The icon of the Astra Militarum
Lord General Bulledin was one of the senior Imperial military commanders who served under both Warmasters Slaydo and Macaroth during the Sabbat Worlds Crusade.
History[]
Lord General Bulledin was a senior ranking and well-regarded Imperial Guard general officer who served during the Sabbat Worlds Crusade and was instrumental in achieving several key victories during multiple campaigns. During the outset of the Crusade when the Imperial forces began Operation Newfound, Bulledin was present at the First Battle of Sverrin (757-758.M41). This world was held in the fierce grip of the Forces of Chaos who defended it with great tenacity. General Bulledin led an Imperial Guard force that assaulted the planet in 757.M41, routing the enemy forces and killing Magister Kuvelo in the initial landings. Circumstances quickly changed when the weather turned wet and the Imperial ground forces found themselves bogged down in the soft mud. Braving the inclement weather Bulledin drove his forces towards the city of Rammery, despite the Archenemy forces attempts to bog down their thrust forwards. Bulledin's forces encircled the city, which soon fell after a short siege.
Nefr City proved to be much more difficult to subdue, as Bulledin lost 3,000 soldiers in return for only 2 kilometres of blood-soaked territory. Bulledin offered his resignation to Warmaster Slaydo for this calamitous failure, but it was refused. Slaydo sent back a simple despatch which read, "Do it again." Taking the Warmaster's orders to heart, Bulledin tried again and finally, on the 241st day of 758.M41, his forces and a single Warlord-class Titan managed to overrun the walls of Nefr City, storm the Upper Palace, and kill the Magister's second-in-command, Pater Bucher, when he resisted capture.
In 760.M41, a fierce and bloody counterstrike ripped into the middle of the Crusade's advancing line. Led by the leader of the Forces of Chaos in the Sabbat Worlds, the Archon Nadzybar himself, the world of Sverren once again fell to the forces of the Archenemy. General Bulledin soon found himself in command of the Imperial forces on Sverren, as he had the most experience after leading the ground war on that contested world two years earlier. His fierce determination was instrumental in preserving the declining morale of Imperial forces, and he refused to let the cursed world defeat him twice. When relief convoys of Imperial troops arrived in 761.M41, they determined that the beleaguered general and his men had been fighting a war on two fronts, resisting both the Magister Sholen Skara and the hosts of Archon Nadzybar himself. The Chaotic forces were eventually driven into the tropical jungles of the Southern Continent of Sverren and were finally defeated after 16 intense months of fighting.
During the Imperial assault on the Chaos-held world of Balhaut in 765.M41, Warmaster Slaydo died of mortal wounds received after facing and slaying Archon Nadzybar in personal combat. Before finally expiring, he appointed Marshal Macaroth as his rightful successor and the new Warmaster of the Crusade. During Macaroth's push into the Cabal System, General Bulledin found himself in command of the Crusade's 2nd Army. He was directed to move forward spinward of the main Crusade fleet to protect the line of Imperial reinforcements via the world of Urdesh.
On Khan III, Lord General Bulledin found himself pitted against the forces of Magister Shebol Red-Hand, a notorious Chaotic warlord who left a trail of burning worlds in his savage wake. Fortunately for the Imperium, Red-Hand lacked organisation and discipline, a fact that Bulledin would take full advantage of when their forces clashed. Supported by two separate armoured brigades, Bulledin forced an opening in the Magister's lines, then sent companies of infantry from two Imperial Guard regiments to flank Red-Hand's forces. Panicking, the Magister drew his forces closer to him. A heavy tank battle ensued, and Bulledin quickly pressed in with three battalions of troopers with Titan support. Magister Shebol fled to the highlands of Khan III and found himself surrounded by an armoured brigade commanded by Bulledin himself. Though allegorical tales tell of how Bulledin met and slew Shebol in personal combat, many regard these tales as speculation and hearsay. What matters is that the vile Magister met his ultimate fate upon that high ground and was slain. Though Bulledin had achieved a major victory, enemy forces would continue to harass the forces of the Imperium for the next 22 months of intense fighting. Later, the Warmaster Macaroth placed Bulledin in overall command of the Monthax Theatre.
It is known that Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt held the Lord General in high regard despite the fact that Bulledin had ordered the Inquisition to interrogate his adjutant as a suspected psyker.
Sources[]
- Gaunt's Ghosts (Novel Series) by Dan Abnett
- Sabbat Worlds Crusade (Background Book) by Dan Abnett