By the beginning of 020M42 the campaign to swiftly take Mordecai Secundus was well and truly bogged down. General Kutuzov faced multiple challenges. Sickness had already begun to take its toll on the Imperial Guard formations are his disposal and only the Astartes and Adeptus Mechanicus forces seemed reasonably immune to the pervasive disease saturating the atmosphere of the chaos mining world.
With only the elite forces currently battle ready, the Grey Knights launched their own disruptive raid against the Emerald Serpent, severely hampering the ability of at least one chaos faction coming to the aid of its allies. Following the astartes raid the Hammers of the Emperor struck east, while the Knights of House Corvus attempted to make a breakthrough to the south.
The sweep east went to plan, as the loyalist astartes swept aside the Death Guard blocking the path towards the Abram mines, but the knights of House Corvus came across the Iron Warriors of Stahl for the first time on the desolate plains of Mordecai Secundus.
Stahl’s forces were a mix of cultists and daemonic engines, but they proved a tough challenge for the knights who struggled initially to land telling blows on the enemy forces. Unable to deal with the helldrakes and maulerfiends, the knights soon found themselves overwhelmed by the Iron Warriors numbers, and within days of the attack beginning the survivors of the attack were staggering back behind their start lines.
Stahl’s Iron Warriors didn’t pursue the retreating imperial forces, mindful that the Grey Knights were presumably being held in reserve. The Imperium had made modest gains in the east, expanding the bridgehead towards the Abrax mines, but even utilising the elite forces Kutuzov had at his disposal, the long hoped for breakthrough seemed no closer.
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