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| | ==Battle Summary== | | ==Battle Summary== |
| − | '''Prologue'''
| + | [DATA CORRUPTION] |
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| − | After the fall of Virtus Prime, the Salamanders retreated in Antroth's fortified capital, Iulia Augusta.
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| − | As the loyalist forces started to gain an advantage over the traitor auxilia at Porilia, they were able to send a fleet to attack the battlebarge Merciless and his escorts, locking them in an unwanted engagement and thus denying them the opportunity to bombard Iiulia Augusta from orbit or support their ground forces in any other significative way.
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| − | Thanatos -in one of his always rarer moments of lucidity- understood that a prolonged engagement on the surface of Antroth would have soon left his forces out of armour and ammo, even though the temptation of another wholesale slaughter against the planet's populace was painful to resist.
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| − | The World Eaters redeployed towards Iulia Augusta, bellowing their war cries as they swarmed through the outest city, towards the fortified walls.
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| − | '''First Blood'''
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| − | Praetor Nocturus of the Salamanders led a hit-and-run attack against the approaching World Eaters in order to lure the Nails-lost berserkers under the barrage of his company's artillery tanks. The plan was successful, and Thanatos himself was heavily wounded by a massive shard of ferrocrete that splattered his secondary heart and left him impotent and agonising on the ground, forgotten by his blood maddened brothers in their need kill. The force led by Nocturus suffered almost total losses, annihilated by the World Eaters despite their lack of leadership and the tremendous casualities inflicted by the Salamanders' artillery, safe behind the walls of Iulia Augusta. The Salamanders retreated once more, but not before having captured the inconscious enemy commander, now firmly in their hands. The Siege of Iulia Augusta had just begun.
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| − | '''Liberation Mission'''
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| − | Nocturus questioned Thanatos in the desperate hope that he could be used as a hostage, or, perhaps, give information about the traitors' next moves. In truth, Captain Nocturus of the Salamanders had long been separated from his legion, and learned about the events of Isstvan V by the few Raven Guards that managed to escape from Mardrion. Perhaps he hoped that a traitor would be better informed about Primarch Vulkan's disappearence, or the ongoing galaxy-wide civil war. Whichever the case, the humiliation of being taken and chained by the enemy set Thanatos' Butchers Nails aflame, and he didn't scream anything more than empty threats and meaningless farnetications. Those often concerned the atrocities suffered by the loyalists on Istvaan III and V, though, and Nocturus gave up to the rage, almost beating Thanatos to death.
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| − | He then left Centurion Vashtar to deal with the prisoner, in order to question him further and get all the datas they needed -using torture whenever necessary and allowing him to kill the prisoner if utterly uncollaborative. As Nocturus went organising Augusta's defences for the incoming assault, a small task force led by the freshly appointed Pit Champion of the Merciless, Solomon Drakon, infiltrated the structure and killed Vashtar before leaving the city with their Captain, furious and longing for vengeance for the outrage he suffered, his mental conditions worsening as if the Butcher's Nails weren't enough.
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| − | '''Endgame'''
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| − | After almost three months of bloody siege, the shields of Iulia Augusta fell.
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| − | It is unclear wether the defence batteries were either deactivated in a kill team mission or if the walls were breached -or both, since the reports about the event are fragmented and confused.
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| − | The World Eaters immediately charged into the heart of the city, where the few surviving Salamanders regrouped for their last stand and hid what was left of Augusta's population.
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| − | The engagement was a brutal one, and the 18th Legion covered itself with glory, reaping a most horrible tally on the number of their foes, and clearing almost immediately the right flank of their deployment zone of any enemy presence.
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| − | The left flank, however, was an entirely different matter.
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| − | A terrible meatgrinder started on the barricades erected by the Salamanders.
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| − | Death and fire were everywhere, and it is very difficult to reconstruct what happened with precision.
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| − | The two Legions clashed in a deadly embrace, and it was pure and remorseless slaughter, with no sensible otcome at the horizon.
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| − | The fighting raged for hours, until a solitary World Eaters Dreadclaw crashed in the core of the 18th's defenses and caused a series of explosions that scattered the defenders and made vox communication almost impossible.
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| − | It was then that, in one of the numerous independent skirmishes originated by the event, Thanatos found Nocturus and charged against him, seeking revenge for his outrageus captivity.
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| − | As their troops clashed in the heart of the dying city, the two praetors faced each other for the last time.
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| − | They both wounded the opponent several times, and with blows that would have killed any lesser man.
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| − | In the end, as Tiberius seemed to prevail, Nocturus managed to smash his chest with his thunder hammer, cutting down the enemy in glorious duel.
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| − | But a blood maddened World Eaters knows no glory nor respect: when Nocturus rose to look around at the wider battle, he found himself encircled by the Astartes of the 12th.
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| − | They fell upon him with swords and fists, but it was Sergeant Lennar who finally tore the Salamander's hearts off with his Powerfist and took his head as a trophy.
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| − | With Nocturus, Augusta's hope was lost, and the resistance of the Salamanders couldn't do anything more than delay the inavoidable carnage.
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| − | '''Aftermath'''
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| − | In the aftermath of the battle, Thanatos would be recovered -still living by some dark miracle- and brought to the apothecarion of the Merciless for recostruction.
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| − | With no Astartes left to protect it, and with the local militia severely weakened by the attrition war sustained against his traitor counterpart, the Prosperine System was little more than a hopeless victim waiting for the final, murderous strike.
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| − | The World Eaters were free to unleash their savage instincts on its worlds, each of them ravaged beyond recognition and forever scarred in its history.
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| − | Everything that remains of this period are the horrific Prosperinian tales about the atrocities and slaughterfeasts committed by the sons of Angron, which I renounce to describe in detail in this account. A collection of those stories can be found in the volume [REDACTED] by [REDACTED].
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| | ==Skirmish Reports== | | ==Skirmish Reports== |
(Press the CREATE button to lodge a single Skirmish report, do not modify the name)
