Pale Wasting
Attacker	Novamarines
Defender	Unknown
System	Unknown
Sector	Ghoul Stars
Segmentum	Ultima Segmentum

During the dark and terrible times known to later historians as the Nova Terra Interregnum, when the Imperium fractured into warrior factions during the 34th Millennium, there exist in what records remain from this era scattered and veiled references to a great threat arising from the Ghoul Stars known as the Pale Wasting. Much of the extant evidence relating to this threat has been censored or purposely destroyed, but there are contradictory indications which describe the nature of the threat as both a "Star-spawned plague" that swept away scores of worlds and as "Nightmare engines" slaughtering the populations of whole sectors. The Novamarines Space Marine Chapter took part in the campaign to quell the threat of the Pale Wasting, and though this is one of the Chapter's earliest recorded battle honours, the Chapter's own chronicles are curiously empty of any reference to this conflict. Stationed beyond the frontiers of the Imperium, the Death Spectres Space Marine Chapter currently maintains a constant vigil to ensure that the inhabitants of the Ghoul Stars never again threaten the galaxy.

Sources

• Codex: Space Marines (5th Edition), p. 26
• Imperial Armour Volume Nine - The Badab War, Part One - pp. 76, 118