Black Book - The Eastern Expansion Campaigns

[bluntblade]

Cheers man. Number of battles sound reasonable to me.

 

The key thing with the SOS to my mind is to show that the Harbingers work around that obstacle, as well as the larger military machine Icarion has built. Rakurai auxilia, Akira taghmata and the Legio Telesto should all put in appearances.

 

I'll try and flesh out this idea I got from the IW cloud-hammers.

[bluntblade]

Factions to add as far as I'm aware: House Zivich, Legio Telesto, maybe Legio Tonarum (unkess we save them to debut in crunch alongside the Fire Keepers).

[Demus Ragnok]

Regarding the Firekeeper strategy at Comnena.

 

“We will sell our lives here, and the butchers bill will be terribly high. Have the tech marines start dismantling the deep breaching warheads. Our funeral pyre will be atomic flame.”

 

The sergeant saluted Sigurd, his face flashing the hint of a smile.

 

“Ash and Dust.”

 

“Ash and Dust.”

[bluntblade]

I done thinking and had an idea for the VE, which would place Yucahu beyond the lines deemed defensible by Alexandros, giving their comrades time to shore up those defences. So their first appearance will be wrecking Insurrectionist Army elements in the process of conquering a world, possibly with Lions in tow. How does that sound?

[bluntblade]

Now, I find myself thinking about our intro for the sub-book dealing with the VE and the Eastern Fringe, or rather the prescript by our pickled remembrancer. For one thing, perhaps the monstrousness of the Abyssii should perhaps be made to resonate more in the Mars text but regardless, they are of a piece with the leashed monsters which he discusses. Which is of course due to the presence of the Dune Serpents, Predators and Void Eagles in the book.

 

Moving from that starting point, we ought to have those themes inform the introduction proper, and underline the necessity (and maybe even use the Good Men Doing Nothing adage when the Wardens of Light are addressed) which stems from Icarion's conquests.

[bluntblade]

Ta da:

The Judgement of Eagles

The exact point at which the Age of Darkness began is as contested as any date in Imperial history. Some deem it to be the moment when Icarion made his proclamation. Others favour the fall of Daer’dd above Kataii. There are those who place the moment a little earlier, with the massacres Raktra carried out in his preparations on Kartyg, the purges within the Insurrectionist Legions or Kelbor Hal’s heretek intrigues on Mars. All of these claims have dedicated champions among the ranks of historators.

Yet the blessed Warmaster did not agree with any of them. In his writings, Alexandros identified the opening of this grim epoch as occurring with just one battle of a thousand being fought at that time, in a theatre of no surpassing importance. Nonetheless, in the Warmaster's mind, the Age of Darkness began on a world named Foleith.

The Forlorn Garrison
Along the border between Icarion's territory and the Emperor’s, beyond the regions deemed defensible by the Loyalist high command, pockets of resistance remained, resolving to hold as best they could and slow the enemy. Once such guttering fire in the dark was Foleith, a fortress world to which several tattered fleets had flocked. Isolated as they were, they did not warrant the attention of a massed Legion force when these were needed to press further towards Terra. Instead command was given to Lord Commander Tholt Reslan, who had commanded the 3146th Expeditionary Fleet. With two cohorts of Solar Auxilia, Legio Cybernetica maniples and a host of the Knight House Dagmyr, this force was deemed quite enough to grind out what remained of the resistance.

Certainly, they made short work of the Loyalist fleet. Reslan’s flagship, the Krommagbane, was a true behemoth, reclaimed from a space hulk for a brutal war against the Orks some hundred and ten years ago. Few fleets outside the Legiones Astartes could boast such a monstrous vessel, and in just a few short hours the defending fleet was broken, the few survivors scattering to the outer dark. Eight days of probing and bombardment against the four fortress-hives of Foleith followed. Each attack strained the cities’ void shields further, killed a few hundred more soldiers, did more damage to the defence batteries that snapped at bomber wings. The Loyalists' tenacity was truly heroic, dozens of disparate, weary armies standing firm against their inevitable doom. But inevitable it remained, and the missives dispatched by the world’s Astropaths were merely a valediction, telling the Imperium of the sacrifices made on Foleith.

On the ninth day, the Insurrectionists began escalade operations against two of the great fortresses, their landers flocking to the captured spaceports and unloading hundreds of thousands of soldiers. They were fresh to battle, their weapons pristine and their tank squadrons far more numerous and varied than those of the defenders, whose super-heavy elements had largely been abandoned on other worlds. On their heels came the Knights of Dagmyr, whose indigo-hued walkers waded into the fray with imperious disdain, sowing deaths by the score with every salvo and cleaving through tank armour with their chainswords. Nothing on Foleith could overcome such a host. All that remained to the Loyalists was to hold out until the last defender perished.

The Wings Unfurled
Two more days of gruelling struggle followed, ever more desperate. In the dying hours of the eleventh day, as the Insurrectionists pressed towards the control spires of the breached hives and broke open the wall of another with a mass of siege tanks, a fleet emerged into the system. Legiones Astartes vessels, their number consistent with a large Chapter. Reslan, overseeing operations on the surface, was surprised by this development, but initially put it down to the delays he had suffered - not intolerable, but unwelcome given the urgency of the campaign. He and his staff expected that these were representatives of the Stormlord, likely the Drowned or the Grave Stalkers by their imperious silence. His prestige would suffer for their presence, but at least it would bring a swift end to the conquest.

It was then an unwelcome development when the incoming fleet suddenly assumed an attack vector. Reaching auspex range, their colours caused bafflement until they were identified as the Second Great Fleet of the IV^th Legion. Its flagship was a fifteen-kilometre slice of jagged brass named the Sky Walker, justly famed among the Imperium’s armadas and already with webs of pre-firing energy spidering across its lances.

Reslan was sanguine as he weighed the odds. The Insurrectionist fleet was well-armed, and the Krommagbane was mighty, its guns and armour at least the match of the Sky Walker. The Void Eagles were outnumbered and their ships bore scars from the Day of Revelation; there would be internal damage too, that could not have been fully repaired in hostile territory. Moreover, Reslan knew that Acao Culica, the old master of the Second Great Fleet, was dead, his warriors bereft of his expertise. The Eagles were here, the Lord Commander and his fleetmasters concluded, to do what damage they could before destruction took them. To serve them that doom would be costly, but the glory of destroying a Loyalist Chapter of Astartes was a prospect they would not have dared imagine before. Therefore the Insurrectionist fleet assumed a defensive formation with as much relish as mortal troops have ever shown in confronting the Angels of Death.

Thus a deception was achieved by the Void Eagles, and with one hand on display, the hidden blade moved into place. From the inner system, hurtling on a slingshot course, came something brass-hulled and titanic, cannons sliding into place along its flanks as lances began to fizz with electricity. In its wake came three hundred more vessels, the First and Tenth Great Fleets, which only underlined the death sentence. Their surprise had been achieved through pure mastery of the void, for the commander of this fleet admitted no equal in naval warfare. The Ala Lux brought its engines to full burn, and the fate of the Insurrectionist fleet was sealed.

Brazen Talons
Much of the fleet behind the Ala Lux did not follow it into the fray, but struck instead the ships still grappling with the defenders. They made little effort to shield their allies, instead plunging into the Insurrectionist formations and leaving charred wreckage in their wake. Then thousands of drop-pods were launched and hundreds of gunships took wing, streaking down into the atmosphere to where the fighting still raged. The Ala Lux had little need of support in this battle. Nothing was its equal here, flagship of Yucahu Sumakutaa, butcher of planets.

Like the Legion’s namesake it fell upon the Krommagbane from above, bursting its shields and then opening fiery gashes in its shell with lance strikes and unloading macrocannons into the towers running along its back. The Krommagbane was lamed, sloughing off whole kilometres of armour like dead skin as its cannons faltered. Minutes later the Sky Walker finished the job, destroying its bridge and leaving the giant to drift lifeless in the void while the fleet around it was taken apart. Ramius Osaun, Culica’s successor, had gained his first great kill as master of the Second.

Below, the Insurrectionists tried to reorient their forces to face the attack to come. At the one hive whose void shields still held, the Void Eagles did not deign to face them, wiping two million men from the surface with plasma blasts that glassed sixty square kilometres of earth. Where fighting had raged through two hives before, it was redoubled. Gunships swooped in, unloading their heavy bolters into the packed ranks of soldiers. Knights and tanks, hemmed in by the press of troops around them, became prey for Fire Raptor Destroyers, their Neutron Beam Lasers searing through ceramite and adamantium. Void Eagle Corsairs led despoilers and breachers into the mass of enemies. Assault marines plunged into the ranks from above, their mere passage killing dozens as they crushed men underfoot and set others ablaze with the blasts of their jump packs.

Flamers lit up, acrid jets whipping through the ranks and sending soldiers writhing, attempting to flee but caught in the crush of their comrades. In the lower levels, with more room for the Insurrectionists to manoeuvre, the fighting was more mobile, but the bulk of their forces were hemmed in by the structure of the hive and the pressure of their own numbers. Panic spread, and a dragging siege became a massacre. Between the thunder of cannon and the savagery of chainblade, flamer and bolter, what were already bloodied plazas and thoroughfares became nothing so much as swamps of viscera and ash.

At the last hive, battle only gripped the outer precincts of the city, and much of the invading force remained on the great muster field beside the spaceport. Yucahu’s response was blunt and uncompromising, directed at this location. Drop-pods screamed into the skies above the fields, and struck in their hundreds, pulping men where they struck. They had been unleashed with an accuracy that even other Legions would have struggled to match, striking to the rear of the Army.

The Insurrectionists had deployed the vast bulk of their heavy armour and Knights into the city, but this worked in their favour, for on the field they had some room to reform, even as those units close to the Astartes were sacrificed. There was not the crush that had doomed their armies elsewhere. Their second wave also had large numbers of Armoured Sentinel walkers and Hectarion Main Battle Tanks. These moved towards the drop-pods, ready to smite whatever might emerge. The Sentinels in particular were fleet for such powerful machines, and their heavy weapons made them more than a match for a Space Marine strike force. Or so their commanders believed.

Figures emerged from the drop-pods, so huge and misshapen that at first they appeared to be automata until they roared out their Legion’s warcry. They were encased in armour whose pauldrons had fused, encompassing the warriors’ heads and topped with heavy cannon which matched those in their armoured fists. These weapons immediately answered the guns of the enemy, and all was blood and fire. The Saturator squads of the IV^th Legion were named for their brutal purpose, and the Sentinels may as well have been a screen of paper against them.

The soldiers behind the squadrons of walkers saw them stagger and begin a torturous dance under the withering firestorm. They were still being driven toward the front line when it was overtaken, the slayers looming through the smoke and flames. Devastators and Dreadnoughts - mostly Mortis variants, although they included vast Deredeos and Leviathans among their ranks - joined them, and the tanks met a torrent of fire that stripped their armour away and left smouldering wrecks. Where the Saturators turned their heavy guns, nothing survived. More Void Eagles came after them, Moritats and Destroyer squads prowling at the edges of companies, Dreadnoughts towering over anything else, slamming into the few tanks that remained and spilling their mechanical innards with claws and power fists, trampling the wreckage into the dirt.

Thunderhawks and Stormbirds descended, delivering more Legionaries alongside squadrons of Sicaran Venators and Predators armed both for destroying tanks and wiping out infantry. The coffin-silhouettes of three Titan carriers cast their ominous shadows over the hive, and Titans of the Legio Astorum came to take their own share of the slaughter. But the true death knell came as twenty Stormbirds - the dreaded Apophis pattern, kings of the sky - swept down, and the Primarch of the IV^th Legion leapt from a landing ramp. His deadliest close-combat fighters followed, and when Yucahu brandished his chainglaive they broke into a charge. All that remained now was for the slaughter to run its course.

The thousands-strong spearhead swelled, fed by Stormbirds until forty thousand Astartes and twenty Titans trod the blasted ferrocrete, and Yucahu fought at their head, swinging his dreaded Hullbreaker in shrieking arcs. Men within reach of the chainglaive may as well have been cast into a threshing machine, and if they were spared its destroying edge then they were swatted aside, bones pulverised. His Firebrand cadre guarded his flanks, and even the Ogryn Charonites set against the Primarch fell with little effort, torn open and crushed by his blows. A House Dagmyr Acheron evaded the Titan salvos that felled its comrades, the pilot intent upon killing the Primarch before him. Yucahu, however, saw the machine coming, and the Acheron's chainfist met Hullbreaker in a storm of sparks and howling metal. Even against a Knight, the Primarch's strength was all but unmatchable. Yucahu threw back the chainfist, before wheeling to bring Hullbreaker down on its leg, hewing clean through the metal and ceramite. The Knight toppled, and Yucahu tore the pilot from his throne and shattered his skull with the haft of his glaive.

In six and a half hours, the last invasion force was broken, its tank echelons blasted to scrap by the Void Eagles and Astorum Titans. The two Solar Auxilia cohorts stood and died, mowed down by the Primarch and his favoured companies. A few hundred men from lesser regiments escaped the slaughter and fled into the depths of the hive, casting aside weapons and uniforms in their efforts to disappear. Reslan, whose body was never identified, is thought to have been among them. Yucahu sent no hunting parties after them, but that was nothing more than a stay of execution. Unbeknownst to any outside the IV^th Legion, sentence had already been passed on the planet itself.

Salted Earth and Flame
To the surviving defenders, Yucahu offered no grand oratory. His words were curt orders and statements. Foleith would not be saved, and its fortresses destroyed to deny their use to the enemy. If the soldiers who had fought for it desired further life and fruitful struggle, they would find it under Yucahu's command, and in their coordination and valour he did find something to admire. More importantly, it was a weapon he might yet make use of. Over a day and a night, Foleith was emptied of Imperial personnel and all weaponry that could be retrieved and repaired, with several captured Insurrectionist ships given over to the less ravaged regiments. Others were absorbed into the already mongrel serf forces on the IV^th Legion’s own ships, or broken down and recombined. All were deemed a worthy addition to the defenders of Segmentum Solar.

Hundreds of millions of hive-dwellers, however, could not be evacuated in time, with order giving way to anarchy as they realised the Primarch had no intention of delivering them. In the pitiless mind of Yucahu, they were a resource that he could not profit from, and so they became something else to deny his foes. The magi who had watched over the systems at the heart of Foleith’s cities now set the reactors to overload before the last transports withdrew. Under the Void Eagles’ stony gaze, the cities were blotted from the planet's surface, soon obscured by the smaller, more numerous explosions of enemy ships that could not be made voidworthy soon enough. Stripped of ammunition and set to perish in low orbit, they would complete the nuclear winter and leave only a Dead World in orbit.

Yucahu and his forces passed out of the system, and soon a conquered agri-world was burned and barren, while another Insurrectionist Army was caught and destroyed as it pressed its advantage on a minor Forge World. Again, the only deliverance the Starborn would grant entailed service in his ugly, pragmatic war. A band of charred and ransacked worlds, which would would come to mark the Border, began to grow in the overlapping shadows of the two empires. On hearing of the battle, Alexandros wrote “It is now, as we tarnish the Imperium’s sheen to preserve the structure, that this Age of Darkness begins in earnest. The Crusade was but the dawning, but I fear that it will seem as brightest day when the night takes hold.”

[bluntblade]

Just trying to wrap my head around what the plan for this book now is. So we have Foleith as a prologue of sorts, the Eastern Fringe (though I want to come up with a particular name for the massive Insurrectionist offensive which decides it), the Invasion of Nox and then the Predators' attack on wherever Azus is held. Is that the order we want to go in?

 

Also I wanted to check who's involved in Nox beyond the two primary factions.

[simison]

We've switched to a campaign book system. So, each campaign, in theory, will get its own book.

[bluntblade]

In theory that works, though I thematically this will handle better as one set of campaigns. Blood Crusade aside, is there a campaign big enough to occupy an entire book like Calth, Prospero or Isstvan V?

 

Re: the Eastern Fringe, I'm not clear on what strength of Drowned are heading over, but if Morro stays in the West this could make an excellent showcase for Hennahsohn. Beyond that, I reckon the approach to Hephaesta would be that the Legions forego any cautious approach and bulldoze a path towards Hephaesta while beginning to hem in and hunt down the Serpents.

[Doctor Perils]

In theory that works, though I thematically this will handle better as one set of campaigns. Blood Crusade aside, is there a campaign big enough to occupy an entire book like Calth, Prospero or Isstvan V?

The initial parts of Calth, Prospero and Istvaan V are essentially a large battle rather than a campaign, so I'd argue all the Day of Revelation battles could be pretty much comparable

But in any case, one of the reasons for cutting it up into smaller books was to make each easier to work on - if they were too large (like the black books and the "trilogy" format) it would be super hard to continue work for long as amateurs

[bluntblade]

I meant more thematic significance than size. DoR should be one big bundle I reckon, then Mars followed by Expansion and Retaliation..

[bluntblade]

The Evacuation of Thelum

Broken Hearths
Among the grand clashes in the early Insurrection, another tale began to play out; that of Blackshields and Insurgos, the scattered and lost trying to find their own place in the conflict, often in defiance of those who sired them. The Insurrection drove some apart, and some together, making unlikely and reluctant allies as well as bitter foes. So it was with the Evacuation of Thelum.

It is important to set this engagement in its proper context, for it is one of what were called the Hearthfire Battles. This moniker adorns several of the early Insurrection’s bitterest fights, in which Legions made war upon one another's fiefdoms. The Hearthfire Battles differed greatly in size, raging variously across recruiting planets and forward bases. An early example was the XIX^th's forward base of Helon in the Galactic Northwest, overrun by the Berserkers of Uran and left a cinder in the void. In two cases, the very homeworld of a Legion became a target.

The initial moves in the game left much of the board for Icarion's taking, but sacrifices had to be made, and those included Han and Zbruch. Both were well-defended systems, but the Astartes watching over them numbered only a few thousand in each case. Revolts and coups in proximate systems failed to produce the desired protective cordons, and the two were swiftly isolated and blockaded, soon to feel the vengeful anger of the Loyalists.

Pionus Santor led what is called the Subjugation of Zbruch, descending with six Battalions of his Scions Hospitalier, Knights of House Toho and a number of Kirya Mechanicum taghma, including the Legio Gojira. Against this force, the defenders of Zbruch’s capital city had no answer, not even the Legio Fortissimus war maniple stationed there. The “Teeth of the Sea”, as the Scions called their most heavily armoured formations, closed upon the city, breaching even the Falspire, citadel of the Godslayers. Those who surrendered were spared. No such mercy was given those who resisted, and after four days of bloody warfare, the last regional council on Zbruch had their heads struck from their shoulders.

If the Subjugation of Zbruch was characterised by cold and measured violence, Han was a battle of fire and wrath. Hectarion and his Crimson Lions had ventured throughout the northern part of Segmentum Pacificus to quell rebellions and destroy Insurrectionist forces. Finally, with two thirds of the Legion, he came upon the home of the Warriors of Peace, where evacuations had been going on for some months.

The Jade General had established a fiefdom on the world of Jin decades before, with colonists from Fenghao, and in the years preceding the Insurrection he changed it from a recruiting world and forward base to a primary headquarters in waiting. Yet the imperative remained to save personnel and technology from Fenghao, and so a XVIII^th Legion fleet was there to give battle against the Lions. Indeed, Alexandros was concerned enough by the defenders’ strength to order Hectarion to wait and build his strength before attempting an invasion.

The Lion brooked no such hesitation, and at great cost in blood the III^rd broke the defences of Han and ran riot within its cities. Even in these days of fresh wounds and bitterness, many within Loyalist high command were appalled at the violence visited upon Han, for in several districts civilian populations had been slaughtered by Legionaries lost to their rage - and some of these excesses, it was alleged from the start, had been premeditated by certain companies and officers.

While it ended a potential threat and satisfied Hectarion’s fierce honour, precious little of value was claimed from Jin besides the XVII^th Legion’s vehicular reserve - itself diminished, for much had been shipped to Jin in preparation along with the stocks of gene-seed. Hectarion was all too aware of the victory’s hollowness, and his grief and anger were not discernibly lessened. The Jade General’s views on the Razing remain unknown, but the memory of Han was taken up as a warcry by many of his sons’ companies.

[bluntblade]

The Eyries and Catacombs

For their own part, elements of the XVII^th were tasked with the reduction of several Loyalist Legion’s enclaves, as the new shadow empire sought to define its own centre of power. Any world that might harbour Legiones Astartes was a threat to the Stormlord’s hold, for even a squad of Astartes was a potent force multiplier in the right context. Besides their superhuman strength and intelligence, their capacity to inspire mortal Loyalists served to stiffen resistance wherever they took a place in the line. At the same time, each fortress held valuable wargear, gene-seed and a potential bounty of relic-technologies won in war and guarded by their finders.

 

So these strongholds were to be broken open and claimed for Icarion’s rule. Gyelthume, the Iron Bears’ base of operations in the Ghoul Stars, was already subjugated, coming under attack immediately after the Day of Revelation even as the Bears’ Third Grand Wartribe evacuated who and what they could. The Shepherds of Eden had been forced from Badab, and that world given to the Morning Stars.

 

But most numerous across the usurper’s domain were the fiefs of the Void Eagles. With their highly independent and dispersed fleets, the IV^th Legion had built bases for itself throughout the Segmenta. In Ultima, the greatest of these was Thelum, a feral world which turned beneath a harsh blue sun. Its many tribes were of a techno-barbarian cast, and Yucahu had immediately perceived their usefulness. So they were left to struggle and war, the Void Eagles watching and taking those youths who showed the most promise.

 

With ample gene-stock, the primary recruitment worlds had become key to research and experiments carried out by the Legion’s Apothecaries. While the details were never known during the Crusade, the Void Eagles’ most testing campaigns had driven them to extreme measures in bolstering their ranks. From the Rangdan Xenocides in particular, records lingered of IV^th Legion detachments of mysterious origin, fighting with unnatural savagery and never seen again after the end of those wars.

 

Even Mashyan of the Morning Stars had not known the true extent of the work that went on in the vaults of Thelum and other worlds. Only data-cores ripped from the ruined ships of both sides, years later, would provide the full truth. The Void Eagles had pioneered methods of accelerated implantation and hypno-indoctrination, more extreme than many of the methods which became commonplace during the Insurrection. These were known as the Inexorii Protocols and created warriors who, while resembling Legionaries, were ruled by a feral bloodlust and the implanted memories of a hundred battles. Named after the Protocols which created them, they proved so aggressive that a specialised officer class, the Exactorii, had come into being to command them.

 

After the Xenocides ended, the Void Eagles largely removed the Inexorii from their ranks, except for the most extreme fleets, and halted their creation. Thelum had become a repository of the formulae and equipment used in these processes, along with the surviving Inexorii, caged in stasis fields. The deepest catacombs beneath the capital city of Vereauxium came to be filled with the volatile refuse of the IV^th Legion’s most harrowing wars, sitting alongside the prototype weapons given to them for testing and relic devices recovered on Crusade.

 

Thelum held a scattering of fortresses and minor facilities, but only one true city. Vereauxium nestled some way from the natives’ easy reach at the heart of a mountain range. Three great thoroughfares cut through the range, but altitude and cold served to deter most even before the series of gateways leading deeper into the range. Other facilities littered the skies around the planet, their inhabitants often outnumbering the terrestrial settlements. These were heavily defended, and the Void Eagles had strewn smaller emplacements and stations across the system. All of this, the Insurrectionists were gathering a force to break open.

[simison]

And here I thought Thelum would be in Obscurus.

[bluntblade]

I needed it to make sense for a Crusading WoL force to end up there.

[simison]

Still, I would not deploy the WoP in too many separate operations given they attack a much larger opponent on the DoR.

[bluntblade]

I think it's within practical bounds in this case, as they are backed by Xei'An forces.

The Dragon’s Shadow
The Insurrectionists may not have understood what lay beneath Vereauxium’s fortified bulk, but they could readily guess. The Berserkers of Uran had fought with the Void Eagles in the final Rangdan Xenocide, and seen from afar the blood-mad detachments of Inexorii. As advocates for more numerous and aggressive Legionaries, they had made sure to record those instances, and these records now identified Thelum as a particularly rich target.

The Berserkers, however, were not the ones to assault Thelum, their main force concentrated to the north and west. The task was duly given to the Warriors of Peace, with an invasion force drawn up under Lord Commander Yin Kuo, known as the Topaz General. While not one of the XVII^th’s most vaunted commanders, Kuo enjoyed considerably more trust from his Primarch than Sima Yu, the “Bloodstone General” also assigned to the campaign against Loyalist Legion enclaves. As such, he was given a vast supporting force for this task. Besides 8,000 Legiones Astartes, he called upon 1,600,000 Army troops, with the further support of two taghmata from the Forge World of Xei’An.

Kuo’s fleet was similarly powerful, numbering some twenty-five capital-class ships with over three times that number of escorts. Among these were a number of ships optimised for long-range bombardment, including two prototype cruisers known as “Scourges”. Built around a trio of plasma cannons, these had been taken largely intact from the Fire Keepers and entrusted to Kuo for this mission. Indeed, the Topaz General seems to have been given the first pick of several captured vessels, from Mena-Goth and a number of subsequent battles.

For to even reach Thelum was to fight past a great number of orbital defence stations and kill-sats, and the Warriors of Peace understood well enough none of their vessels were as suited to the task as those they had claimed from their cousins. It was expected that the garrisons here would be of high calibre; the Void Eagles had always drawn on voidbound cultures and seeded them in almost all their domains.

For those reasons, Kuo had requisitioned his own cohort of Solar Auxilia, the Shosi Fire Jackals, who had proved their loyalty in bloody fashion in the Uest Coup. Besides their high value as soldiers, they would stiffen the resolve of their lessers by example, and as the system would need occupying, Kuo meant to give them mastery of Thelum when the conquest was complete.

The Xei’An Archmagos committed a large number of highly mobile automata and combat-servitors to the endeavour. These would be of immense value in securing the skies above Thelum and the enclaves elsewhere in the system, to say nothing of the gruelling fighting that would follow the void action.

After the battle to reach the surface was won, siege tanks, mobile artillery and Titans would be the Insurrectionists’ greatest asset in forcing a way into Vereauxium. To this end Kuo requisitioned a two maniples of the Legio Solachra, along with large detachments of Knights and several super-heavy squadrons from Xei’An. A large portion of the Army was likewise mechanised, with many smaller models such as Predators intended for the vicious street and tunnel fighting that would come as the Insurrectionists entered the city.

[ShadowSwordmaster]

I really like what you wrote so far.

[bluntblade]

Under Torn Skies

The void around Thelum was viciously contested, and the Warriors of Peace took to the fight in person on several orbital stations. The Night Fangs, the Solar Auxilia raised from Thelum, fought tenaciously and with no small amount of cunning, but only a handful of Void Eagles squads were among them, and the greater numbers of the Warriors of Peace and their allies proved the deciding factor. For a two full days the void around the planet burned, until Guliko ordered his remaining ships to withdraw to the system’s edge.

 

Kuo turned much of the firepower at his dispoal, including the two Scourges, on Vereaxium itself. He did not expect to breach the void shields which protected the city, but his true intention was to keep all power diverted from its formidable defence batteries. In this way the risk to his transport vessels could be kept to a minimum as they descended into low orbit, and the attack on the city mounted as quickly as possible.

 

Guliko had not been idle in that time, and under the tortured skies convoys had raced constantly across the surface. Fuel, munitions and people were being ferried to Vereauxium, which had been conceived and designed with the space to hold such numbers in the event of a siege. The Void Eagles and their emissaries also went forth to the clan holdfasts, rousing them for war against the invader who made war upon the Emperor and violated the very night and day on Thelum.

 

Beyond the range that held Vereauxium lay wide-reaching plains, and here the Insurrectionists made their landings. The only traversable ground within the mountains was the three passages in and out of the range, and these were heavily defended. To effect a landing in the mountains would plainly be absurd, and from the very start, Kuo had designated a location on the Accip Plain, east of Vereauxium, where his forces would make planetfall before beginning their advance on the city.

 

The Insurrectionist Army’s blocky transports were the first to breach the atmosphere, and as such descended into a veritable grapeshot of las-fire, plasma and missiles. The bombardments unleashed against Vereauxium kept at bay the worst of its surface-to-orbit weaponry, but its defences extended throughout the mountain range that surrounded the city. Here too the Void Eagles had erected some defences, for the plains were occasionally used as mustering grounds, and these spat fire upwards until they were silenced. The Insurrectionist troops paid heavily, and by the time battalions were marching out from their transports the plains around them were strewn with wreckage and aflame, tens of thousands already among the dead.

 

Then came the first of the Thelumite clans, whose anger Guliko had sparked and guided, but never presumed to command. Swarming up in numbers estimated at three hundred thousand from the valleys and gullies around the plains, they charged into battle on foot or upon ramshackle vehicles that could almost be mistaken for those of Orks. Against the armoured company of an Imperialis battlegroup they would stand little chance in the open; whether they knew this and acted accordingly, or whether bloodlust drove them to such haste, is open to question.

 

It can certainly be said that the Thelumites pulled the fighting quickly onto their own terms. Thousands died in the first minutes to disciplined lasgun volleys, but then they were in among the invaders. The battle became one of a hundred brawls, the kind that centuries of raiding had taught the Thelumites to excel at. In the middle of the field, disciplinary officers had whipped their men into order, directing volley after volley and not caring how many stricken comrades perished in the crossfire. On the perimeter, however, more transports were ablaze, and scattered platoons were hacked apart with crude chainblades.

 

Kuo, however, would not permit these barbarians to delay him any longer. Diving steeply at the edge of the plains came five Khonsu-pattern Stormbirds, surrounded by twenty of the Sokar class and eighty Thunderhawks and Stormeagles. The black flock swept in across the burning field, tilling the soil with cannon fire before landing. Then hatches burst open and landing ramps extended, and Kuo led his favoured companies into the press, clearing a path with bolter and flamer before bringing their blades to bear.

 

Thelumites could and had proved strong enough to become Astartes, but they could never match them in battle, much less a Legion steeped in hand-to-hand combat as the Warriors of Peace were. Kuo imposed order on the field in the simplest way - anything that stood against him was smashed aside. A hundred clan champions might have come against him - none arrested his bloody progress, dispatched with pitiless elegance by the blademaster and his guards. Bolter, chainsword and flamer proved just as unstoppable as they had been against the Thelumites’ counterparts on Terra, when the XVII^th first waged war.

 

More gunships, clad in the pale and austere red of Xei’An, set down to release Castellax robots and Skitarii war cohorts onto the clan warriors’ flank. The augmented soldiers and hulking machines could not be overwhelmed by frenzy and numbers as their mortal counterparts had been, and the cold precision of their volleys demolished the Thelumite army.

 

Kuo had his foothold on the charred Accip Plain. The surviving landers of the first wave and his Stormbirds, their void-shields overlapping to form a near-impenetrable defence, were now the heart of a growing encampment as the dwindling Thelumite forces were mown down by the implacable Astartes and Mechanicum. Tanks emerged onto the field, their guns powerful enough to pulverise any vehicle that came against them, and the march on Vereauxium commenced.

[MikhalLeNoir]

Great read

[bluntblade]

The Siege of Vereauxium

More fighting followed, new Thelumite warbands arriving either to attack en masse or, increasingly, ambush the Insurrectionist columns now grinding up the mountain highways towards Vereauxium. Smoke and dust was everywhere, and unnatural night fell around the mountains, a perverse counterpart to the torrent of fire that silhouetted them. In these conditions, the Thelumites hit camps and isolated detachments, though they generally gave the Warriors of Peace a wide berth.

 

The Astartes were, in any case, heavily engaged against the redoubts and gates which barred the way to Vereauxium. The Army’s massed artillery tanks might overwhelm physical structures, but Guliko began to send out his own skirmishers, using the hidden causeways and tunnels which wove through the mountains. Void Eagles strike teams were among the tercios of Night Fangs, inflicting damage greatly in excess of their numbers.

 

Airborne Vulturax automata were sent hunting along the knife-sharp ridges, thinning out the attackers though at no small cost in machines. Further on this became prohibitively costly, due to the anti-air turrets which studded the slopes, and artillery and ground troops were required to repel the ambushes and remove the guns.

 

Kuo responded by deploying his companies throughout each of the three columns, along with the mechanical soldiers of Xei’An. The majority, however, were placed at the fore as each column took on a series of gates and watchtowers along the roads, Kuo pitting massed artillery against these and sending Castellax and Cataphract robots to dismantle what remained, along with the defenders. At several junctures the machines met with their own kind, for Vereauxium played host to a coven of tech-priests, and while their main role was attending to the Legion’s macro-weapons, they had also created a few cohorts of automata, along with adsecularis and servitors salvaged from defective aspirants.

 

The Warriors of Peace overcame each barrier, directing the Army gunners against the fortifications and cutting down man and machine alike once a barrier fell. But this was but a prelude to the attack on Vereauxium itself, whose spires loomed ahead, lit by the Insurrectionist fleet’s barrage. The three gates were forged from adamantium and ceramite, five metres thick and high enough for a Warhound Titan to pass beneath. Fittingly, they were festooned with guns fit to be mounted on Titans, and already these were claiming victims as Kuo pressed his foremost Basilisk and Manticore squadrons into range. The mighty gates were gouged and cannons stripped from parapets, but the defenders punished Kuo's men for every bit of progress they made.

 

The need to keep up momentum drove the Warriors of Peace to expend hundreds of tanks in this way as the hours crept by and each gate was invested, but Kuo had no interest in simply wasting machines where others could finish the job. To this end, the vast coffin-ships of the Legio Solachra had made planetfall once the Accip Plain was secure, and Titans began their march on the city.

 

Among the god-machines were Warlord Titans and a very few of the rare Nemesis class, whose powerful carapace weapons enabled them to target the gates from beyond the range of Vereauxium’s guns. This proved key to breaching the city, and when the gates fell the Titans advanced, the Insurrectionist tanks rumbling forward at their feet.

[bluntblade]

As the Dawn

And then came a third party to the battle, one that neither side had expected - the Tenth Banner of the Wardens of Light. Newly returned from patrolling the old Velthame Collegiate, whose burned worlds had been terraformed and colonised anew, they knew little of events in the wider Imperium, nor what had befallen their own Legion. Their port of call was a reluctant choice, for there was bad blood between Lemorik, the Banner Master who led this fleet, and Guliko. Under normal circumstances, Lemorik would have given Thelum a wide berth, but with the sudden turmoil in the Warp, he thought it best to seek out what information he could.

 

Upon emerging, they met a deafening silence where they had expected vox-hails, challenges or even the alerts of targeting locks. Auguries only added to their shock, revealing charred and fractured satellites, trailing debris. Lemorik drew the fleet close around his flagship, the Gallant, and ordered them to advance. As they did the tell-tale flashes of weapon discharge became visible to their scanners, and finally the naked eye. By the time they drew close, the impossible nature of the battle had sunk in: Legiones Astartes at war.

 

Lemorik’s consternation deepened as more information came in and a picture of the battle resolved. Both forces he knew well; he had fought beside Kuo and respected him as a warrior and leader. The Topaz General was below, but Liao Xun, the Lord Commander in charge of the reserves in orbit, hailed the Gallant. Full of praise for the XII^th Legion and the Tenth Banner in particular, he exhorted them to join the Warriors of Peace in purging an army of renegades who were unworthy of the mantle of Astartes. Honour and glory awaited, Xun promised.

 

Many of Lemorik's men were minded to heed that call, but their master stayed their hands and demanded contact be made with the defenders. While he had his Master of Signal maintain the connection with the XVII^th, ostensibly to receive directions as to how they might assist in the siege, he waited to hear from the other side. As the Gallant and its sisters neared Thelum, their crews arming and priming vehicles for planetfall, the tension grew to unbearable extremes.

 

Finally establishing a vox-link to the surface, Lemorik met with a static-hashed but nonetheless coherent stream of vitriol. Guliko cursed the Wardens of Light, not knowing or caring where this fleet had come from, denouncing Gwalchavad’s “craven neutrality” and abandonment of the Emperor’s loyal service. Again and again, he threw Terra and the Emperor in Lemorik’s face, goading him to complete the betrayal, that at least he would have to see the blood on his hands while the rest of the XII^th ignored it.

 

The holo feed cut, leaving silence on the bridge. Lemorik’s captains clustered around him, requesting direction. The indecision was broken quickly. Lemorik spoke, not giving any reason as yet - though in truth, it was the righteous fury with which Guliko denounced him that convinced him. As he was later to remark, “in a war from which the certainty of being right has fled, our best hope was to cleave to the betrayed.” At the time, his only words were orders: “Bring engines to full burn, weapons to full readiness. Target the Seventeenth.”

 

With slower ships - the behemoths favoured by the Fire Keepers, for example - Lemorik's improvised gambit might have ended in disaster, but his Legion's vessels were among the fastest in the Imperium, and that proved the telling factor. The XII^th Legion vessels accelerated and speared for the bombardment ships, setting about them with lances and missiles. Void shields burst, followed by the ships themselves in two gouts of plasma, consuming several vessels around them.

 

Below, Guliko and his staff suddenly found that the onslaught against their shields had halted. Finally, some power could be diverted and fed to the mighty guns of Vereauxium. Auspexes and targeting grids were quickly run, and even as the XVII^th fleet turned to retaliate against the Wardens, plasma and missiles as large as buildings were flung into the void. Kuo’s vessels were driven out of range, unable to remain in place without risking the warriors aboard. The remnants of Thelum’s defence fleet seized their chance, hoving into range.

 

Should Xun attempt a counter-attack, he would find his ships caught between their guns, Lemorik’s own ships and the batteries on the surface. Lemorik had won himself a brief window, in which he might just be able to change the course of the battle. But brief it would be, for the odds remained stacked against the Loyalists.

 

Within the Walls

The Warriors of Peace, upon breaching the defences, divided their forces. Individual companies peeled off, their targets the various orbital defence installations which dotted the skyline. Much of Kuo’s infantry remained aboard their ships, but if the surface-to-orbit guns could be silenced, he could bring them straight to Vereauxium Starport. The loss of his bombardment cruisers had slowed his timetable, with the forced withdrawal of his vessels from range of the great guns, but he could still effect an overwhelming assault and crush the defenders.

 

The fighting now spanned every tier of the city. Tanks ground and Warhound Titans stalked through the streets while the Warriors of Peace pushed on towards command nodes and power lines, sending murder servitors ahead to sow confusion and panic while the defenders did likewise. Fire veiled the eastern walls as the first of the anti-air batteries powered down and XVII^th Legion gunship wings began sorties and landings, disgorging Assault Marines. Among them were the elite Dragonhawks, who burned and cut their way through the spires.

 

The Void Eagles turned every weapon at their disposal against the invaders. Devices had been built into every precinct to ward against an outbreak of Inexorii, for the creation process for these warriors had always been fraught with degeneration both physical and mental. Rad-furnaces and bio-purge emplacements rendered soldiers down to sizzling mulch, even bringing low Astartes if their warplate was compromised.

 

Behind these esoteric measures were many more conventional weapons. Servitor-controlled guns were armed. Lasguns had been issued in the tens of thousands to militia and tanks wheeled out of their depots to hold back the invaders. Above all, whole companies of Void Eagles finally emerged to do battle with their erstwhile kin, and districts rang with the thunder of bolter-fire, the defenders exploiting their knowledge of the city against their attackers.

 

But these measures had been anticipated, Kuo’s host drawn up specifically to overcome this fortress and garrison. No single war machine within the city was a match for the Warhounds, and while the defenders’ Knights and tanks brought some down by guile and daring, they were outnumbered by their own kind. As the outer districts fell, Kuo readied his second wave and gave orders for the first to regroup, preparing to punch straight through to the rear of the city, to the command spire and the Starport beyond.

 

Lemorik scrambled gunships and boarding rams - half his companies, targeting the Insurrectionist column at the southernmost gate, the smallest and the only which without Titan support. Setting down in Land Raiders and Predator tanks, their shock attack took the invaders in the rear and smashed clean through them, sweeping into the city on a parallel course to the invaders. But one Banner, even if they were landed in full, would be too few to turn the course of the battle now raging in Vereauxium.

 

The Inexorii Resurgent

Lemorik, now on the ground and patched into the tactical feed, watched the Warriors of Peace push back and hem in the defenders as he led his men towards the fighting. He voiced his concerns to Guliko, that the Void Eagles would be overrun before the Wardens of Light could reach them. He was met by a grave laugh from the Viceroy, who told him that he had yet to “witness the worst sins of those you’ve sided with”.

 

Then Guliko gave the order his Apothecaries, techmarines and magi had been waiting for. In the cold bowels of the stronghold, sirens blared and vox-casters began a drone loaded with neuro-markers and psycho-mnemonic primers. Stasis chambers were thrown open and lifts sent racing towards the surface, the Inexorii roused and armed to shed blood in their Primarch’s name once again.

 

With the hollow killers came Dreadnoughts, many of their ironforms old and peculiar patterns. These were not the kind of ancients that a Legion put in the front line, roused for counsel, or even awakened at all without dire need. The old warriors who slumbered under Vereauxium were all damaged in some way, deranged by the trauma which had consigned them to the sarcophagus or ground down by their living death.

 

Guliko knew the limitations of his reinforcements, and his plans for them were simple; the Exactorii were to point them at the enemy and set them to work. He understood the value of their ferocity as only a veteran of Rangda could, and sure enough the Warriors of Peace were taken by surprise when the cold professionalism of their foes gave way to this frenzy. Within the ravaged outer defences, measured retreat was replaced by suicidal attacks fought by packs or individual warriors. Neither Inexorius or Dreadnought cared if he was mutilated, neither sought to defend himself but rather kill, again and again until the last spark of life was ground out of his frame.

 

In the rubble-choked confines, the invaders’ disrupted formations had no answer for this attack, and disintegrated like a wooden dam before a tidal wave. The Inexorii whose thirst for blood was greatest stampeded forth, hearing more oncoming enemies and perceiving only prey in the sound. Those with more restraint waited, held back by their Exactorii overseers.

In the valley before the gates, even hardened space marines were overborne and thrown back, while those mortal troops caught close by were cut and ripped apart, a grisly carpet of tattered flesh spreading wherever the Inexorii fought. For over an hour, anarchy held sway under the walls, until the Warriors of Peace’s 62nd Grand Battalion restored discipline to their auxiliaries and met the Inductii with a wall of Land Raiders and Stormhammer tanks.

 

Even here, as the invaders destroyed his troops, Guliko’s ruthless cunning was apparent. Once unleashed, the Inexorii fought with such unremitting savagery that only total dismemberment and evisceration would suffice to end them. The Warriors of Peace would glean little information on the processes which had made them by autopsy.

 

Kuo restrained his anger with difficulty, reassembling what remained of the first wave and ordering the rest forward. The Inductii’s brazen assault could not hide the fact that Guliko’s forces were otherwise pulling back, with the clear intention of evacuating the city. Other considerations were put aside, and the XVII^th Legion’s main strength drawn up and ordered into the conveyance tunnels in pursuit of the Void Eagles. One great subterranean artery, half a kilometre across and nine long, linked the command spire and spaceport, dozens of smaller tunnels branching off to other districts. While maglev trains would take Guliko and his core staff to relative safety, the bulk of his personnel would be withdrawing by this route.

[bluntblade]

Scar the Darkness
Into the tunnels, all the key players now descended. The Warriors of Peace pressed the attack without mercy, mowing down the Loyalist rearguard. Towering over them came the three remaining Warhound Titans, utterly reducing anything in their sights. Two of these were brought down by Vindicators and Sabre Tank Hunters at the fourth kilometre, with the last disabled at the fifth kilometre by the sheer volume of fire it waded into.

But Kuo’s unrelenting pace had finally seen him run his quarry to ground - the 62nd Battalion and its auxiliaries stood at the threshold of the Spaceport, ready to roll over the Loyalists in their path and cut off all hope of escape. Kuo himself was not far behind. He would have his prizes - the Viceroy and the technical data he would be trying to ferry off-world.

Yet at this final juncture, Lemorik foiled him. The Wardens of Light surged up out of capillary tunnels, hitting the Warriors of Peace at several points simultaneously. Two Legions, both renowned for their blademastery, collided in a cyclone of steel and disruptor charge. The XII^th’s multi-pronged assault gave them the advantage, dividing the Insurrectionist vanguard and slaying several officers, including the Lord Commander at their head.

With the Warriors of Peace thrown into confusion, Guliko had time to begin his last throw of the dice. Munition depots, primed by his techmarines, became improvised bombs and demolition devices, cutting off the tunnels and burying Insurrectionist soldiers under rockcrete. Slower fuses began to burn, as a dozen failsafe protocols were lifted in the relic-vaults. When these cycled down, destruction like nothing before tore through the city. Entire towers were disintegrated or contorted by grav-bursts, molten metal geysered up from the city’s bowels and in one district, five cubic kilometres disappeared as if excised, the soldiers within vanishing with the rest of the matter.

Kuo pulled his forces back and tried to forge a path through the waves of destruction, knowing full well how his enemies would exploit the delay. At the spaceport and southern gate, troops and materiel were bundled aboard gunships and bulk landers. The Loyalists moved in a strangely muted frenzy, as the great guns that protected the ships above from Kuo’s vessels gradually toppled or fell to the Insurrectionists. Finally, Lemorik gave the word to finish the evacuation, and the Loyalist ships ran for the outer dark, a few Insurrectionist ships snapping at their heels.

The defenders left behind responded with the grim pragmatism that the IV^th Legion instilled in its warriors and serfs. Most fought on and died as the city burned around them, but several hundred others fled the city and vanished into the mountains, dispersing with the intent to rouse more of the tribes and resist for as long as possible. Kuo had his conquest, though it had proved a hollow prize, the Void Eagles’ relics largely destroyed, their protocols spirited away, and the Inductii themselves slain.

The unforeseen nature of events did little to ease Kuo’s anger, and he stalked the fire-gutted city for long hours as his troops began to search for whatever traps remained. By the time repairs and rebuilding began in earnest, the Topaz General was plotting his next move - a strike against Loyalist territory and one that would take him further from his master’s side, leaving a Battalion and several regiments to stamp out the remaining resistance. It would be another year and sixteen conquered worlds before Kuo felt his position secure enough to return to his Primarch.

Guliko and his surviving personnel, 1,200 Void Eagles among them, set course for Coaban, accompanied by the Wardens of Light until it was deemed safe for them to part. The Inexorii Protocols, and the other relics and lore he carried, would be put to use soon enough.


Box: Combatant Forces - the Invasion of Thelum

Forces of the Imperium (Loyalist)
The Void Eagles: Fief Cadre of approx. 100 Legion command and support staff. Estimated 4,000 Legionaries, 2-3,000 Inexorii and 47 confirmed “Unquiet Sleeper” Dreadnoughts.
The Wardens of Light: Chapter-strength force, 3,000 Astartes.
Thelum Solar Auxilia: sub-cohort, Night Fangs. Approx. 20,000 Solar Auxilia with extensive mobile artillery and void-interdiction elements.
Planetary Defence Force: 100,000 troops, Astra Militarum grade with a further 200,000 militia. Substantial surface-to-orbit interdiction and urban combat elements, augmented by servitor-controlled defences.
House Garin: 1x Knight Questoris Household
Taghmata Thelum: Retinue to bonded tech-priests and forge garrison force. 2 x Battle-Automata Cohorts, 2 x Thallaxii Cohorts, 1 x Skitarii Regiment (approx. 1,200 combatants).
Thelumite Clans: Native forces, not counted as part of Loyalist order of battle. 2 million believed to have fought during the Insurrectionists' landing and march on Vereauxium. Overwhelmingly irregular infantry, some ad-hoc armoured and fast-attack elements.
Command: Void Eagles led by Guliko, Viceroy of Thelum. Wardens of Light commanded by Banner Master Lemorik.

Forces of the Stormlord (Insurrectionist)
The Warriors of Peace: approx. 12,000 Legionaries, consisting of four XVII^th Legion Grand Battalions with extensive armoured elements and several Dreadnought talons.
Taghmata Luagin: Conquest force levied from Xei’An. Recorded strength: 2 x Armoured Brigade (Autokratorii), 4 x Battle-automata Cohorts, 6 x Thallaxxii Cohort Pentex, 4 x Skitarii Regiments (approx. 6,000 combatants), various Adsecularis units numbering approx. 10,000 combatants
Insurrectionist Army: 2.6 million troops from various regiments with substantial armour and heavy artillery elements.
Solar Auxilia: Cohort, Shosi Fire Jackals. 35,000 Solar Auxilia.
Legio Solachra: Demi-Legio (2 x Primaris Maniples, 4 x Venetarii Maniples), 3x Knight Questoris Households (House Qhapaq)
Command: Lord Commander Kuo (Warriors of Peace), Archmagos Luagin (Taghmata), Lord Marshal Tsoman Ngekil (Shosi Fire Jackals), Princeps Ga-Sek (Legio Solachra).

[bluntblade]

The Grey Blades
Lemorik's return home was rather different, but it too is emblematic of the early Insurrection, and the divisions sown in every corner of the Imperium. He sailed not to a hero's welcome, but a reckoning with his own gene-sire.

Returning to their home domain after the Day of Revelation, the XII^th Legion had been ordered by their Primarch to garrison Caerbannog and the systems around it, but never venture beyond. The worlds under their control were to be an island of neutrality, taking no side unless outright conquest was attempted by either side. Entreaties came from Terra and Madrigal, with every emissary sent away empty-handed.

But an Astartes is not easily shackled. Each is linked by lineage and oath to the Emperor, and forged to revel in war of an intensity that would destroy lesser minds. Few things could be harder to shackle than that dual tug of fealty and violence, mingled with the desires of glory and vengeance. Into this mix came Lemorik and his men, already blooded by intervention in the fighting, and with no mind to abstain now.

A council of Banner Masters, alongside the Glamoragi which advised the Primarch, was called in the Tower of Lumis, the Wardens’ fortress-monastery. Motions were brought, some wanting to censure Lemorik for acting without ascertaining the Legion’s will and breaking, in his ignorance, the edict of Gwalchavad. Lemorik himself protested the Primarch’s very orders, arguing that in standing by the Wardens of Light would permit greater carnage than taking a side would cause.

Others had made this argument before, and were galvanised by the arguments and example of the Tenth Banner. A few more were swayed, and after weeks a full-blown if bloodless rupture had emerged in the XII^th Legion, with Gwalchavad's First Banner Master heading the dissident faction. Mikhal Sasori, known as the Scorpion, had beheld the fell deeds of Socraes Travier upon Gatra V and considered them proof enough that the Insurrectionists had to be stopped.

The Scorpion counted Lemorik as a close friend - the latter had served him as a captain in past decades - and together with Cunegalaz of the Thirtieth, they formed a focal point for the Wardens of Light who opposed neutrality. They argued ever more fiercely for intervention, while some began to demand that the Scorpion lose his position for unwarranted bloodlust. Sasori responded in turn that nothing about his zeal was unwarranted, and his opponents would make themselves immoral in the end by refusing to take a side.

Finally, on the sixth day of the conclave, Sasori entered in full armour - itself an aggressive statement, but more shocking still every fleck of gold had been scoured from the plate, leaving the bare ceramite. He presented the council with a declaration from himself, Lemorik, Cunegalaz and five more Banner Masters. They would not be bound any longer by the decision of the council, nor their own Primarch, deeming their evident duty to the Emperor to take precedent over all else.

Feeling the outraged silence around him like pressure before a storm, the Scorpion cast his glaive at the Primarch's feet, a thunderclap that resounded in the chamber. Then he turned on his heel and left, taking a Stormbird to his flagship as the chamber broke into cacophonous recrimination. Before the disbelieving eyes of Caerbannog, 20,000 Astartes - a fifth of the Legion - broke from orbit. No gun was trained upon them, but the anguished words of Gwalchavad went with them, exiling them forevermore from their home. Sasori’s sole reply accepted the sentence, and stated that he no longer considered himself the Primarch's son in any case.

The Grey Wardens, as they were now known, entered the war in earnest two months later. Having watched Insurrectionist movements from afar, they had anticipated an offensive by the Steel Legion against Tanabor, and when they came upon it the defenders, led by the Crimson Lions, stood upon the verge of defeat. The Grey Wardens came upon the Steel Legion with furious speed and flanked them, dealing heavy losses and driving them from the planet.

Their action bought time for a score of worlds to reinforce their defences, but more significant for Sasori, Lemorik and Cunegalaz was the moment when they reaffirmed their oaths to the Emperor. The Grey Wardens would achieve many great and noble deeds throughout the Insurrection, but nonetheless they became a byword for the murk and division which permeated every faction in the Insurrection.

[bluntblade]

Getting on to Andezo's rescue of Azus, what do we want the setting to be? Potentially he could catch the Insurrectionists resupplying.

 

I believe the Predators will come in with a massive shock-attack, also leaning heavily on their Shamans.