In early 10.016M42 the Perseus Deeps flared up once again into bloodshed. The Charnovokh Dynasty had arrived in the sector and had begun re-invigorating the necron empire in the Deeps. This the eldar of the Disciples of Y'nead could not tolerate, and they began their long slow campaign against the necrons once again, raiding the former ork world of "Zog" on 0210.016M42. The raid was over a key portion of the webway the eldar hoped to close off in order to prevent necron access to a number of eldar worlds, including Sentinel and Ares. After a long and bloody encounter, the eldar were successful, but at a grim cost in precious eldar lives.
Meanwhil Inquisitor Huron found some alarming signs of genestealer and tyranid activity in the Deeps. Fearing a return of Hive fleet Nemesis Huron dispatched agents, including Deathwatch marines to a number of uninhabited and remote outposts. On one world the tyranids were found, narrowly defeated in a lighting recon operation, giving the Deathwatch enough time to gather vital Bio-intel about the Xenos. Huron was able to confirm the Nemesis genetic markers and quietly informed key Inquisition agents. Nemesis had returned.
The Crusade attack, dubbed operation Sledgehammer came on 0110.016M42. Transported by the rag tag Crusade fleet, the usual element of surprise utilised by the Crusade was lost, as were the critical airborne capabilities of the Charcaradons and Minotaurs. Instead the Crusade landed in the desert, unopposed, then raced for their three key objectives.
The crusade had targetted the three main northern cities of Whitaker (the capital), Kaplinski and Wilhoughby. Taking these rapidly, the crusade reasoned, would quickly lead to the capitulation of loyalist resistance on the planet. To take the capital, the Cadian 9th regiment, supported by a small detachment of Grey Knights, would surround and cut off the city itself, which the crusade thought would be only weakly defended. Further west, the Cadians would be joined by the Sky Lords, in order to deliver a precision strike against the refineries of Kaplinksi, while in the east, Whiloughby was the target of the Vannaheim guard regiments.
The assault on Whitaker soon hit problems, with the Space Wolves and Ultramarines already in position to defend against an assault. The Space Wolves soon battered the initial Cadian thrusts into the city, and the arrival of the Ultramarines wrecked the Cadian equipment and quickly discouraged the Grey Knights from intervening by neutralising and capturing their initial recon forces. The Grey Knights, shocked by the astartes defending a supposedly seditious world, soon began to lose faith in Vorushko's crusade. The Cadians meanwhile followed their orders, but after the battle many Cadian survivors, especially officers, were handed over to Inquisitor Hathek's "re-education" units. By 0410.016M42 the crusade attack on Whitaker had been completely wiped out.
At Kaplinski, the Lycaon guard were ready and waiting for the crusade attack. First the Sky Lords' armoured push into the centre of the settlement was rapidly neutralised by overwhelming and frighteningly accurate firepower, supported by a particularly fired up Imperial Psyker. The Sky Lords took heavy casualties and lost all their vehicles as imperial artillery and tank fire took its toll. With no air support, the Sky Lords were pinned down and within 24 hours had begun to withdraw what little forces they had left. The Cadians, following up, soon faced the full might of the Lycaon forces, and despite being well equipped and highly mechanised, once again the Lycaon firepower had the desired effect, and the assault on Kaplinksi collapsed. The remaining Cadians surrendered to the loyalist forces, and Vorushko lost all the Cadian forces deployed on Libria I.
Willoughby, assaulted by the Vannaheim Guard, was similarly a disaster for the crusade, as despite making initial gains on the city, the Vannaheim soldiers could not do enough damage quickly enough against the numerically superior Novgorod forces. Again well entrenched artillery proved decisive, and the Vannaheim attack floundered. The crusade forces began an orderly retreat, as Vorushko ordered an evacuation, but a flanking attack from the Dark Angels delivered the coup-de-grace for the final crusade forces left on the planet. By 0610.016M42 the entire Libria II assault force had been wiped out, and the Crusade had lost nearly a third of its fighting force. In this one catastrophic invasion attempt, the Crusade found itself on the verge of collapse.
Following on from the failed attempt to secure Libria II Inquisitor Vorushko called a meeting of her Crusade council. The Raven Guard refused to attend, stating only that they did not want to participate in any actions which could lead to more conflict with their "brothers", referring to their battle against the Space Wolves chapter. However, Vorushko realised she badly needed to shore up her Astartes support for the crusade. It was clear now that Inquisitor Hathek and the loyalist faction had secured the ongoing support of the Ultramarines and Space Wolf chapters of space marines, and she had intercepted a worrying transmission which indicated the Dark Angels had similarly sent forces to the system.
Vorushko could count on the support of the Sky Lords, a young chapter keen to prove themselves in the service of the emperor, but the Minotaurs and Apocalypse riders had withdrawn without communication, and the Carcharadons had notified Vorushko that following their encounter with the Space Wolves, who they did not believe were traitors, the chapter would no longer be participating in the "crusade". This was now an internal Inquisitorial affair and had nothing to do with them.
Lacking such powerful Astartes support, Vorushko had managed to secure additional forces however. Upon her request, she had managed to add several regiments of Vannaheim and now Cadian guard to her armed forces, and a small detachment of Grey Knights, fearful (incorrectly) that the "insurgence" on Libria was chaotic in origin, had joined her side. With these new forces at her disposal, Vorushko decided to invade Libria II.
Libria II is a desert world with eight major large cities, dispersed around the planet at the sites of the best ore deposits. Marshall Zhukov of the Novgorod Guard was appointed in overall command of the defence of the world, and unbeknown to the crusade he recieved significant reinforcements prior to the invasion. For a start the Ultramarines and Space Wolves had agreed Vorushko was in the wrong, and that Libria needed to be defended from the crusade, even if that meant fighting their own astartes brethren. They had tried communicating with the crusade astartes, and this had yielded the removal of the Raven Guard, Carcharadons, Apocalypse Riders and Minotaurs, at least apparently. In addition to the astartes Zhukov was able to deploy Lycaon and Novgorod forces to many of the major cities, where he knew the crusade would attempt to land and launch lightning strikes. Then on the eve of the invasion, the Dark Angels arrived, pledging their support and declaring the Sky Lords a rogue chapter.
Libria II, although officially "neutral" in the Librian war between the crusade and loyalists, became a target for both sides in the second half of 016M42. The loyalists had lost Libria V and Libria I to the crusade, and had been forced off Libria III. Libria IV was beseiged by the alliance, so without Libria II, the loyalist cause was all but over in the system. Inquisitor Vorushko knew this too, and on 1509.016M42 landed a significant force of Raven Guard on the planet, and "visited" the imperial governor in Whittaker.
Realising this coup would effectively end the loyalists control of the Libria system, loyalist Inquisitor Hathek appealled for anyone holding to the Imperial creed to remove the illegitimate invaders from the world. The Space wolves responded, and in a savage assault obliterated the Raven Guard force encircling Whittaker and "freed" the imperial governor. By 0110.016M42 the world was staunchly loyalist, and Hathek appointed General Zhukov to defend the world from any who would stand against his vision of Imperial law. Vorushko began planning her next move.
For years the Necron threat had been contained on Corticant, at least according to the Imperium. In fact, the Harakhty Dynasty as a whole had been suffering problems with its reannimation protocols, and since 011.M42 their armies had been gradually falling back into hibernation. Realising the dire thresat to there empire, the lords of the dynasty went over to the defensive, and appealled to help from any necrons able and willing.
Meanwhile the alliance, having become bogged down on Libria IV thanks to the overwhelming numbers of the Imperial fleet, had for many months planned to cut the loyalist supply lines by attacking the space lanes linking Libria to the rest of the Imperium. One such lynchpin in this supply line was Corticant, and the imperial base was within striking range of Federal and tau forces based in the Perseus Deeps.
On 2209.016M42 a large alliance force landed on Corticant, made up of Skyfall's tau cadres and recent additions to the Federacy, Ultramarines from the time of the Horus Heresy who had once again fallen victim to the strange warp anomaly which had trapped first Haskell then Appollo's Iron Warriors. However the first contact made by the alliance was not with the Imperium at all. Insteads, while the imperial forces, alerted to the invasion, prepared for the alliance assault, the alliance were contacted by a strange alien emmisary.
The necrons had reinforcements, and after a long and tense negotiation both the alliance and necrons agreed that their common enemy was the imperial presence on Corticant. They could no agree however the terms of a settlement after the imperial forces had been defeated, and this forced both parts of the "coalition", to keep significant forces in reserve, watching each other. This would prove to be a significant problem as the assault on the Fort Bastion commenced.
In defence, General Veers, still in charge of the Perseus theatre but losing prestige following the loss of Minos, had regiments of the Lycaon, Volscian and Novgorod Guard. In addition a knight detachment significantly bolstered the imperial fighting ability, and as the coalition forces attacked the battle soon became a vicious firefight in front of the fort proper. Far from sitting behind their defences the imperium had come out to fight.
The battle continued for some time, but eventually imperial numbers told, and the coalition forces were unable to take key objectives. By 0110.016M42 the tau were in retreat, and the necrons abandoned their attempt to retake Corticant, for now. Frustrated the alliance similarly cancelled the invasion of Corticant, seeking alternative strategies to disrupt the war on Libria. The battle resulted in a badly needed win for the Loyalist Imperium.
Aleph Sector Background
The Aleph sector lies on the eastern edge of the galaxy in the Perseus spiral arm. It is in the Ultima segmentum and is close to the Tau empire. Until recently the sector was one of relative peace where Imperial citizens went about their daily lives earning a living and paying their taxes to the Emperor of Mankind on ancient Terra. Then war came. First it started sporadically with incursions by Chaos raiders and Ork pirates. Very little out of the ordinary.
Then with the Chaos crusade of 003.M42 and the establishment of the sepratist Federacy the stability of the region collapsed. Gradually the violence swept from the capital subsector of Aleph itself, into the Sadoc subsector, as the Federacy and tau vied with the forces of chaos, necrons and tyranids to overrun the imperial rule of the region.
The sector is made up of the Aleph, Zadoc, Vastrid, Valitane and Charybdis subsectors. Charybdis has not been part of the imperium for centuries, while the Aleph subsector itself is now the home of the tau allied Federacy. For now Valitane and Vastrid remain largely under Imperial control but Zadoc is falling into anarchy. In addition the lawless depths between subsectors contain their own hazards, the chief of these being the Perseus Deeps.
Major Factions
- Loyalist Imperium
The loyalist forces are those imperial forces specifically engaged by Inquisitor Hathek against both the alliance and the crusade forces of Natalia Vorushko in the Librian campaign. They are largely imperial guard formations, although a number of astartes chapters including the Crimsons Fists and Blood Martyrs do not accept the edicts of Vorushko, as they largely overrule and contradict what had already been established by another Inquisitor Lord - Hathek himself. Largely suffering defeats, having been removed from Libria III, the loyalists are none the less supplied by the imperial fleet, who in 016M42 finally "declared" for the loyalist faction, while the crusade managed to acquire a significant portion of the fleet for their own usage.
- Crusade
The Crusade is led by the powerful Inquisitor Lord Natalia Vorushko. She has judged the sector, particularly the system of Libria as guilty of treason. She has observed the decline of the imperium to the alliance, as world after world has fallen to the encroaching tau and federal territories. To counter this unstoppable momentum Vorushko has enlisted the help of some of the more ruthless and single minded astartes, including the Apocalypse Riders, Sky Lords and Minotaurs. With these chapters at her disposal she intends to exploit then raze Libria - and any other system in the path of the tau advance - enslaving the population and denying the world's resources to the alliance. Inquisitor Hathek is diametrically opposed to this scorched earth policy, and his opposition has directly led to the three faction war in the Libria system.
- The Alliance (Tau & Federacy)
The Alliance is made up primarily of the Federacy, an empire created from the imperial worlds of the Aleph subsector by Admiral Haskell, an advocate of the original imperial creed lost in the warp since the Horus Heresy. Now the Federacy have been joined by their own astartes, original Iron Warriors similarly trapped in the warp then released some ten thousand years later. Still loyal to the emperor but not regarding him a god, legion commander Apollo now leads his marines in the name of an organisation of a dozen worlds committed to the heretical ideas of democracy, learning and progress.. Allied to this human empire is the tau, although the xenos would much rather incorporate the federacy into their empire. The eldar were committed to the alliance cause, but tensions over the dark eldar and internal factionalism saw the eldar split from the alliance in 016M42.
- Chaos
Led by Warsmith Stahl of the Iron Warriors the forces of chaos are actively engaged on a number of worlds. Over the years many forces and leaders have come and gone, with the position of "Master of Chaos" in the sector changing hands many times. Moonface, Shaidar Haran, Lorek, The Arch Cleric the Anticross and Warsmith Gallowfen have held the title, but now it is Stahl who looks on in dismay as the power of chaos once more enters a decline. Years of campaigning have taken their toll on the forces of chaos, but Stahl has built great defences on Zadoc and Minos, and his forces are well dug in. Now he seeks reinforcements to continue his campaign to retake the once vast chaos realm, which he has begun with the securing of Minos in 016M42.
Minor Forces
The Eldar, having left the alliance, are now solely interested in their own affairs. They have several craftworlds and other holdings such as maiden worlds in the Aleph sector, and will intervene whenever they feel events are moving in such a way to threaten their own small "empire". Meanwhile the Kel Sandros Eldar continue to manipulate events to promote the eventual Eldar supremacy in the galaxy, their own private goal.
The Orks remain an ever present threat in the Aleph Sector, but have never been numerous enough or united enough to pose a real threat. At present their wars on Hylas and Fort Sparcos provide the greenskins with enough sport, and the chances of a significant Waagh! at present seem remote.
Hive fleet Nemesis, once a potent threat which ravaged the Rim Worlds and annihilated three major systems in the Zadoc subsector, has apparently disappeared, the hive mind having moved away from the sector into the vast inter-sector space. However recent expeditions to supposedly dead worlds in the wake of Nemesis have discovered still living remnants of the hive fleet.
The Necrons, having re-established the Harakhty Dynasty in the Perseus Deeps, are now inward looking and fighting amongst themselves.
Major Warzones
Libria & the Zadoc Subsector
The Zadoc subsector, closest to the Tau empire, remains at war. Zadoc itself is a long drawn out ground war between Stahl's dug in forces of chaos and the Tau-Federal Alliance. In the Mabb Nebula there are frequent conflicts between the orks, Imperium and tau, including the four year long grionding campaign on Hylas between the Greenskins and General Van Dorn, while in space the Imperial navy attempts to keep supplies to New Cerberex and Hylas open.
In the Libria System itself a three way conflict between the loyalists, crusade and alliance continues. The Crusade hold the innermost and outermost planets, Libria I and V, while the most important, Libria III, is contested by the alliance. The loyalists are on the back foot. They control the unimportant world of Libria II but are rapidly losing the ocean-world of Libria IV.
In space, the loyalist and alliance fleets are the largest, but Inquisitor Vorushko has secured a small battlegroup. In addition the strike cruisers of the astartes loyal to her can be called upon for lightning strikes. The crusade does not have a large enough fleet to compete with the other two factions just yet, but the growing religious fanatacism behind the crusade has led to the formation of the rag tag "pilgrim fleet".
Persues Deeps
The Perseus Deeps remain the front line between the young civilisations of the alliance, the established Imperium and ancient enemies. The Necrons dominate much of the Deeps, but around the edges the forces of chaos are rising once more, and the eldar are securing world after world.
While the war on Hylas ground to a familiar halt, the war on Libria also began to peter out as 016M42 reached its middle. Libria V had fallen to the Crusade, along with Libria I. Libria II remained "neutral" but was in reality under the sway of the crusade. Libria III was deep into a long ground war between the Crusade and the Alliance, while Libria IV was slowly being won off the loyalists by the Alliance.
During the Librian "summer", when the variable star pulsed into a higher luminesence, from 05-09.016M42, very little changed. In that time the Alliance Mechanicum and their Iron Warrior Federal allies, made significant gains on Libria III, devastating the elite forces of Vorushko and pushing the crusade back. The Minotaurs and Carcharadons took heavy punishment, and by 09.016M42 it was clear that the space sharks astartes were no longer an effective fighting force. They departed the subsector leaving Vorushko with no option other than to go over to the defensive on Libria III.
Meanwhile the Loyalists managed to reinforce their presance on Libria II, removing the "crusade compliant" governor and stiffening the loyalist resolve by deploying a company of Ultramarines on the world. The Crusade immediately reacted however, conducting a lightning strike by the Minotaurs chapter, who devastated the ultramarines and their equipment deployed on the planet. Soon after the Ultramarines found themselves raided by Vlokarian's dark eldar in an opportunist attack. Morale of the loyalists on Libria II fell to a new low.
After finally gaining some momentum on Hylas with the Ultramarines retaking Beng, Van Dorn was pleased to recieve the news that the Carcharadon and Sky Lords chapter of space marines would be able to carry on the fight against the greenskin menace led by the tyrant Von Bismorck. This allowed Van Dorn to release the Ultramarines from the front line on 0805.016M42. However, their withdrawl from defensive positions around the perimeter of Beng immediately precipitated a counter attack by the ork forces, who realised the astartes were the strongest opponents they would face.
Van Dorn expected this and had been assured that the arrival of the crusade forces would quickly prevent a breakthrough. However the Sky Lords were still days away and the Carcharadons, despite being in orbit around the planet, inexplicably failed to materialise before Desmond and Finlay on the flanks of Beng, had been overrun. Then finally the Space Sharks appeared. Their intervention was too late however, and the orks were now entrenched in their positions. After a brief violent struggle the Carcharadons withdrew allowing the mechanised Sky Lords to take over the assault, while Van Dorn raged in private about the incompetence of his crusade forces.
The Sky Lords were unable to do much better. Although they were well equipped and met the orks head on on the road to Beng, their attempt at breaking the siege of the settlement was unsuccesful. Despite the carnage caused by the astartes and their Knight detachment, there were always more orks to fill the breach, and try as they might the crusade force could not quite open a gap in Von Bismork's lines. Following this both sides dug in, and the astartes withdrew altogether, as Van Dorn went over to the defensive until later in the year.
The end on Libria V came surprisingly swiftly in the end. With their supply lines cut and the crusade fleet in orbit around the planet, massive reinforcements were landed for the crusade. Yellowdale had remained a bastion for the loyalists, but with complete control of space air superiority followed, then the crusade mechanicus were landed to the south of the Novgorod loyalist positions. Unable to deal with this new threat, the Novgorod regiments were simply crushed by Knights, skitarri and other mechanicum weaponry. Yellowdale fell on 0305.016M42.
The position for the loyalists was now hopeless. The remaining beseiged cities fought on in pockets, but by mid 05.016M42 the war on Libria III had become a mop up exercise for the crusade. Now the loyalists had just a small foothold on Libria III and de jure control of Libria II, but with no way to enforce it.
The fall of Libria V also meant the crusade had control over the outer system and its jump points, as well as the inner system. In between a fierce war continued to rage between the alliance and imperial forces, but nowhere did the alliance have a secure base from which to launch offensives. Vorushko certainly had the upper hand in the Librian system as the middle of 016M42 approached.
Following the battle in the depths of the Librian system the loyalist and crusade fleets had more to worry about than just each other. Lurking in the shadows and asteroid fields in the system the Shattered Silence kabal of dark eldar were waiting to make a healthy profit from the weakened human fleets.
Unconvinced of the profitability of the venrture, the kabal's leader refused to give his overt support to the enterprise, and this attitude looked to be the correct one as the dark eldar's first encounter with the Crusade ended with a bloody nose and no rewards. Sticking together when the xenos attacked, the crusade fleet weathered the attempted ambush, then began dealing massive damage back to the alien ships. The Shattered Silence withdrew to attempt to fix the damage.
Knowing a fall from grace awaited him upon his return to Commoragh, the commander of the fleet decided to try again. This time his fleet encountered Enkvist's loyalist fleet. Unlike the crusade, Enkvist's vessels were ill equipped to deal with their elusive foe, and the dark eldar were able to disable, board and loot more than one imperial vessel before disappearing into the darkness.
In the end the expedition to the Libria system had not been a complete success, but neither had it been entirely unprofitable. As usual the Archon Kurokenshi was able to take credit for the success, but blame others for the failures. Key skills in remaining top of a kabal in Commoragh.For the imperium howver, the results ensured Enkvist would be unable to intervene in what was about to happen on Libria V.
By the end of 04.016M42 the alliance were in a sorry state on Libria III. Although holding more than two thirds of the territory they had been unable to break the crusade, and were now suffering attrition they could not afford. At the same time, the people and infrastructure of Libria II suffered, and Cartasia had become a virtual wasteland devoid of useful resources and no longer producing meaningful output for the imperium.
The crusade advance however had reached its zenith. the crusade forces hit hard on the attack but suffered vulnerabilities when having to command whole swathes of territory. Made up chiefly of astartes and other elite formations, it usually fell to Librian "converts" and the Vannaheim Guard to hold Vorushko's gains. And the alliance knew it.
The alliance first struck back at Santo, knowing this was not defended by astartes forces. By deploying their elite Mechanicum formations, the alliance quickly crushed the Vannaheim defenders and retook the city and began to move south towards Cartasia once more.
The continued presence of the military wing of the Crusade fleet in the Libria system was a thorn in the loyalist side as they attempted to maintain a hold on the two outer planets of the system. By 05.016M42 they had lost Libria I, Libria II was all but ungoverned, Libria III was contested between the crusade and Alliance and they were losing on Libria IV and V. With Vorushko's latest offensive on Libria V, Inquisitor Hathek demanded Jellicoe respond, or face the consequences.
Reluctantly Admiral Jellicoe declared the Crusade fleet apostate and despatched Admiral Enkvist to deal with the problem. On 3004.016M42 the loyalist and crusade fleets clashed in the outer reaches of the Librian system for ultimate control of the space near Libria V. The battle began with a largely ineffective long range torpedo duel, but the area was littered with asteroids and debris, and this phase of the battle was largely uneventful. Soon however the two fleets approached to within lance and gun battery range, and battle was joined in earnest.
The crusade fleet was able to manoeuvre their hunter escort squadrons into position behind the loyalist emperor class battleship. This in turn was swiflty crippled by a mass torpedo salvo, critically imparing the loyalist admiral's ability to control the battle. Fearful of risking the loss of an entire battlegroup Enkvist disengaged, allowing the crusade to control the space around Libria V. The loyalists had come close to victory however, as the Ecclesiarchy Shrineship Ex Cathedra was successfully intercepted by waves of loyalist assault boats. The damage however was largely superficial, and the crusade admiral was able to maintain command of his vessels
It had been years since tyranid hive fleet Nemesis had ravaged the Zadoc subsector, consuming a score of worlds and arguably precipitating the Imperial collapse in the region. Inquisitor Huron was keen to re-assess the threat, as the xenos had not been encountered for a long time, and the imperium had all but written off the tyranids as lost in the void. Huron knew they hive fleet may have scattered, but likely lurked still in the depths of space between inhabited systems.
Inquisitor Vorushko was also keen to assess the Xenos threat, as her plan to create a buffer of dead worlds between the Tau empire and the remaining imperial controlled subsectors in the region depended on the denial of any inhabited colonies in the Zadoc subsector. Alpeh and Betor had been consumed, but if the tyranids had left the worlds the tau would be able to establish bases, and eventually colonies on the dead husks of the former agri worlds. This could not be tolerated.
Huron was given a division of Vannaheim guard and the assistance of the Sisters of Battle in his first exploration of Betor, once a prime fishing world now reduced to a lifeless husk, devoid of all life. Or so he thought. On arrival at Betor Huron was surprised to encounter a world with its atmosphere intact, and its seas remaining. Previous experience with the extra-galactic aliens had led Huron to believe the tyranids simply consumed the world once it had been pacified, but here this was not the case.
Landing on the world the Sisters of battle found a dead world. Bioliogical life had gone, but the tyranid process of consuming all resources had not been completed. Inquisitor Huron was unable to complete his investigations however, as no sooner had the imperial force landed, than they were attacked and overwhelmed by a horde of Nemesis warriors. The Xenos took heavy casualties, but the Sisters of Battle could not hold back the tide. Huron and his force managed to escape largely intact, but it was clear that whatever Nemesis was upto, they didn't want to be interrupted.
Early morning on 3004.016M42 the Iron Warriors finally breached the walls of the Minos' Space Port and faced the last stand of the Imperial defenders. At the time key personnel from the Administratum and Ecclesiarchy were being extracted, although this process was painfully slow due to civilians riots.
To delay the Iron Warriors, the last defenders, a Volscians Armoured Company, physically blocked the breach with tanks, aiming to stop, or at least delay the Iron Warriors long enough for the evacuation to complete.
In the early morning dark the Iron Warriors assault advanced though the breach in the morning gloom, their supporting artillery unable to accurately target the Volscians. In return, the Volscians concentrated their fire upon the Maulerfiends and a third were soon reduced to blazing wrecks. The imperial Ogryns and supporting infantry advanced along the right flank with the Spawn countering, but the abhumans bludgeoned the monstrosities without difficulty. The Ogryns then broke through the Iron Warrior lines and after managing to take down forward Rapier emplacements were set upon by diseased brain dead slave workers. At the Space Port walls the Iron Warrior assault annihilated the the Volscian Armoured Company. As the sun rose the Agema artillery began their bombardment, destroying their counterparts before they could effectively fire. Despite the carnage, the Volscians infantry refused to break and had to be slaughtered to a man. The final act of the Iron Warrior leader was to callously bombard both the Ogryns and his own slaves into oblivion, killing both. With the breach finally cleared, the Iron Warriors broke into the Spaceport. Over the coming days the Iron Warriors systematically wiped out all remaining resistance, and put the populace to work fortifying their new conquest.
On Hylas, Van Dorn had already received the dubious benefit of Crusade reinforcements, including a strike cruiser of the Carcharadons, the imperium also received aid in the form of a company of Ultramarines. Despite the ongoing crusade war on Libria, and an uneasiness which was palpable at Van Dorn's first council of war since their arrival, the two factions agreed, albeit sullenly, to work together to remove the greenskin menace from Hylas once and for all.
The honour of the next offensive was given to the Ultramarines, who launched their armoured spearhead against the ork held settlement of Beng, which had been substantially "fortified" by the orks. Von Bismork's forces were taken by surprise, and despite fighting furiously in parts of the city, the overall performance of Von Bismork's troops was disorganised and ineffective, and by 3004.016M42 the Ultramarines had secured the city. Van Dorn now contacted his crusade "allies" for the next push west.
While the crusade swept forward on Libria V, recent battles had seen Grisk, Santo and the crucial heartlands of Cartasia once again fall into the hands of the alliance. Vorushko, ever cognisant of the morale aspects with the alliance, ordered her forces, now resupplied and prepared for a counter attack, to retake the ground they had lost. If successful this would be the third or fourth time the region changed hands, depleting federal and tau morale, as neither faction favoured prolonged wars of attrition, while Vorushko was perfectly happy with such an outcome.
The crusade assault, once again led by crusade mechanicum and fresh Minotaurs units, was a complete and devastating success. Skyfall's tau were badly mauled by the advancing mechanicum, and forced to give up control of Grisk on 1804.016M42. Worse was to follow, as the alliance sent in their own mechanicum forces, loyal to Apollo's Iron Warriors to plug the gap. Striking from orbit the Mechanicum caught the alliance forces completely unprepared, and a series of mishaps (including a knight detonating and wiping out significant alliance forces) ensured that the Minotaurs' follow up was particularly bloody.
By 2404.016M42 the destruction of a complete alliance mechanicum army in just a few hours left the alliance with a one hundred mile hole in their lines. There was no other choice but to abandon Grisk, Santo and Regina, pulling back to lines occupied several months previously. the crusade had undone months of alliance work, but had come no closer to taking the entire planet. Vorushko however could wait. Whether the alliance could was another story...
In 04.016M42 Inquisitor Vorushko was keen to press the crusade on all fronts. By now the crusade fleet had arrived in force, contesting the space around the Libria system and taking away the alliance advantage. Similarly the presence of so many ships, despite their limited combat worthiness in many cases, ensured Admiral Jellicoe's passivity in pressing for control of the system.
Taking advantage of this the Crusade Mechanicus and Minotaurs made several assaults on Libria V in order to press their advantage to the full. With the Lycaon Guard units moved into reserve following their recent engagements it was the Space Wolves and Novgorod Guard who bore the brunt of the crusade assault.
Timing their attacks with precision, the Minotaurs swept into the remainder of Timberhill, striking from orbit to pin then destroy key positions. The Space Wolves fought hard but were unable to deal with the strategic advantage enjoyed by their fellow astartes, and by mid 04.016 Daralon had fallen and the remainder of the loyalist cities had been besieged.
At the same time the Adeptus Mechanicus moved ever closer to Louxin City, cutting off Jutesberg and Daralon and securing all transport linke between loyalist strongholds on the mainland. The Novgorod guard were unable to halt the mechanicum, despite their numbers, and by 2604.016M42 the position on Libria V was looking dire. Although the loyalists still held three cities, they were cut off and unable to support one another. The loyalist commander urgently called for aid from Jellicoe.
