War in the Vastrid subsector

With the conquest of Trian, general Pollack was preparing an assault against Aspaster and Hogan's Fall, when intelligence came in of movements of troops and warships to the galactic south. Orks and Chaos forces were reported moving in on the strategically important minor worlds of Spinitis and Gabriel's world, and this needed countering. Pollack knew his forces would not be able to react quickly enough, so the space marines of Aurora Angels chapter offered to deal with the threat.

At the same time, the Dark Angels fleet became available for use in the assault on Hogan's Fall which Pollack had been planning. This allowed the Imperial General to redirect the bulk of the fleet to search for the chaos vessels, while the Dark Angels dealt with the massive Rok fleet in orbit around the minor world.

The Dark Angels successfully defeated the haphazard fleet of asteroids, but took heavy damage in the process. They would now be unable to support Jellicoe's planned attack on Chaos, and returned to Corticant for repairs. They did manage to scatter the orks however, and the Ork forces on Hogan's Fall sound found themselves surrounded and destroyed by the Imperial troops landed while the Ork Roks were being dealt with. The planet was, for the third time in as many months, back in Imperial hands.

Meanwhile on Spinitus the Aurora Angels landed, securing a base on the planet before finding that forces of the Covenant of Damnation had got there some days before. The Astartes attacked and drove off the Chaos forces, expanding their zone of control and taking over the main outpost on the world.

The Covenant had also landed on Gabriel's world, but here the Orks had already appeared, creating their own ramshackle fortresses and setting up great workshops to build their war engines. Many of these were put immediately into use, attacking the Covenant forces, and no matter how hard they tried, the cultist forces couldn't seem to destroy the infernal Ork walkers, and were scattered into the wastelands of the planet, leaving the orks to consolidate their hold on the world.