorged with plasma and shell.

Where the Astra Militarum marches to war, the Navy carries it there, and no invasion is possible without its escort. Its gun-decks are worked by press-ganged multitudes who will never again see sky, chained to their labours until death takes them. Above them, officers of ancient dynastic houses vie for glory and command, their feuds as deadly as any xenos foe.

The Navy's charge is nothing less than the void itself. It guards the Cadian Gates and the approaches to Holy Terra, hunts the raiders of the Aeldari and the greenskin, and answers the coming of the Great Devourer with fire. Yet the darkness between stars is vast beyond reckoning, and for every battlefleet on station a thousand approaches lie unwatched, waiting for the enemy to come.