The Battle of Mordecai Tersius

Warsmith Stahl, the Master of Chaos forces in the Aleph Sector, had become enraged with his fractious subordinates. The Imperial invasion of Mordecai Tersius had stalled Stahl's own schemes. Arriving on Mordecai Tersius he first vowed to break the backs of the Imperials filth soiling his world and then bring to heel the “incompetent fools” that had allowed the invasion to happen. In mid 11.016M42, having ordered the fleet of Admiral Thok to secure space from the Imperial Navy, Stahl coordinated the counter-attack against the Imperial invasion.

The Iron Warriors intended to decapitate the Imperial forces who had set up in defensive positions of a dense city ruin. Nereus and his Havoks volunteered to eliminate Tank Commander Cleitor, the overall commander organising their next big push. At mid day on 1211.M42 the Iron Warriors attacked in force. The defensive line of the Lycaon Guard was well prepared to protect their tank companies and Imperial Knight support against the armoured assaults Stahl's Iron Warriors were now famous for. In the opening moments the Iron Warriors' gambit struck. Having disembarked from their camouflaged Rhino, Sorcerer Oapius opened a tear in reality. Havoks stepped through behind enemy lines and executed Cleitor and his command tank with concentrated melta gun fire.

If the Iron Warriors were expecting their decapitation strike against the Lycaon Guard to collapse the Imperial defence, they were woefully mistaken. The Imperial Guard were utterly inflexible to the viciousness of the Iron Warrior assault and continued to lay overlapping fire into their enemy. Despite their resilience the unrelenting fire took its toll upon the Iron Warriors, with the Daemon Engines taking the brunt of enemy fire. As both sides settled into a battle of attrition, the Iron Warriors earned their old moniker of Corpsegrinders well, pushing through continuous bombardment from both sides. For hours the attrition warfare ground on, inflicting horrific casualties as both sides pressed on regardless.

Slowly the day wore on and the Lycaon Guard momentarily saw the battle more in their favour. However momentum was short lived as the violent destruction of Imperial Knight and Enginseers started to break the will of the Imperial defence. The Iron Warriors continued to grind down the Lycaon Guard with continual artillery bombardment and counter-attacks, Honourable Kupfer of the Iron Warriors held the right flank alone for several hours, having killed the the lieutenant who took command of the Lycaon Guard and Primaris Psyker who had coordinated the Imperial firepatterns. Finally as the day drew to a close Imperials ordered the tank company to retreat, while ordering infantry units to hold back the tide. In return, the Iron Warriors vindictively dropped ordinance onto the Lycaon infantry, leaving only Sergeant Euaemon surviving, Imperial propagandists keen to turn the defeat into victory have spread a tale of valour, saying his last words over the vox were “stand fast and die like Guardsman”; whether this is true is unknown. What is true is the Iron Warriors after a bloody day have turned the tide against the Imperial invasion.