The initial advance saw the Hammers take up strong positions overlooking the Death Guard, and the astartes poured fire into their enemy as the shambling horde of poxwalkers heralded the approach of the main nurgle force. At first, the astartes held their own and appeared to be inflicting a greater cost on the enemy as the Host of Eschar counter attacked the imperial positions.
The nurgle forces had actually taken the astartes by surprised with the ferocity of their attack, and their employment of a despoiler class knight proved to be a difficult opponent for the space marine force. Precious time was lost taking down the war engine, allowing the traitor astartes to close, and crucially ensuring the Hammers of the Emperor were unable to put sufficient fire into the nurgle war engines. This would prove costly.
As the battle progressed the nurgle force started taking losses, but the war of attrition was being won by the Death Guard. Astartes were gradually taken down by incessant fire from the enemy plagueburst crawlers, and the constant rain of pox riddled biological artillery drove even the space marines to despair. A lord of Contagion appeared in the rear of the astartes positions, and managed to fend off an entire squad of astartes while in the centre, despite taking down the leaders of Death Guard advance, the artillery kept on coming, and eventually the Hammers had nothing with which to respond.
The defeat of the Hammers of the Emperor then caused a general counter attack to develop along Kutuzov's eastern flank, and by 2911.019M42 the imperial general found himself on the back foot, having lost nearly 100 miles of territory in two weeks to a resurgent enemy force. The imperium still held the strategic system advantage, but the war on Mordecai Secundus was effectively stalled.
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