The Liberation of Fuschal~1536927190

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Battle Details

Date Commenced: 663.010.M31
Date Concluded: 663.010.M31
Outcome: Ongoing
Sub-Sector: Kaerimon Sub-Sector
System: Fuschal System
Location: Empusa


Forces involved in the Battle:

Loyalists Involved In The Conflict

Army:L-VII-2023

Army:I-ARMY-3160

Army:Q-KNT-5543




Traitors Involved In The Conflict

Army:A-MECH-6429

Army:L-VIII-0498





Battle Summary

Captain Mollen focused on the ruins around the Dendrocnide Gate, identifying and mapping the battlefield. The walls of the mining city were broken and burnt, none of the incendiary projectors intact. Nothing remained that could be used as a bunker or fortification - most, he judged, would topple under the lightest bombardment. Vines and vividly coloured moss grew down the metal, and small trees had already sprouted across the rooftops and filterstacks beyond. Between the treeline and the buildings, thickets of Empusa’s deadly flora were already as tall as a hab-block. Inside the city, new growth clung and sprung from every surface. The broken rockcrete of the Via Dendrocnide was thick with the stuff, in places taller than a man.

The display in his helm identified movement behind the overgrown metal walls. Castellax units, most likely, armed with anti-tank weapons. It amplified engine noise as well - superheavy tank, far larger than the Land Raider waiting his signal in the jungle behind. Somewhere in Lassit-Alpha there were god-engines, and all the other weapons that the traitors had wished to test on live targets, in an urban battlefield. Vox traffic from the ships in orbit whispered into his ear.

“Auspex confirmed - Baneblade-class vehicle moving towards your position. No titans, no knights.”

“Acknowledged. No void shields emplaced, no thermal bloom detected. Artillery ready. Advancing.”

Three Knights pushed out into the open, shrugging off the clawed and dripping tendrils of the trees, raising ion shields and weapons against whatever the traitors might have. Mollen’s own squads moved out into the open ground between the Screaming Jungle and the ruins of Lassit-Alpha. Some had their own shields, but they would be little use against the kind of weapons the traitors could have. At least the virulent plantlife provided a cover for the infantry, even this close to the city. They had 40 seconds to cross the gap between the treeline and the Via Dendrocnide.

Alarms sounded in his helm - a blaze of heat and flare of void shields filled half of his helm display, left of the city entrance. Something huge was rising, engines firing up and shields lighting, shrugging off the metal rooftops and carnivorous vines that had concealed it. Angular shoulders, and a cockpit cast with the visage of a snarling beast. The thing howled, an ullulation like the screams of dying metal gods.

“Titan! Titan at the gate! All units fire! Orbital support now or we’re dead!”

Far behind him, the artillery units on the plateau opened fire - armour-piercing shells and magna-lascannon fire that lit the landscape like lightning. The flash blanked out his autosenses, and the concussion was stunning even through his armour. Void shields crackled and howled as they absorbed the blow. Then the Warhound brought its guns to bear, and the Imperial Fists and their Knight allies began to die.

+++

When the Liberation forces at Empusa moved to eliminate the last vestiges of the traitor occupation, they knew that the Night Lords and Mechanicum still had significant units in play at the ruins of Lassit-Alpha. The Night Lords had taken a particular cruel delight in delivering thousands of surplus workers to the site, where they and the Mechanicum could test newly refurbished vehicles, superheavies, and weapons against them. None of these victims lasted more than a day - Empusa’s ecosystem was deadly enough, even without the traitors hunting them from building to building.

The loyalists redirected Imperial Fists infantry and tanks, Auxilia artillery units, and Knights to the city, to obliterate the enemy entirely. Some reports even state that that Rogal Dorn himself was en route to oversee the operation - which is of course impossible, since the primarch would never have abandoned his duties as Praetorian of Terra.

It is known that at least two Warhound Titans, the Kerberos and the Orthrus, were operating in and near Lassit-Alpha, supported by Shadowsword tanks and large units of Mechanicum automata. It was also reported that Night Lords assault troops, jetbikes, and Mechanicum skitarii attacked the loyalist artillery position overlooking the ruins. Nonetheless, with support from the Loyalist splinter fleet in orbit, the Night Lords and Mechanicum were most likely doomed.

But the loyalists were unaware that a threat still survived in orbit.

The Death Guard warship Prosterno, a Murder-class Cruiser, had been caught at anchor over Empusa and supposedly broken by the Liberation splinter fleet. It had been left tumbling uncontrolled in low orbit, venting plasma from its engines, bridge destroyed, and expected to explode or break up at any moment. The loyalist fleets turned their attention to the planet, but aboard the Prosterno preparations were made for a final act of spite. Every macrobattery and torpedo bay that could be jury-rigged would be made to fire, a single massive, indiscriminate volley at whatever concentration of Loyalists they could target. This target was Lassit-Alpha. That the Death Guard still had allies in the area, in the form of Night Lords and traitor Mechanicum, was apparently of no concern. Nor was the fact that this volley would break the spine of the Prosterno, and almost certainly decelerate it enough to drop into Empusa’s atmosphere.

The destruction came as a complete surprise to the Liberation forces - the first warning that apocalypse was coming was the detonation of the Questoris Knight Magaera attacking the Dendrocnide Gate. It had survived fire from the Warhound Kerberos, and two Shadowsword Volcano Cannon, only to be struck down from behind by fire from the Prosterno. The resulting explosion destroyed the Imperial Fist’s heavy tank support, and severely damaged the Knight Errant advancing on the Gate. That the Kerberos was annihilated by the Loyalist’s own orbital strike soon after, and ‘Rogal Dorn’ and his gunship Aetos Dios had scattered the Night Lord attack on the artillery position was of little satisfaction, as the rest of Imperial Fist forces had already been decimated, and the Knight contingent attacking the Gate almost obliterated.

Things promptly got worse.

The Prosterno had been fully laden with bioweapons harvested from Empusa, and these were used against the planet of their origin. Even power armour was of little use against the sheer concentration of pathogens and poisons unleashed, and nearly all the infantry in and near Lassit-Alpha died horribly over the next few minutes. Vehicular and automaton units, already proof against the Empusan environment, survived this initial wave of destruction, as did Dorn and his terminators. The artillery overlooking the Dendrocnide Gate, which included an Acastus Knight Porphyrion, were effectively untouched, and did severe damage to one of the traitor Shadowswords. They may well have survived against the Warhound Orthrus, which now emerged from the Screaming Jungle to attack. But in the end it mattered little, because the Prosterno was now falling from orbit, and its plasma engines detonated some 20 kilometers to the southwest of the city.

The resulting fireball was almost 50 kilometers in diameter, easily extending out into low orbit. Arch-Magos Tylas 7-Rheen estimated the yield as approximately 3 gigatons, rivaling the weapons used to boil the Adriatic Sea on Terra during the Age of Strife. Thermal radiation ignited the jungle for hundreds of kilometers, and the survivors at Lassit-Alpha had no chance. Even the Orthrus succumbed to the fantastic heat, engines unable to cope and overloading catastrophically.

There is, however, a certain irony in this result. While the loss of loyalist troops and Knights was disastrous, the loss of traitor superheavies was likely more so. And by using their stock of weapons against Empusa, the Prosterno would never go on to use it against another world. Further still, the firestorm ensured that resources would never be needed to rehabilitate civilian survivors, as there were none. Finally, climate change induced by the firestorm lead to a mass extinction of Empusan species, a situation considered favourable to the Imperium in later years. All in all, the disaster was considered a net plus for the Loyalists, after the event.

One curious addendum - It was reported, but few give the claim any credit, that the Night Lord commander at Lassit-Alpha and his jetbike troops, chose this apocalyptic final moment to challenge ‘Dorn’. Bizarrely, it is further claimed that the Night Lord’s bolt pistol exploded in his hand with violence enough to obliterate not only the traitor, but his entire surviving force. This is, of course, ridiculous - how would such an explosion have been visible in the larger fireball, what tainted ammunition could possibly produce such a misfire, and what Loyalist could possibly have survived to make the report anyway? Perhaps a true Primarch could have walked unharmed through the fires of this hell unharmed - but as established above, Rogal Dorn was never there.

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Battle Pictures

IMG 0764.JPG Lassit-Alpha.jpg The Dendrocnide Gate.jpg Via Dendrocnide.jpg