The Fall of Virtus Prime

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Battle Details

Type: Battle
Date: 258.007.M31
Sub-Sector:Beneheventian Sub-Sector
System: Prosperine System
Planet: Antroth
Victor: Traitor
Draw: n
Influence: 5

Forces:

Loyalists Involved In The Conflict Army:L-XVIII-5932

Traitors Involved In The Conflict Army:L-XII-1884

Dramatis Personae

The World Eaters
Tiberius Thanatos, Centurion
Kallax "Nightlord", Primus Medicae
Ancient Daegron, Contemptor Mortis Dreadnought

The Salamanders
Nocturus, Praetor

Battle Summary

Prologue

When the World Eaters 16th Company launched its assault on the Beneheventian Sub-sector during the Shadow Crusade, Antroth was attacked by a renegade section of the Imperial Army, its beautiful cities besieged and ruined albeit not often conquered thanks to the courage of the Planetary Defence Force. As the fighting raged and most of the civilians were evacuated from the planet, an unexpected and almost miracolous aid arrived in the form of the ninth company of the Salamanders Legion, led by Praetor Nocturus. These Astartes had been fighting on the outest fringes of the Ultima Sector and could not join the rest of the Legion on Isstvan V: contacted by the few Raven Guards that survived the Assault on Mardrion and receiving their grim news of galaxy-wide betrayal, as well as the destruction of their Legion and the dubious fate of the Primarch Vulkan, they decided to immediately intervene in the conflict, crush the traitors and then go deeper in the Segmentum Ultima to join forces with the Ultramarine empire. As these warriors landed on Antroth, where the renegade militia was finally gaining the upper hand, the balance of the conflict irremediably shifted and forced the World Eaters to abort every other plan and make immediate planetfall to face their new foes.

Opening Phase

The two companies made first contact at 16:21 Terran Hour among the ruins of Virtus Prime, once one of the most glorious cities of Antroth, where the main garrison of traitor militia had just been crushed by the Salamanders.

The Fall of Virtus Prime

The engagement was a fast and brutal one. As the vanguard of the World Eaters managed to destroy the Vindicator and Medusa artillery tanks of the Salamanders, an horde of blood-seeking berserkers was free to rush through the city unscathed and slaughter the smaller squads deployed by the eighteenth Legion. The balance seemed to shift once more when a group of Firedrakes Terminators carved his way to the heart of the World Eaters landing zone, crushing dozens of lesser Astartes, and the highquarters of the Merciless -Centurion Thanatos and Primus Medicae Kallax- were seemingly drowned in a burning ocean by the flamers of a Salamanders Support Squad. The taste of victory, though, soon turned to ash in the mouth of the eighteenth Legion: as the blackened forms of Thanatos and Kallax rose from the scorched earth of Virtus Prime to throw themselves among the ranks of the sons of Vulkan, butchering them with unmatched fury, the heroic Firedrakes finally fell to the sheer number of World Eaters that surrounded them. Captain Nocturus, inabilitated to fight after being horribly wounded by a Red Butchers champion, had no different choice than to declare immediate withdrawal and reorganize the survivors of his company to launch a new attack on their foes.

Epilogue

The Salamanders left the battlefield in perfect order, saving a good portion of their forces . Virtus Prime, long abandoned by its civilians, remained as an open-topped cemetery for the fallen of both Legions, with the Nails-maddened World Eaters still stalking its ruins for any survivor they could find long after the withdrawal of their foes and performing their always more common and bloody rituals: a new skull cairn was left in Virtus Prime, made with the severed heads of those Salamanders who were not present on Istvaan V.

Skirmish Reports

Skirmishes Added

Skirmish Designation	Victor	Defeated	Faction Victor
The Fall of Virtus Prime~1428173873	L-XII-1884	L-XVIII-5932	Traitor

(Press the CREATE button to lodge a single Skirmish report, do not modify the name)

Battle Pictures

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