Battle for Farport system

The battle for Farport was not just fought on the ground and in the atmosphere of the planet. In the Farport system itself, no less than five battle fleets took part in a conflict almost as deadly as the one on the ground.

The Chaos fleet comprised of a large force of around twelve capital ships. Just under half belonged to the Night Lords under Raziel, but the greater proportion belonged to a chaos admiral nto previously encountered in the Aleph sector, and intelligence would not find out the identity of the admiral and his ships until after the war was over.

The forces of chaos were already around the farport planet when the first Imperial fleet arrived. The Imperium's forces comprised of three fleets, numerically superior to the chaos ships, but lacking any overall command. The Dark Angels, Adeptus Mechanicus and Imperial Navy fleets would all engage the chaos vessels separately, though they did manage to work together enough to avoid being picked off one by one by the larger chaos fleet.

The Dark Angels and Adeptus Mechanicus fleets arrived at roughly the same time and made straight for the planet. The latter slowed, waiting for the arrival of the Imperial fleet, allowing the Dark Angels to move in to do what they could to halt the invasion. Aware that the Imperial fleet was also due to make an appearance the chaos commanders decided to engage the first two fleets on roughly equal terms, splitting their fleet, in order to combine once more when Jellicoe's ships arrived. So long as they defeated the two inbound fleets, the victory in the final battle would be assured.