With a slight forewarning from his adjutant Brin Milo (and his 'excellent hearing'), the commander of the unit - Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt - is able to rouse his men into beating off an assault on their position and in fact repelling and counter-attacking the enemy. The Tanith First Imperial Guard regiment is embroiled in the last gasps of a bloody trench-war on the Forge world of Fortis Binary. With the aid of a hand-picked insertion squad, Cadet Gaunt succeeds in his mission, but is discomfited by the words of a captured enemy witch, who appears to utter a prediction to him of his future. Twenty years before, Cadet-Commissar Ibram Gaunt is tasked with leading the final assault on a rebel fortification upon the world of Darendara victory in this assault would mean victory in the campaign.

In the contested Sabbat Worlds sector, two Imperial Faustus-class patrol interceptors are destroyed, but not before relaying a mysterious 'Vermillion'-level astropathic message. Interspersed with this story are flashbacks to almost two decades earlier, which have a profound impact on the events of the present day. Gaunt also faces the machinations of Colonel Flense of the Jantine Patricians, who carries a long held grudge against the Commissar. The Ghosts later become involved in a plot by Lord High Militant General Dravere that has the potential to destroy the Sabbat Worlds Crusade. With enemies all around them and no one to trust, Gaunt and his men must find a way to save the warmaster and prevent the Sabbat Worlds Crusade from falling into anarchy – even if it means waging war on their supposed allies.įirst and Only begins on the Forge world of Fortis Binary, where Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt leads the Tanith First and Only in disrupting an important Chaos ritual.

Trapped in the grinding trench warfare of Fortis Binary, the Ghosts find themselves drawn into a conspiracy to assassinate the crusade’s leader, Warmaster Macaroth. And at the forefront of that crusade are Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt and the Tanith First and Only – better known as Gaunt’s Ghosts. Now, a mighty crusade seeks to return the sector to Imperial rule. For a thousand years, the Sabbat Worlds have been lost to the Imperium, claimed by the dread powers of Chaos.

The one and only book series