Sunday, October 07, 2012

Tyranteous: Stalemate on Hollyden

By the start of 10.012M42 the heretical rebels on Tyranteous had been pushed back to the city limits of Hollydale thanks to repeated assaults by various astartes chapters. However very soon these marine companies began pulling out, starting with the Blood Martyrs on 3009.012M42, so that by 0710.012M42 the bulk of the besiegers of Hollydale were Imperial Guard units.

Inquisitor Hathek was confident that a few "exposures" to daemonic entities would be tolerable for the non-astartes units on Tyranteous, and that they would only need a "few" encounters with the daemons to remove the chaos taint from the planet. However on 0910.012M42, the largest daemon incursion yet occurred, smashing into a force of Corellian Storm Guard who had recently deployed on the world.

The Corellians had returned to the Aleph sector in 09.012M42, and Lord General Roover had dispersed them mainly under General Veers in the Perseus Deeps, but several regiments had been assigned to Brooke in the Zadoc Subsector. One regiment was deployed on Tyranteous to back up the forces there, but it was unprepared for the ferocity of the daemonic assault which it faced. The imperial forces tried to take up defensive positions, and the imperial navy was called in to provide air strikes, but by 1010.012M42 the imperial line had broken along a thirty mile section of the front, and cultists from Hollydale were pouring through the gao, threatening to cut off the Corellians and retake Holleyden.

Fortunately the Spaec Wolves of Erik Morkai were on hand to deal a counter blow. The Space Wolves had been using Tyranteous as a stopping off point in their assaults in the Mabb Nebula, and now the Claws of Lorek were implicated in the daemonic uprising on the agri-world, the astartes chapter increased their presence there. On 1210.012M42 the Space Wolves dropped from orbit while charging across land from Fernal Crossing. After vicious fighting they secured a corridor through which the Corellians were able to retreat, and then set about hunting down the daemons. Within hours the daemonhost had been obliterated back to the warp and the imperial cordon around Hollydale restored. General Brooke, now in overall command of the Zadoc subsector, was unhappy that once again the Space Marines had rescued the situtation, and promptly sacked the overall commander on the ground.

His replacement was Lord General Mikell Denham, once commander of the entire sector and originally Brooke's superior. Now the roles were reversed, and Denham was aware that failure to quickly remedy the situation on Tyranteous would be the end of his career.

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