Siege of Kado
The Siege of Kado was a battle that occurred during the Horus Heresy, where the forces of the Dark Mechanicum invaded the world of Kado. The siege was an example of the countless shadowed battles that were fought during the Horus Heresy, even though it was a battle of cataclysmic proportions, involving multiple Titan Legions and hundreds of infantry battalions and armoured formations, the true nature of the conflict was censored.[1a]
Contents
History
Battle of the Amethyst Plains
As the siege began on the circular world, the Amethyst Plains rapidly became the main route through which the two sides' forces travelled along the Dawn Side of Kado to reach the disc's central Hive City. Titan Legions and ground forces fought against each other while the Dark Mechanicum took interest in the many research facilities on the plains, desiring the information locked with them. Soon, both Loyalists and Traitors assembled battlegroups to contest these facilities - the Loyalists to extract knowledge and then destroy the facilities, and the traitors to seize them and leverage any advantage for the Warmaster that the facilities might contain. The presence of titans in close proximity to the crystal inselbergs proved dangerous, for the formations would sporadically syphon power from passing god-engines, weakening the titan in question and storing its energy, which would then be released in deadly burst upon the warring forces. By the end of the conflict, the Amethyst Plains contained new formations: the drained husks of titans, forever silenced by the strange properties of the land they had walked upon.[1b]
Defence of the Delta Gate
The siege of Kado's hive city proved to be a difficult endeavour for the Traitors. Due to the nature of the twin-sided city and the network of tunnels that connected them, besieging Kado's hive was nigh-impossible; it could not be encircled and starved out, for the tunnels below fed its people and allowed reinforcements to flow. As such, the Traitors resorted to brute force, enacting countless assaults upon the hive city on both the Dawn and Dusk side in the hope that a weak point could be found. To counter the Traitors' greater numbers, the Titans legions that defended Kado, the Legio Ignatum, Legio Astraman and Legio Metalica among them, dispersed into mobile groups that combined the strength of their Legios. This caused consternation among the defenders but also proved highly successful, with the roaming packs of Warhounds able to shore up defences assailed by the Traitors and hold them off until heavier god-engines arrived to throw the invaders back.[1c]
Some of the heaviest fighting was seen at the Delta Gate, a towering edifice engraved with images glorifying the Emperor and his Primarchs, and the vital thoroughfare it stood guard over. Control of the Delta Gate gave access to a primary artery of Kado's hive city, allowing an invader rapid passage into the city beyond and reliable access to the tunnel network beneath Kado. For weeks, the traitors seeded Dark Mechanicum saboteurs amongst the city's defenders and, though many were caught and executed, enough evaded detection to lace the Delta Gate with explosives. The fruits of deception were revealed when the titans of Legio Audax launched a concentrated assault of the Delta Gate and, as the Traitor god-engines reached the walls, the gate's sub-structure was torn apart, collapsing it and the surrounding walls. The traitor titans quickly stormed the breach, intent upon slaughtering those who had delayed them for months. Only a staunch few Legio Metalica engines stood against them and though the odds of survival looked grim, hope was not lost, for Praeco Deictus, Imperator Titan of the Legio Crucius, walked in defence of the breach.[1c]
Battle of the Lion's Mouth
Of all the battles fought during the Siege of Kado, it was the Battle of the Lion's Mouth that was the most destructive. The battle in question was fought within the Square of Lions, where the Dark Mechanicum unleashed a vast host of its foul creations infused with the power of the Æther. In those days, few were the records of the monstrosities forged by the combination of warp powers and the god-engines of the Collegia Titanica; against such unseen horrors, even the Loyalist Titan Legions could do little. The Loyalists were soon pushed further into the hive of the Dawn Side, all hope seemingly lost.[1d]
It was then that a figure appeared before Taren Varnowe, the Grand Castellan of Kado. Clad in the black of his Ordo, the figure requested that the Square of Lions, which lay in the path of the Traitor's advance, and the surrounding districts be cleared. There, the full might of the Adjunct-Chamber of the Ordo Sinister would be unleashed; in his wisdom, the Emperor had assigned a portion of the Ordo Sinister to Kado, to guard against threats only he could perceive.[1d]
As predicted, the clearing of defenders and hive citizens from the area drove the Traitors' corrupted engines into a frenzy, for nothing opposed them and thus no blood could be spilt. The Traitor assault quickly fragmented and it was an unruly mob that strode into the Square of Lions, hungry for battle. In doing so, they had pushed into open ground and, as one, the three Psi-Titans of the Ordo Sinister emerged from concealment, setting upon their foe with full might of their esoteric powers.[1d]
