Exemplary Battles and Legacies EC Lore

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Exemplary Battles

As the Age of Darkness ground ever onwards, the fires of war would spread throughout the entire galaxy, consuming everything in their path. Armies and worlds were reduced to nothing more than ash, in many cases leaving no one alive to bear witness to the sacrifices made or the atrocities committed. During this time, each Legion employed unique formations to prosecute their own style of war, whether by choice or through necessity, making use of unconventional, often abhorrent, tactics and weapons. Many of these formations would be lost during the dark years following the Horus Heresy, their traditions wiped out and the last stockpiles of their weapons exhausted. Some, however, have been preserved in these records, that future generations may learn of the terrors unleashed upon the galaxy by the Emperor’s turncoat sons and the valiant heroes who stood against them.


The Battle for the Kalium Gate


The Kalium Gate was a technological marvel, the origins of which had been lost in the dark and tumultuous aeons that preceded the Emperor’s reign. Located in the Kalium system of the Segmentum Obscurus, the Gate was made up of a series of interlocking void stations connected together by colossal bundles of kilometreslong cables. Extant records indicate that it was discovered in a dormant state by Imperial forces during the early years of the Great Crusade, but its principal value was quickly realised by the strategos of the Imperial Administratum. Once awakened, the Gate could send entire war fleets through the Warp, across unimaginably vast distances on great aether-currents, making journeys that took several Terran standard years last only a handful of weeks. The Gate became a nexus for interstellar travel in the Segmentum Obscurus but efforts to restore it to its full potential were cut short with the outbreak of the Horus Heresy – when Primarch Perturabo led the IVth Legion (Iron Warriors) in a destructive assault that left the Gate a smouldering tomb, reduced almost to the dormant state it had been in when it was first discovered.

In the latter half of 010.M31, the Vth Legion (White Scars) was cut off in the Segmentum Obscurus and surrounded on all sides by overwhelming enemy forces. Loath to waste the lives of his sons in pitched battles, the Primarch Jaghatai Khan desperately sought a way to evade his foes and reach the Sol System ahead of the Warmaster’s hosts. Chief among the Khan’s pursuers was Lord Commander Eidolon – a vainglorious and arrogant warrior who, in the absence of his Primarch Fulgrim, had become the self-appointed master of the IIIrd Legion (Emperor’s Children). Seeking to validate his newfound pre-eminence among the Emperor’s Children, Eidolon hounded the White Scars across the stars, believing the prize of Jaghatai Khan’s head would earn him the recognition he so craved. With his Legion bloodied and lacking the sheer numbers required to break through the Traitor lines, the ever-resourceful Khan devised a plan to deceive the enemy and draw their strength away from the main concentration of his force. In the wake of the destruction unleashed by the Iron Warriors, elements of the Emperor’s Children Legion had moved in to rebuild the Kalium Gate’s fearsome defences, not only to secure
and plunder an asset of strategic value, but also to prevent the Loyalists from re-awakening its arcane technologies and using it to escape. The Khan sent the hardened veterans of approximately six Brotherhoods – formations shattered in past battles against Eidolon’s hunter-killer fleets but hungry for vengeance – to attack the Kalium Gate. The Dictatus class battleship, Lance of Heaven, led the attack; one of the Legion’s oldest vessels and veteran of a dozen major engagements since the outbreak of the Horus Heresy. Alongside the Lance of Heaven came seven venerable warships, surrounded by a swarm of smaller frigates, destroyers and other support craft. The White Scars ships hurtled towards their target with the speed their Legion was famed for, leaving the enemy’s auspex grids to chase after shadows while the Khan’s sons closed in for the kill, their guns and torpedoes primed. The Emperor’s Children war vessels that rose from the shadow of the Kalium Gate to oppose the sleek White Scars cruisers were of equal displacement to their counterparts and, though fewer in number, they were bolstered by the heavy gun batteries and defensive emplacements of the Gate. Having paid a heavy price
in blood during past engagements with the Khan’s sons, the Emperor’s Children had learned well not to underestimate the cunning and unpredictable tactics of the White Scars. The heavy warships of the IIIrd Legion and accompanying escort vessels spread out to engage the incoming White Scars flotilla, creating a defensive cordon that would hold the Loyalist onslaught at bay long enough for the Emperor’s Children manning the Gate’s defences to prepare for the inevitable ground attack. Long range guns opened fire, sending beams of superheated energy lancing though void shields to pierce the flanks of warships and kill thousands of the ships’ crew in the space of a single heartbeat. Macro cannon shells and cluster warheads buckled and shattered armour plates on impact, setting off chains of devastating internal explosions that blew apart entire sections of superstructure, leaving dozens of vessels aflame and dead in the void. As the two fleets closed the distance between them, vicious boarding actions were launched and terrible destruction was unleashed across multiple ship decks as Legionaries sought to cripple or capture enemy vessels.
White Scars vessels burst through the defensive cordon of the Emperor’s Children ships, pushing their reactors to breaking point as they desperately tried to close the distance with the Kalium Gate. The Gate’s fearsome defensive weapons spoke as one and the first vessels to emerge from the tumult of the naval battle, recorded to have been the frigates Horselord and Hunter of the Plains, took the full brunt of their fire and were simply erased from existence. Larger White Scars battleships soon reached the Gate, their void shields straining under heavy fire from its fearsome defensive batteries, but this time it was the Loyalists’ turn to unleash their fury upon the Traitors below. The space surrounding the Gate’s void stations became a sea of fire as lance strikes and punishing fusillades from bombardment cannons thundered against faltering power fields raised over the defences. Here and there, these shield barriers shuddered and failed, leaving mobile defence launchers and gun emplacements unprotected from the devastating guns of the White Scars warships, which obliterated both the weapons and their crews.



Hard on the heels of the destructive barrage came swarms of fighter craft and heavy attack landers carrying the warriors of the Ordu, the horde of Jaghatai. Fire Raptors and Xiphon interceptors dived from above to strafe enemy positions with their deadly payload of high-calibre bolt shells and missiles, forcing the Emperor’s Children to seek shelter behind shielded curtain walls or within prefabricated bunkers as the Gate’s infrastructure disintegrated around them in a maelstrom of explosions. Thunderhawk gunships touched down on the cavernous hangars of the colossal void docks, disgorging hundreds of Legionaries among the scattered detritus and silent machinery of the Gate’s long dead past. Breacher and Tactical squads swiftly moved to clear the surrounding areas of defenders with blade and boltgun, giving the Emperor’s Children no mercy and expecting none in return. The White Scars proved relentless in the pursuit of their objectives, venting their repressed fury on the warriors of the Legion that had hounded them for years. The assault of the first wave was executed the way the White Scars had always taken joy in waging war – hard and fast, with an artful precision and timing that allowed the enemy no time to react. With the primary objective of securing the Legion’s landing sites achieved, the White Scars next moved to silence the Gate’s mighty defence batteries. Stormbird attack landers were brought in to form mobile firebases that could withstand heavy ground fire while their cargo of troops, war machines and mobile gun platforms disembarked. Armoured columns of Sicaran battle tanks and Rhino armoured transports filled with Vth Legion Despoiler squads were deployed on the hard permacrete floors and steel sheeting of the hangars to press the attack, turning the battle into something more akin with fighting across the surface of a dwarf planet. Void Dock Theta-4 and Void Dock Theta-5 quickly fell to the relentless attack of the White Scars, their berthing zones overrun by Loyalist troops and vehicles.

 

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At Void Dock Theta-3, Zargan Khan, Praetor of the Brotherhood of the Obsidian Serpent, led his Legionaries towards the mighty orbital guns hammering the White Scars fleet with relentless volleys of ship-killing missiles and las blasts. The precisely calculated attack patterns of his White Scars had brought them to the very edge of the shielding overlays protecting the gun batteries, but there savage resistance was encountered from dug-in Traitor forces and the assault faltered. In the vanguard of the Emperor’s Children defenders fought heavy support squads bearing the mark of the Sundered Star upon their gilded panoply, marking them out as the elite Sun Killers formation. These warriors had gained renown across the Imperium due to their exploits during the Great Crusade, where they had, time and again, sought out and defeated the deadliest xenos monstrosities and armoured behemoths. Great explosions signalled the fiery death of White Scars tanks as murderous volleys of lascannon beams lanced through their armour to explode their ammunition reserves or ignite their fuel tanks. Armoured transports were targeted and crippled in a meticulously calculated pattern that funnelled the disembarking Legionaries into predetermined killzones, where they were mercilessly cut down by arcing volkite beams and bolts of incandescent plasma. Dozens of White Scars Legionaries fell in the opening minutes of the Sun Killers’ deadly salvoes and the attack on Void Dock Theta-3 ground to a bloody halt as the momentum of the assault was lost. In the primary hangar of Dock Theta-3, where the enemy fire was at its most furious, Zargan Khan led a spearhead of veteran Legionaries towards the Sun Killers’ positions. There, the Emperor’s Children had constructed an intricate network of defences that would bog down any direct offensive against the Gate’s defensive batteries. Aegis lines, razor wire snares and prefabricated bastions forced any attacker into choke points and dead ends overlooked by hidden redoubts, creating overlapping fields of fire that ensured the destruction of any enemy that ventured into that deadly maze. The Sun Killers maintained a steady rate of fire, their deadly aim blunting the Loyalists’ frontal assault and forcing the White Scars to seek cover or risk being obliterated. Knowing full well the White Scars’ skill in manoeuvre and fluid warfare, Consul Tritus Castion of the Emperor’s Children ordered the deployment of fresh troops from reserves to strengthen the front line. A dozen squads of Legionaries, held back just for a moment such as this, rushed forward to bolster the Sun Killers’ positions, led by Consul Tritus Castion himself and a cadre of his elite Palatine Blades.
Where other Legions might have met the open challenge of these foes head-on as a matter of pride, the White Scars split their forces and flowed around their enemies like the waters of a fast-flowing stream enveloping and wearing down even the mightiest boulder. Squads of Legionaries darted in to harry and bleed the Emperor’s Children before withdrawing again, assassinating Traitor squad leaders and specialists in a bid to wear down the intricate command structure that their enemy depended on to coordinate the defence. The sons of the Khan placed their trust in speed and mobility to evade the Sun Killers’ murderous volleys, moving among the shadows of sagging machine towers and enormous loading cranes to mount sudden assaults on isolated enemy positions. Knowing the Emperor’s Children could ill afford to be caught in a battle of attrition with the Loyalist fleet still bearing down on the Kalium Gate, Tritus Castion’s recently arrived reserves abandoned their defensive positions and surged forwards in a furious counterassault, enveloping and gunning down those White Scars whose vengeful fury had driven them recklessly close to his forces. Among the nightmarish maze of tangled dock infrastructure, the Sun Killers tracked the movement patterns of the fleet White Scars with the infravisors and auspex locators built into their armour and blasted the Loyalist Legionaries apart with their heavy energy weapons. The battle for Void Dock Theta-3 became a fractured anarchy of hit and run combats and short range firefights, but the Emperor’s Children’s superior numbers steadily drove the White Scars back, threatening to completely overrun them. Zargan Khan sensed the momentum the Traitor counter-assault was gaining and knew that the enemy would soon push the White Scars back to their landing sites, eventually hurling them into the burning void beyond. However, the guerilla tactics of his Legionaries had bought enough time for the White Scars warship Riders of the Storm to deploy its second wave of attack landers on Void Dock Theta-3. Several squads of Sun Killers were forced to divert their fire towards this new threat, bringing the leading craft down with concentrated lascannon fire but leaving their positions exposed to the sudden onslaught of the White Scars they had previously kept at bay.

Many more attack landers were able to reach their designated targets and from within the darkness of their holds emerged a host of grim warriors whom the White Scars shunned, considering them cursed for the savage, unrestrained way they waged war. Their power armour was painted a deep crimson, in contrast to the White Scars’ usual pearlescent white livery, and was embellished with shamanic charms that the Legion’s Stormseers had applied to ward off the evil tidings that followed in their wake. The Dark Sons of Death, or Karaoghlanlar as they were known among the sons of Jaghatai Khan, ignited their jump packs and soared across the smouldering killing fields to fall upon the Emperor’s Children with a fury befitting more that of Angron’s World Eaters. The Dark Sons of Death lashed out with arcing sweeps of their power glaives and tulwar swords to decapitate or dismember, ripping their foes apart with an inhuman, cold rage. Simply killing their foes was not enough for the Karaoghlanlar, for only the utter annihilation of their enemies, body and spirit, would satisfy their dark appetite for destruction. The armour of dead Emperor’s Children was marked with runes that carried the blackest curses of old Chogoris, their corpses mutilated and heads taken as trophies. The progenoid glands of the fallen, organs carrying the gene-seed required to create future warriors of their Primarch’s bloodline, was desecrated by chemicals that mutated the glands and rendered the gene-seed useless. The Emperor’s Children held their ground, putting up a valiant fight, worthy of their vaunted reputation, but even the sublime warriors of Chemos had no hope of fending off the savage fury of the White Scars Destroyers in the close confines of the nightmarish defensive maze they themselves had created. Deadly, even in the face of certain doom, the Sun Killers fought back with bitter arrogance – discharging their heavy weapons at point blank range until their ammunition ran dry, striving to deprive Terra of as many future defenders as they could before meeting their end.The White Scars were an unstoppable spear of destruction, cast directly at the heart of Void Dock Theta-3, and in the face of their shock assault, the Traitor defensive efforts collapsed. Indefatigable and roaring his defiance among the bloody corpses of his men and the tattered banners of his Legion, Consul Tritus Castion was amongst the last of Fulgrim’s sons to fall, slain in personal combat with an unknown Karaoghlanlar squad leader. The golden palatine aquila adorning the chestplate of the Consul’s gilded armour was taken as a trophy and his helmeted

 

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head was caved in by the heavy pommel of his killer’s tulwar sword, consigning Tritus Castion to meet his afterlife bearing the mark of a faceless traitor. With the death of their commander, the remaining pockets of Emperor’s Children resistance at Void Dock Theta-3 broke and their positions were overrun by the vengeful White Scars. The Karaoghlanlar were the first of the Khan’s sons to reach Void Dock Theta-3’s defensive batteries, where they mercilessly butchered the gun crews and station menials, not sparing even the tech-servitors that blindly carried out their tasks at their work stations. Zargan Khan and the surviving Legionaries of his Brotherhood soon caught up with the rampaging Destroyers and were repulsed to discover clusters of rad bombs and cannisters of alchemical bio-agents planted alongside the melta charges traditionally used to destroy such targets. Simple martial victory was not enough for the Dark Sons of Death, the site of the battle had to be irrevocably tainted so no living soul could step foot on it again in a dark simile of the ancients’ salting of the earth. The explosions that followed reduced the mighty gun batteries to ruin and the resulting radiation clouds that spread through Void Dock Theta-3 signalled its final death knell. By that time, an urgent vox signal had come from Legion command, ordering the immediate withdrawal of all White Scars forces back to their ships. All across the void docks and berthing zones of the Kalium Gate, White Scars formations were lifted to safety by disciplined flights of Thunderhawk transporters and Stormbirds, under the cover of a continuous barrage from flights of void fighters. The Karaoghlanlar were the last White Scars to depart the desolate ruin of Void Dock Theta-3, refusing to leave until their final rites of malediction were complete. With the return of the last of their forces, the White Scars fleet withdrew as suddenly as it had come, leaving behind it the Kalium Gate aflame and in ruins. It is impossible for someone not of the Legion to know whether the assault on the Gate was considered a victory or a defeat in the eyes of the White Scars. Many point to the White Scars’ other offensives at the time and suggest that, like the Legion’s assault at Memnos, the battle of the Kalium Gate was nothing more than another diversion, a feint concealed amongst other feints. Few of the Khan’s sons can recite that tale, and they do so rarely. When they do speak of it, they do so in hushed reverence. To them, it is a testament to the dedication and sacrifice of their Legion and a lament for the hidden shame of relying on the cursed Dark Sons of Death to carry the day. They point to the death of their beloved master of the Keshig, Qin Xa, during the battle of Kalium Gate, as proof of the curse the Karaoghlanlar carry and the ill fortune that follows in its wake. Whether there is any truth in such superstitious claims none can be certain, but extant records indicate that Jaghatai Khan did not hesitate to utilise the Dark Sons of Death extensively during the harrowing journey to reach Terra, and in the numerous battles that followed the arrival of the White Scars in the Sol System.



Emperor’s Children Sun Killer Squad
The informal cognomen of ‘Sun Killer’ was given to IIIrd Legion veteran heavy support squads armed exclusively with heavy energy weapons. These squads would operate far ahead of the battle line and seek out the largest enemy bioforms or war machines so that they and they alone could enact their destruction. In the rare instances that Fulgrim’s impeccable warriors opted to make a strategic departure from the field, it fell to the Sun Killers to provide covering fire, compelled not by oath or duty, but out of boastful pride. Arrogance is suspected to be the reason behind the Sun Killers eschewing primitive weapons that fire indiscriminate hails of shot and shell. Instead, more elegant and precise energy weapons are employed to deliver exacting precision and defined kill shots. It is of curious note that surviving records of Sun Killer squads that have failed in their mission, or have fallen to the enemy, are all but unknown. Some believe that all such failures are stricken from the Legion’s records by order of Fulgrim himself, leaving nothing to tarnish the flawless honour associated with the title Sun Killer.

Precision Fire
Sun Killers elevated the use of their chosen weaponry to an art form and were able to direct their fire with exacting precision. No camouflage, nor cover, could offer their targets protection from their perfectly timed and unerringly accurate shots.

Fortified Position
Such was the formidable destructive power of large squads of Sun Killers and the conspicuous discharge of their signature weapons, their presence in battle would rarely go unnoticed and enemies would rapidly target a known position as a matter of priority. To aid in their resilience against such concentrated attacks, squads would often use the respite offered by deployable defence lines to augment the topography of the battlefield.

Unit Showcase
Shown below are some examples of both White Scars Dark Sons of Death and Emperor’s Children Sun Killers that have been built and painted by members of the Studio staff. The Dark Sons of Death are based on the Legion MkIV Destroyer Squad with Jump Packs, with a selection of upgrade parts from the Forge World range, including the Legion MkIV Power Weapons Set. The Emperor’s Children Sun Killers squads are based on the Citadel MkIV Tactical Squad kit and include upgrade parts from the Forge World Emperor’s Children MkIV’ upgrade heads, the Ryza Pattern Lascannon set and the Mars Pattern Plasma Cannon set.

Mission: Assault on Void Dock Theta-3
To think of the Kalium Gate as a void station or satellite belied the immense scale of the construct and its defences prior to Perturabo’s assault, which rivalled that of the prime planet of any system. What was left after the ruin wrought by the IVth Legion remained just as gigantic in proportion, with internal spaces sufficient to manoeuvre entire armoured companies within and external areas with artificial atmosphere processors. One such sector of the Kalium Gate was Void Dock Theta-3, a position made strategically valuable by its vast hangars, loading and refitting bays that offered a void-borne army a perfect landing zone and staging point for further assaults. There the Great Khan’s White Scars would find themselves set against the might of the Emperor’s Children who, despite having only a brief window within which to set their defence amongst the ruins of Void Dock Theta-3, had created a gauntlet of fixed weaponry, overlapping fields of fire and ambush points to punish any force that sought to seize that strategic stronghold.

Emplacements
From the Rhino chassis-based, rapidly deployable bunkers favoured by the IVth Legion to simple slabs of reinforced ferrocrete expediently slotted together to offer troops a respite from incoming fire, defensive positions have been established and augmented with mounted weapons in almost every conflict across the galaxy, stretching back to the earliest battles fought by Mankind.

Forward Deployment
It is the belief of many generals and warmasters that aggression should supersede stoicism in the conduct of defence, ordering their troops to range forth from the protection of their lines to meet their assailants beyond the shadows cast by their walls.

FORTIFICATION
The primary defences of the Kalium Gate were razed by Perturabo’s Legion, leaving the once formidable fortress vulnerable to attack. Upon their arrival, the Emperor’s Children set about restoring intricate networks of bunkers and emplacements. Although their efforts were a pale imitation of the original fortifications, defence lines and weapons batteries were installed to turn the large areas of open ground into killing fields.

 

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The Breaking of the Perfect Fortress





The Perfect Fortress was the physical embodiment of the pride of the Emperor’s Children; a city remodelled by the genius of their Primarch, Fulgrim, and his chief lieutenants to become a fortress impregnable to any onslaught. Located on the world of Narsis, which the Emperor’s Children had brought to Compliance during the Great Crusade, the Perfect Fortress served to secure the riches of several Forge Worlds and the Imperial strongholds of Agrapha, Chopix and Spartus as well as serving as a key part of the Imperium’s defences. However, with the outbreak of the Horus Heresy and the betrayal of so many once loyal armies and worlds, Narsis and its Emperor’s Children garrison stood as the lynchpin of the Traitors’ presence in the southern Imperium, a redoubt so heavily fortified that the scattered Loyalist forces had neither the numbers to besiege it, nor the force of arms to take it by storm.Despite all of this, the Primarch Corvus Corax, master of the Raven Guard, had set his sights on the so-called Perfect Fortress. Not only for the strategic value of that world or the riches it guarded, but also as a message to the Traitors that the Raven Guard would not hide; he and his Legion would not be cowed by the terrible losses inflicted upon them at Isstvan V, but would fight till their last breath to protect the Imperium. Yet, with his Legion in tatters, there was no conventional means by which the Raven Lord could succeed in destroying the fortress Fulgrim had designed. Its vast walls, cunningly designed defences and formidable gun batteries truly rendered it all but impregnable to open assault – furthermore, the fortress also served as a city, housing a population of millions that served as both a militia and a shield against indiscriminate bombardment from orbit, for the Raven Lord would not allow so many innocents to perish to bring him his revenge. Instead of defeating the fortress through brute force, Corvus Corax turned to guile and subterfuge. First, he ordered the Therion Cohort, Imperial Army soldiers bound in service to the Raven Guard, to undertake a full scale assault on the fortress, expending a significant portion of their strength in one massed onslaught.

This assault, doomed to fail even from its inception, would feed the arrogance of the Emperor’s Children and draw them out of the carefully placed defences of the fortress while the Raven Guard moved into hidden positions to strike the exposed sections of the fortress-city. However, even as the initial stages of this plan unfolded and the Therion Cohort pressed their futile assault, the orbiting scout cruiser, Fane of Shadow, detected a secondary array of concealed flak batteries scattered across the city. These brutal servitor controlled weapons were all slaved to a control room deep beneath one of the central towers and hidden from the Therion Cohort’s failing assault, a threat the Raven Lord would have no chance to counter.Only the crew of the Fane of Shadow knew of this hidden threat to Corax’s plans, with the fleet under strict orders to maintain vox-silence as the Primarch and his warriors worked to infiltrate the outer defences of the city. For that one moment, the fate of all those fighting below depended on the actions of one warrior, Centurion Beyar Kedron, who commanded the Deliverer detachment assigned to the 11th Chapter, known as the Pale Nomads within the ranks of the Raven Guard. The Deliverers were one of comparatively few cadres of XIXth Legion warriors trained to fight in Tactical Dreadnought Armour, the terminator armour that was prized in many other Legions but often shunned by the Raven Guard. The few Terminators in the Legion were most often Terran veterans who had fought and bled alongside the Justaerin and Horus before the return of the Raven Lord, and were ill-favoured by Corvus Corax for both their past and their brutal manner of fighting. However, it was these Deliverers, whom Corax had deliberately barred from the assault on Narsis, that now held the key to his attack’s success.Despite the disregard shown him by his Primarch, Kedron did not hesitate, and the Fane of Shadow broke formation under his orders and moved into low orbit, near a full company of Deliverers taking up arms and swiftly assembling so that they might go forth to defend the master that had abandoned them. Exposed now to the orbital defence batteries of the Perfect Fortress, the Fane of Shadow ploughed through a deadly hail of macro-laser blasts and flak bursts that threatened to tear the ship apart. Yet, it made no attempt to return fire, its armament too limited to threaten the Perfect Fortress.

Instead, it dipped briefly into low orbit for only a few minutes before making a hard burn back into high orbit, out of range of the Perfect Fortress’ fearsome orbital defence batteries. To an observer on the ground it would seem that the ship had undertaken a foolhardy probe in support of the Therion attack and been forced back empty-handed, but the Fane of Shadow had not failed in its mission. On the surface below, at the base of ancillary hab-block Delta-19, the air began to shimmer and distort as the Fane of Shadow made its brief dive. This otherwise unremarkable structure was marked by carefully hidden fortifications and held a demi-company of the Emperor’s Children who paid little heed to the battle raging on the far side of the city, remaining intent on their watch over a seemingly unimportant hab-block. The Emperor’s Children were veteran warriors and knew full well that such an auspex flare could mean only one thing – a mass teleport in progress – and set their guns to bracket the attackers in a deadly crossfire that made optimal use of the hidden fire points and fortifications concealed within the facade of the hab-block. The teleport completed with a series of blinding flashes, the signal for the Emperor’s Children to unleash a precise barrage of deadly bolt rounds and volkite blasts, firepower enough to cut down almost any ordinary foe in an instant.From this maelstrom of bolt shell explosions, arcing volkite beams and the lingering tendrils of the teleport discharge marched a full company of Deliverers. Clad in full cataphractii armour of dull red and deep black, they weathered the Emperor’s Children’s onslaught with chilling indifference, firing their own combi-bolters even as dozens of impacts pocked their armour and tore into the ground around them. No more than a dozen Deliverers fell to this barrage, for such was the weight of fire directed at them that some shells inevitably found weak points in their armour, but this was far too little to deter a full company numbering near a hundred cataphractii-plated warriors. The victorious Deliverers pressed forwards with Centurion Kedron at their head, eager to avenge the fallen and prove their worth to the Primarch. Heavy flamers were brought to the fore and the Emperor’s Children were driven from their fortifications by great gouts of burning promethium, with those Deliverers armed with lightning claws and power blades stalking through the flames to cut down dozens of the enemy as they sought shelter from the conflagration.

 

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This brutal onslaught quickly cleared the entrance to block Delta-19, for this type of assault had been perfected by the Deliverers on countless battlefields from the Jovian moons to the infamous battle of Gate-42. Below block Delta-19 lay the cogitator chamber, which the Fane of Shadow’s augury scanners had pinpointed from orbit, now vulnerable to assault by the Deliverers if they could breach the defences arrayed in the lower levels of the hab-block. It was into the maze of deliberately winding corridors and fortified rooms set below that the surviving Emperor’s Children had retreated, setting a new line of defences amid the perfectly arranged fortifications, battered but far from broken. Drawn to the alarms sounded by their brethren, the various Emperor’s Children defence cadres assigned to this sector of the city began taking pre-prepared positions in the surrounding hab-blocks, unleashing a devastating torrent of gunfire on the hulking Terminators below as they consolidated their position at the threshold of block Delta-19. Worse yet, triggered by the Deliverers’ assault or by Corax’s approaching airborne assault force, which had finally registered on the city’s auspex grids, automated defence macro-batteries began to deploy across the city. If these cannon were still active when the Raven Guard reached the city walls, then what should have been a decisive blow would turn into yet another battle won only with a catastrophic cost in lives for the Raven Guard, something the battered Legion could ill afford.Centurion Kedron, lacking the warriors to properly secure even a small sector of the sprawling city and ill-equipped to fight a defensive battle in the face of a dug-in enemy, chose the only option left to him – a brutal frontal assault into the teeth of enemy guns. With practised discipline the remnants of the Deliverers’ company split into smaller detachments, each weathering concentrated defensive fire from the Emperor’s Children as they moved to attack the hab-blocks that surrounded Delta-19. The multi-pronged onslaught served both to divide the fire of the entrenched Emperor’s Children and to distract them from the true intent of the Raven Guard warriors as they covered their leader’s descent into the enemy’s stronghold beneath block Delta-19. A single squad accompanied Centurion Kedron into the depths where the hidden control chamber had been detected, determined to sunder whatever defences awaited them. The remote signal controlling the Perfect Fortress’ hidden flak batteries must be silenced at all costs, for if it was not then all the efforts of the Deliverers would be for nought.

On the surface, hulking umber clad warriors of the Deliverers wielding snub-nosed reaper autocannon blasted apart the humble facades of the hab-blocks, revealing the hidden armoured bulwarks behind which the Emperor’s Children waited. The cunningly wrought defences of the Perfect Fortress, true to its name, gave the Traitors the advantage over any lesser troops – but not the warriors of the Deliverers, clad as they were in imposing and nigh-impregnable cataphractii plate. The Emperor’s Children were forced to focus tremendous firepower just to incapacitate a single terminator-armoured Deliverer and as they sought to thin the number of the invaders, the hulking warriors of the Deliverers reached the walls of the scattered hab-blocks. There, even though the careful design of the habblocks allowed Traitor fire teams on neighbouring blocks to continue firing at them, Raven Guard Terminators with growling chainfists made short work of the armoured bulkheads and wrought a bloody ruin of the purple armoured warriors that waited within, the sheer brute force of the Deliverers’ weapons making a mockery of their foe’s superlative skill-at-arms.Breaching the hab-block walls with fire and fury, the Loyalists scattered the first wave of defenders, but found little respite. Every corridor and stairway was built to grant the defenders every advantage possible, each turn an ambush point and each archway a deadly trap. In the twisting corridors and cramped stairwells the Raven Guard strode through a storm of weapons fire and frag blasts, each fresh assault chipping away at their stalwart armour and leaving them with an ever mounting toll of wounded and dead. Each time the Raven Guard broke through a line of defences to scatter their tormentors in a furious melee that pitted brutally hooked power claws against elegant lances, the Emperor’s Children left a token force to fight a rearguard as their main body fell back to another layer of artfully designed fortifications. Bodies in both purple and ochre-stained black littered every intersection and stairway, armour cleaved and broken, but each still and silent cataphractii was a telling blow to the limited strength of the Deliverers.

In this grim contest of arms the Raven Guard knew they could not best the design of the Perfect Fortress and sweep away their foe, instead, they could only hold them in a brutal and grinding stalemate. This had ever been the lot of their dour brotherhood and they did not baulk at the sacrifice they made in the name of their Legion, but instead sought to turn bitter defeat into bloody victory. More and more Emperor’s Children reserve units arrived using concealed highways and rooftop paths, drawn to the deliberately gruesome carnage wrought by the Deliverers and eager to avenge their fallen brethren. What they found was a slaughterhouse to drive lesser soldiers to abject terror, a trail of destruction that led to the innermost chambers of the hab-block, where the last few surviving squads of Deliverers waited for them. Turning the fortifications against their builders, the Raven Guard made their final stand, luring the Emperor’s Children into their own traps and defences. In the darkness, heavily armed Terminators unleashed torrents of autocannon fire from emplaced bulwarks, while claw-wielding Deliverers ploughed through the ferrocrete walls to outflank the Emperor’s Children and wreak havoc before they could be brought down by sheer numbers. Each death kept the eyes of the Emperor’s Children on the small force that dared shame them in their own fortress, and away from the Raven Guard’s true target deep below hab-block Delta-19.As his warriors on the surface bought time with their lives, Centurion Kedron and his command squad fought their way through a nightmare labyrinth in the depths of the Perfect Fortress. They cut through scores of mindless defence servitors, forcing a path through disorienting layers of electromag fields that scrambled sensors and breached near endless layers of armoured bulkheads, in search of the vital cogitator networks that allowed its complex automated defences to function. Centurion Kedron traded safety for speed, ever mindful that each moment they continued their assault was bought with the blood of those that fought and died above, and his company slowly dwindled as they homed in on the target they had identified from orbit. Yet, the greatest challenge of the assault waited on the threshold of victory, a phalanx of warriors clad in terminator plate, lacquered in deep purple and artfully trimmed in gold filigree – a marked contrast to the brutally efficient styling of the Deliverers’ own armour – blocked the final bulkhead. This cadre of the Phoenix Guard was led by the Phoenix Warden Daric Ashmoune, who had arrayed his warriors in a formation that both maximised their combat efficiency and flaunted the artistry of their wargear to their foe. At Warden Ashmoune’s signal, the elite warriors of the Emperor’s Children lowered their flickering power spears in a single synchronised motion, before charging as one body into the ragged group of battered Deliverers.

 

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Poised skill met bitter fury as the Phoenix Guard clashed with the Deliverers in combat. Only a dozen of the Raven Guard remained, set against almost twice their number of the foe, a battle that under normal circumstances would have resulted in annihilation for the warriors of the XIXth Legion. Yet the Deliverers had little intention of fighting honourably, and rather than give open battle in a dramatic set-piece engagement, they split into pairs and trios and drew the Phoenix Guard into the warren of tunnels where both simple darkness and the electromag fields that had before hampered them, now proved their allies. Pride would not allow Warden Ashmoune to hold his ground as the enemy showed him such disrespect, and he ordered the Phoenix Guard to give chase, letting his hubris turn their own fortifications against them. In the darkness the Raven Guard divided the enemy’s ranks and set upon them from hidden ambush, using the brute strength and the single-minded frenzy that sometimes overtook the warriors of the Raven Guard overcome the skill and superior numbers of the foe. Last to fall was Daric Ashmoune, who the Deliverers had left untouched, his gold-chased armour still pristine and unmarked by the vicious melee that played out around him. Vainly, Warden Ashmoune issued challenge after challenge, demanding that Centurion Kedron meet him in single combat as was the right of any commander of the Legiones Astartes. Kedron had little intention of fighting the elite Phoenix Warden on his terms, and emerged from the shadows only once all the other Emperor’s Children warriors had fallen. As Warden Ashmoune advanced to meet him in an honourable duel, still confident that his own skill could turn the tide of the battle, the remaining Deliverers fell upon him and the Raven Guard tore their foe apart in a brief and perfunctory slaughter that offered the fallen warrior no glory in his passing. With the cogitator chamber now undefended, the few surviving Deliverers made use of power-shrouded talons and explosive charges to destroy the vulnerable cogitator cores. The machine-anima housed within annihilated, the hidden macro-batteries around the Perfect Fortress fell silent and still even as the attack craft of the Raven Lord swept over the walls and disgorged their occupants upon the main host of the Emperor’s Children, who remained focused on the slaughter of the Therion Cohort and were caught completely by surprise. Perfection had been sullied and the pride of the Emperor’s Children broken, and within the battered precincts of their shattered fortress, Corvus Corax exacted a bloody revenge upon the sons of Fulgrim that is well documented in other treatise. In the aftermath of Corax’s swift victory over the supposedly perfect fortress of Narsis, casualties among the main body of the Raven Guard were light, as the hidden defences concealed within the city’s fortifications had been disabled before they could be fully brought to bear. The Deliverers under Centurion Kedron, however, paid a fierce toll for their bravery, and before they departed Narsis they laid more than two-thirds of their brothers to rest in the mausoleum of Narsis’ fallen stronghold. No honours would be granted to these fallen warriors for their actions, nor is Corvus Corax known to have uttered a word either of praise or condemnation for the Deliverers when informed of their assault. In the months that followed the fall of Narsis and the Raven Guard’s new campaign in the southern reaches of the Imperium, Centurion Kedron, as well as a number of commanders from the Therion Cohort who had criticised the plan that all but destroyed their ranks to distract the Emperor’s Children, would be assigned to seize and secure the isolated world of Galaspar, far from the war that would in later years earn the Raven Lord much renown.

Raven Guard Deliverer Squad



Few warriors of the XIXth Legion favoured the use of terminator armour in battle, mainly those Terran veterans who prior to unification with the Primarch had long served in the shadow of the Luna Wolves. These warriors had trained alongside the infamous Justaerin and mastered the tactics of close range shock assault from both aerial transport and teleport deployment. The Legionaries of the Raven Guard and the Luna Wolves came to refer to these detachments as ‘Deliverers’, both for the carnage they brought to the enemy and for their tendency to be deployed when the daring assaults favoured by the XIXth Legion floundered and threatened to fail. Horus himself is known to have honoured the Deliverers attached to the Pale Nomads Chapter for the ferocity of their counter-attack at the siege of Novas-praxim, including them as part of his personal entourage until the Raven Lord reclaimed command of his Legion. In the wake of Corvus Corax’s return, the Deliverers were rarely called upon by the Primarch. Most were assigned to distant Great Crusade fleets, and those that remained at Corax’s side became the avatars of his carefully controlled anger, loosed when an enemy proved itself worthy only of utter destruction.

Corax’s Shame- As an eternal reminder of the cruel and brutal past of those Terran veterans that Corax inherited when he took control of the Raven Guard, the Deliverers have long been exiled from any position of honour in their own Legion. Once, before the Raven Lord’s arrival, they had walked in the vanguard of Horus himself, but now they skulked in the shadows of history – abandoned by the Primarch that the Emperor appointed as their master. In the dark years of the Horus Heresy, when their old patron Horus raised his banners in rebellion, some of the few remaining Deliverers would see an opportunity to rise to glory in his name once more, abandoning the Raven Lord to serve the Warmaster, while others would see in the tumult a chance to prove themselves worthy of Corax’s notice, even if only in death.

 

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Mission: The Breaking of the Perfect Fortress
Although it was known as the Perfect Fortress, it was no mere citadel upon the world of Narsis. Built under the instruction of the most adept commanders of Fulgrim’s Legion, the Perfect Fortress was far more; a vast and sprawling metropolis of buildings, together forming a defensive structure of gargantuan proportions. Colossal orbital laser batteries tracked the skies ready to intercept enemy craft, and flak guns were ready to shred attackers bold enough to attempt to strike from the sky. From administratum sectors to manufactorums, each seemingly innocuous structure concealed defences upon which every inhabitant could mobilise as a militia, creating interlocking firing arcs from balconies and window bays and turning plazas and gardens into killing fields for any assailants.

 

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The Battle for Felweather Keep




Andy painted his Corrupted Knight Acheron in the (somewhat debased) heraldry of House Perdaxia, which is itself a bonded Household of Legio Fureans (the Tiger Eyes). As the Tiger Eyes are known to have close ties to the Emperor’s Children, he plans to field it alongside his existing IIIrd Legion force. To convey the idea of corruption, the Knight is decorated with decals from the Warhammer 40,000 Chaos Knight transfer sheet, suggesting that the Knight’s attendants have applied the profane sigils of the Ruinous Powers upon its iron skin. Citadel Technical Blood for the Blood God paint was used to apply a gory effect around the carapace hatch, hinting at the dark consequences of power and the unfortunate fate of the scion within.

 

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The Death of Canopus


Iron Hands Morlock Terminator Squad
Elite warriors of the Avernii clan, the Morlocks were utilised as an honour guard by Ferrus Manus as formality required, as well as standing guard over the Anvilarium, their Primarch’s sanctum aboard the Fist of Iron. Accompanying Ferrus Manus to Isstvan as part of his vanguard assault, the majority fell in battle alongside their Primarch at the hands of the Emperor’s Children. A few survivors who escaped, or were assigned elsewhere still persist, swearing furious oaths to avenge their fallen genesire, and taking the battle to the hated traitors wherever they can find them.

 

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Legacies of The Age of Darkness- Legiones Astartes


Shadrak Meduson
Having arrived at Isstvan V in time to bear witness to the Warmaster’s betrayal, it was all Meduson could do to fight clear with as many Iron Hands, Salamanders and Raven Guard as he could rescue. Eight weeks later, the Legion’s Clan-Council gathered at Oqueth Minor to take command of the Iron Hands Legion. But their vessel was ambushed and the Council slain by the hand of Tybalt Marr of the Sons of Horus Legion and his Emperor’s Children allies.It fell to Shadrak Meduson to muster the survivors and lead them in a new kind of war that incorporated the battle doctrines of all three Legions. His goal was twofold – exact bloody revenge and slow the Warmaster’s advance on Terra. Alloying the disparate elements of the three Legions in his force, Meduson created a hidden network of attack cells that ranged far and wide, launching hit and run attacks against the Traitors while concealing their overall strategy until his most audacious attack to date – against Warmaster Horus himself at the world of Dwell.

Palatine Blade Aquilae Squad
Based on their proclivity towards seeking out and directly assaulting those they deemed to be the finest warriors amongst any enemy arrayed against them, some formations of Palatine Blades would eschew the use of mechanised battlefield deployment in favour of the Warhawk jump pack. This selection of wargear was most often used in situations where it would allow them to traverse the roughest of terrain or even bypass lesser enemies in order to challenge their desired opponents.

Rylanor the Unyielding
One of the first generation of the Emperor’s Children, Rylanor had the singular honour of fighting beside the Emperor, with the battle honours of Roma and Thule etched into his armour. His history was the history of his Legion, and he had been the first to carry the Palatine standard into battle alongside his newfound Primarch. When he fell, grievously wounded in battle against the Eldar, his salvation was internment in a Dreadnought of his Legion. Rylanor became his Legion’s Ancient of Rites, presiding over the Emperor’s Children’s Ceremonials of Induction as well as lending his might to the line of battle for many decades until the treachery of the Warmaster tore his Legion apart from within. When the atrocity on Isstvan III came, Rylanor’s unshakable loyalty to the Emperor marked him for death in his Primarch’s eyes and he was assigned to the first wave assault, but instead survived the first murderous blow of betrayal. Once the fighting began in earnest, Rylanor soon became a priority target for the Traitors, his power dooming scores of his former battle brothers to their deaths wherever he fought, while his mere presence became a rallying cry for those loyal Emperor’s Children battling out to the bitter end. Reported destroyed several times, Rylanor, increasingly damaged, somehow endured for much of the fighting on Isstvan III, but his final fate remains unknown.

Gahlan Surlak
Once, Gahlan Surlak was an apothecary of the Legiones Astartes World Eaters, his mission to heal the wounds of his battle-brothers that they might return to battle all the faster. As his Legion fell from grace however, this mission drastically changed. At the orders of the Legion’s High Command, Surlak focused his duties ever less upon healing the wounded and instead dedicated himself to the induction of Legion Aspirants who cared so little for pain they would never have to be healed – they would win the fight or they would die, there being no middle ground where a Legionary might require medical attention.It was in the aftermath of the Isstvan betrayal that Surlak had revealed to him the hidden mysteries of blood and flesh, of genes and mutations, when he and a number of his peers were inducted into an inner circle of apothecaries, their high magus the Chief Apothecary of the Emperor’s Children – Fabius. What Surlak and his fellow apothecaries learned from Bile they carried with them to Bodt, where upon Angron’s orders they began a program of rapid indoctrination intended to usher in a new generation of Legion Aspirants who, thanks to his bloody artifice, would have no concept of pain, fear or defeat.

 

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The Battle of Nyrcon City: Visions in the Flames





Three years into the devastating conflict that wracked the Garmon Cluster, the Salamanders warship Ebon Drakeburst into realspace on the outskirts of the Beta-Garmon system. Moving through the contested space above Beta Garmon II, broadcasting no ident codes and ignoring the hails and threats of both Loyalist and Traitor vessels, it plunged towards the fortress-city capital, Nyrcon City. Waiting within, weapons ready, were the Disciples of the Flame and their leader, the Dreadnought Cassian Dracos whose prophetic visions had guided them to that heavily embattled region. Making no effort to engage, its guns withdrawn and silent, the Ebon Drake pushed its thrusters past safe margins to manoeuvre through a formation of transport vessels belonging to the Legio Mortis Titan Legion and disgorged a swarm of gunships and drop craft, before withdrawing to the system’s edge, away from the conflict.

On the war-torn surface of Beta-Garmon II, the Loyalist offensive, led by a sizable detachment of Imperial Fists, was mired in brutal attritional warfare. A counter-thrust led by a Millennial from the Emperor’s Children and an indeterminate number of Alpha Legion Legionaries had driven back the Loyalist advance, threatening to force them out of the vital city of Nyrcon, when the gunships of the Disciples of the Flame descended from the skies. Framed by the setting sun, the newcomers homed in on command-level Loyalist signals among the warring factions below. With each side unsure of the provenance of the new arrivals, the Disciples’ gunships located a wide avenue on the Traitor flank held by a number of Alpha Legion artillery and support units, swooping down to disgorge their contents onto the cratered roadway. Power armoured warriors bearing the varied livery of the Disciples leapt from their transports even as they touched down, weapons blazing, cutting down the Alpha Legion units caught in the open and clearing a path for a single ornately decorated Thunderhawk to descend. Thundering forth from the gunship, Cassian Dracos, a mountain of ceramite propelled by an atomantic heart, and a contingent of his most zealous followers smashed into the Traitor ranks. There, Dracos crushed and incinerated azure-armoured figures wherever he could find them as they struggled to bring their heavy weapons to bear at such close range, his booming proclamations punctuated by detonating Traitor vehicles. Xiaphas Jurr directed his squads to clear out key structures that the Dreadnought had bypassed in his frenzy of destruction, burning the Traitors out with blasts of flame and securing a landing zone for their remaining forces. With the immediate beachhead secured, the Disciples heavy transports set down, delivering their cargo of Predator assault tanks alongside Land Raider and Rhino transports before withdrawing to safety. With their heavy armour now supporting their assault, the Disciples drove the reforming Traitor forces back in a barrage of las-blasts and explosive rockets.

The Ebon Drake
An assault cruiser of the XVIIIth (Salamanders) Legion, the fragmented records discovered on board the Ebon Drake’s shattered hulk during the period known as the Scouring indicate that it set out from Nocturne in the early days of the Horus Heresy, seeking news of Vulkan and the fate of the forces that accompanied him to confront the Traitors in the Isstvan system. Commanded by the Chaplain-Lieutenant Xiaphas Jurr, this vessel found itself embroiled in several notable actions on its meandering journey. At Isstvan V its crew recovered the damaged Dreadnought sarcophagus of Cassian Dracos, former Master of the XVIIIth Legion, and learned the fate of their brethren there. Subsequently Cassian Dracos began to exhibit prophetic visions, and though Xiaphas Jurr remained the de facto commander of the vessel, it was increasingly Dracos who dictated its course. These warriors began to refer to themselves as the Disciples of the Flame, scorching their armour black and rendering it with images of their gene-sire in dedication to their cause. This force continued to strike against Traitor holdings where they could, though as the civil war progressed their purpose became less and less entwined with the Loyalist war effort and ever more dictated by the unpredictable guidance of their prophetic former Legion Master.

 

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With his foe thrown into disarray, the Imperial Fists commander, Castellan Lyrmund Thall, acted swiftly. Diverting a cohort of his Mechanicum allies to support the Disciples of the Flame, Thall led his forces out of their defensive positions, driving several wedges into the disordered Traitor lines. The presence of an Iron Warriors contingent led by the Warsmith Nârik Dreygur among the Disciples’ number, as well as the devotional murals, scripture and totems worn upon their modified armour, drew both alarm and suspicion from Thall’s forces, especially from the Salamanders within their ranks, but with the Disciples’ allegiance made clear by their actions Thall attempted to contact the Disciples’ commanders. Receiving no reply from Cassian Dracos or Xiaphas Jurr, and only curt acknowledgement from Nârik Dreygur, Thall watched in confusion as the new arrivals pushed onwards in defiance of all military logic, continuing to harry the retreating Traitor forces instead of consolidating the Loyalist position. Reticent to lose momentum, but wary of overstretching his lines, the Castellan reluctantly ordered a halt. Despite Thall’s repeated requests, the Disciples instead continued their pursuit, followed by a number of his own Salamanders units who ignored his orders and instead sought to reunite with their brethren and former Legion Master. At the vanguard of this rogue host were several maniples of Mechanicum automata, heedless of the commands of their outraged magos controllers as they tore through the Traitor ranks with a fury that belied the cold logic that once ruled them. This rag-tag horde of warriors, automata and war machines, now numbering almost fifteen hundred, advanced as one under the banner of the Disciples, ignoring the demands of Castellan Thall to hold and giving full vent to the hatred of the foe that Cassian Dracos had kindled in their hearts.



Night fell over Nyrcon as the Disciples pushed ever deeper into the southern areas of the city, though no Loyalist observer could discern their ultimate objective other than the destruction of the Traitor forces. In response, the Alpha Legion dispatched elite Effrit Disruption Cadre operatives to try to slow this advance. Many of the Disciples’ scout and outrider units abruptly found their auspex devices malfunctioning and their communications cut off, before being gunned down at close range in sudden ambushes. Others found themselves slowed by grav-snares or triggered explosive traps. Despite these attempts to distract or disorient them, the Disciples continued their determined push southwards until they reached Nyrcon City’s industrial mag-rail terminus. With Dracos’ forces split by the enormous engine-sheds and funnelled along the rail lines, the Alpha Legion seized their opportunity and struck back in force. A firestorm erupted among the Disciples’ formations. Explosive ordnance rained down on them from pre-ranged artillery, as shadowy figures opened fire from the surrounding maintenance sheds. Cybernetica automata silently formed up around Dracos, shielding him with their armoured bodies, even as missiles and lascannon blasts scythed through their ranks. The Disciples did not flinch, their purpose made certain by the proclamations and prophecies of their figurehead, even as their Rhinos and Land Raiders exploded around them. Flames burned brightly in the dark, illuminating hidden foes as Adherent squads, zealous warriors bearing potent combi-flamers, drove into the nearest buildings. Enduring a deluge of firepower, they pushed onwards, immolating the Traitors with blasts of burning promethium.Over the following hours an attritional stalemate emerged. While each Disciples contingent was still relatively isolated from the others, several of the engine-sheds had been secured and makeshift defensive positions established. On multiple occasions, desperate Disciples squads reported assaults led by an ornately decorated Alpha Legion Dreadnought, its powered fists easily tearing apart the Loyalist defences and crumpling armour. Seeing an opportunity to strike a symbolic blow, Cassian Dracos sought to engage this warrior, but perhaps warned by its fellows, the Dreadnought disengaged each time, disappearing into the darkness, before seeming to attack again from another direction within minutes. Unable to vent his fury, and with Xiaphas Jurr and his other officers reporting low ammunition stocks and mounting casualties among their warriors, Dracos took decisive action. Leading his dwindling contingent towards the nearest potential escape route, a large maintenance entrance giving access to the mag-rail tunnels beneath the city, Dracos instructed his other officers to seek to rendezvous there. Though none could say how Dracos came to know of this unmarked safe haven, all trusted his guidance and sought to enact his will.

The Alpha Legion, previously content to preserve their forces and conduct hit and run assaults on their foes from the darkness, recognised that their trapped foe might break out, and committed their forces in a concerted push to encircle them anew. Harried by the Traitors, the Disciples’ advance swiftly became a desperate rearguard action, squads instinctively falling back in overlapping patterns, laying down supporting fire as they sought to drive back their attackers and recover their fallen or injured brothers. Some units found themselves cut off from their fellows, their officers felled by pinpoint shots from Effrit units bearing deadly Nemesis bolters, and their normally resilient vox network severed without explanation. As confusion reigned in the dark, others threw themselves into the fighting with shattered blades or armoured gauntlets, their guns empty, holding back the relentless foe and buying precious moments for their brethren. Despite the carnage, Cassian Dracos remained unfazed, urging his forces onwards. Rallying around their figurehead, the Disciples of the Flame retreated over the bodies of their slain, moving inexorably towards the promised sanctuary, every step bought with blood. As his forces converged on the maintenance entrance, its rockcrete mouth wide enough even to allow access by the Disciples’ remaining armoured vehicles, Dracos looked over the assembled Legionaries. Fewer than five hundred of his followers still stood with him. Holding back the Alpha Legion forces at the entrance with blasts of flame as his forces filtered away into the tunnels urged on by the wounded Xiaphas Jurr and Nârik Dreygur, Dracos caught sight of his nemesis. Emerging in the firelight, weapons blazing, were a pair of identical Alpha Legion Contemptor Dreadnoughts. Breaking into a loping stride, they closed in on the escaping Loyalists, bringing their weapons to bear on Dracos.



Sensing an opportunity to atone for his earlier failure, Cassian Dracos turned to confront them. As Dracos drew near, one of the Traitor Dreadnoughts seemed to shut down entirely, as if his mere proximity caused the electro-fibre bundles in its limbs to cease function and the power of its atomantic generator to dim. As the light faded in its lensed eyes, its hulking form suddenly swerved into the rockcrete support at the side of the entrance tunnel, before toppling to the cratered ground. The other staggered but remained on its feet, smashing its iron form directly into Dracos and throwing him back against the tunnel mouth. Lesser warriors scrambled for safety as the Dreadnoughts grappled, each seeking to land a telling blow, as the entrance’s rockcrete supports crashed down around them, cracks running up the walls and across the ceiling. With a roar of triumph, Dracos tore away his foe’s clawed arm before plunging his own powered fist through its shattered armour, tearing out the remains of the warrior within. Triggering the heavy flamer built into his fist, Dracos incinerated his foe before casting the burning remains to the ground.Seeing the last of his warriors reach safety, Dracos staggered back into the tunnel, heavy bolter shells exploding against his ravaged armour. His weapons empty, sparks flying from damaged locomotors, Dracos dragged himself towards the final undamaged support, and with a final sweep of his clawed fist, tore it down. With a deafening rumble, dust and chunks of rockcrete fell from the ceiling, and the roof began to sag. As Dracos limped backwards into the dark, the disabled Alpha Legion Dreadnought started to rise back to its feet, before the ceiling finally gave way beneath the massive weight of the city above, bringing hundreds of tons of rockcrete crashing down upon it. As muted explosions signalled its demise the entrance was sealed by the falling debris, and the Disciples of the Flame disappeared below the city.