Sarina retaken by Apocalypse Riders on Hylas

The war on Hylas had ground on for two and a half terran years by 02.015M42. For months General Van Dorn had wethered incessant ork raids from behind a set of increasingly elaborate imperial trenchlines and fortifications, as events elswhere in the sector starved his force of badly needed reinforcements. An ork hulk remained in orbit, but the main body of the ork force, now commanded chiefly by the warlord Von Bismork, remained on the surface, controlling more than half of the world but not making any truly organised attempts to breach Van Dorn's defences.

The stalemate was broken in early 03.015M42 with the return of a company of Apocalypse Riders. By now the entire chapter was active in the Zadoc subsector and Perseus Deeps, and although they had joined the Librian "crusade", the Astartes force still considered itself a staunch defender of the Imperium of Mankind.

The Apocalypse Riders quickly moved into action in northern Hylas, launching a lightning assault against Von Bismork's forces on 0603.015M42. Taken completely by surprise the greenskins were slow to orchestrate a coordinated response, and the fast but durable forces of the Riders created havoc behind the front lines. Their cohesion broken, the orks were unable to stop the imperial forces under Van Dorn's command when they moved en masse "over the top", and hundreds of miles of the Sarin plains were retaking in just ten days. The main stand of Von Bismork's boys came at the city of Sarina, but here the Apocalypse Riders concentrated their forces and massacred the orks within a few hours. Sarina had been retaken by Van Dorn again and the stalemate broken, but after their decisive intervention the Apocalypse Riders were soon leaving, responding to an urgent need for men in the Libria system.