Raid on Federacy aids Imperium

While the Imperium and chaos were embroiled in the war over Vandrax, a new force arrived in the Aleph Sector in 11.017M42. They arrived via the Valitane subsector, after having received astropathic messages from the Dark Angels of Magnus and his daemonic forces in the Foramen Interdictum. The Grey Knights had arrived.

As they approached the Foramen Warzone from the south however, to get to Vandrax they would first have to traverse the Foramen Minoris via Destino, where Federacy forces had repeatedly tried - and failed - to gain a foothold. Although having no involvement with the daemons the Knights were interested in, the Imperial force would still need to ensure their path was not blocked by the Federal fleet or worse, a full on invasion force.

With their transit of the Foramen in mind, the Grey Knights organised a lightning raid against Federal forces on the Alliance base at Protogonus. Here Librian, Tallaxian and other Federal regiments were equipping and training for the next Alliance assault on the Foramen, so on 07.11.017M42 the Grey Knights launched a surprise attack on an unprepared Librian force.

The initial assault shocked the Librian force to the core, with their armoured Leman Russ battle tanks proving unable to deal with the imperial firepower. As the Librians retreated in disarray, the Tallaxian Stormtroopers attempted an aerial assault behind the Knights in order to buy their federal allies some time to regroup. but the Grey Knights simply ignored the Tallaxians and completed the destruction of an entire Librian regiment before evacuating.

To their satisfaction, the Grey Knights noted the Federal Fleet communication as the Alliance pulled their naval assets back to Protogonus, fearing a full scale invasion of a critical strategic outpost. This left the Ordo Malleus task force with no opposition as they made the jump into the Foramen Interdictum. Destination Vandrax.