Tarlius II: Three way war

The war on Tarlius continued with unparalleled fury as the end of 03.018M42 approached. In the southern hemisphere a landing by the Dark Angels quickly dealt with a significant force of Thousand Sons, establishing a beach head, but it was clear that there would be no thawing of relations between the loyalists and the Dark Angels. General Patreus was called on to surrender to the Astartes, to answer for the Novgorod Guard's previous engagement which saw several Dark Angels killed. Instead, Patreus dispatched a force of Novgorod to remove the Space Marine force, having been explicitly told by Hathek that they were now in league with the heretical Inquisitor Vorushko.

The Novgorod force sent out patrols into the southern wastelands, but found it hard to pin down the Dark Angels force. Eventually contact was made, but the Novgorod force was significantly split, and the more flexible astartes doctrines played a heavy hand in the following engagement, with the Novgorod sending in their forces peace meal. Facing heavy casualties and unable to combine their superior numbers against the Space Marine force, the Novgorod were forced to retreat, and the entire southern polar region was abandoned by Patreus, allowing the Dark Angels to secure a foothold once again on Tarlius II for the Crusade.

Further north, the loyalists under General Patreus had more success. A new offensive with fresh Lycaon forces initially got into difficulties against the Emerald Serpent and a shard of the daemon prince of Magnus himself. However, stubborn resistance and overwhelming firepower eventually told against the forces of chaos, and by 2303.018M42 the forces of chaos had been confined to a single region of the eastern hemisphere of the barren and now shattered world.