The Failure at Gamma-Omega-2571D – Mordecai Primaris, 07.025.M42

By the high summer of 025.M42, the war on Mordecai Primaris had slowed to a grinding stalemate. The northern hemisphere of the daemon-tainted world endured the full force of its red dwarf sun, which hung in the skies for over sixteen hours a day, irradiating the surface and baking the already desolate wastelands in a merciless heat. Conditions were brutal, yet Imperial High Command pressed for continued advances, fearing that any pause would give Chaos time to reorganise and reinforce.

The most intense fighting during this period took place amidst the sprawling ruins of the northern hives, where shattered hab-blocks and collapsed manufactoria provided natural choke points and strongholds for the defenders. In 07.025.M42, General Kutuzov committed the Aleph Wardens Mechanised Regiment to spearhead an assault on the ruined district of Gamma-Omega-2571D, a key sector whose control would have opened up new approaches towards the hive sprawls further north.

The Aleph Wardens, veterans of numerous campaigns across the Aleph Sector, deployed in strength. Their Chimeras and Leman Russ tanks advanced under heavy covering fire, their armour shielding them from the intense heat and radiation. However, their progress soon ground to a halt. Waiting for them in the shattered cityscape were the Death Guard, entrenched in the ruins with their usual doggedness. The corrupted legionnaires showed no signs of fatigue under the blistering sun, their rotting ceramite plate impervious to both the climate and much of the Guard’s firepower.

Worse still were the Death Guard Terminators, whose relentless counter-attacks and brutal close-range firepower repeatedly shattered the Imperial spearheads. The terrain of Gamma-Omega-2571D favoured the traitor elite; narrow avenues and crumbling ruins denied the Wardens the manoeuvrability of their armour, forcing them into grinding, attritional combat for which they were ill-suited.

Despite repeated attempts, the Imperial mechanised formations could make no meaningful progress. Casualties mounted, with dozens of tanks destroyed in ambushes or bogged down and abandoned in the rubble. Infantry losses were even higher, whole companies reduced to nothing in close-quarter battles against plague-ridden warriors who simply refused to die.

By the closing days of 07.025.M42, the assault was called off. The Aleph Wardens had suffered crippling casualties, losing a substantial portion of both men and materiel, while the ruins of Gamma-Omega-2571D remained firmly in Chaos hands. The effort had achieved nothing, save to demonstrate once again the immovable resilience of the Death Guard when entrenched in their chosen ground.

For Kutuzov, the failure at Gamma-Omega was a sobering reminder: while momentum had been with the Imperium earlier in the year, the path to total victory on Mordecai would be long and costly. Every ruined sector, every ash-choked hive, would have to be paid for in the blood and armour of the Astra Militarum.