Changes

Following the fall of Triplex the Lion next moved on Sheol III and Yaelis. The Night Lords and their slave armies were too few to defeat the Dark Angels but also did not flee, instead throwing their fodder at the Lion while the Night Lords themselves conducted harrying and delaying actions. The subjugation of these two worlds thus took two months alone. Nonetheless, hope managed to return to Thramas and loyalist Army regiments in hiding managed to rejoin the Night Lords. At Crucible the Dark Angels relieved the siege to find Captain-General Mordhe and a few battered survivors still holding. However the majority of the Sector still remained in traitor hands, and to counter this The Lion unleashed a second front of reinforcements to move through the [[Aegis Sector]], only to find themselves bogged down by traitors at [[Memlock]] and the vast expanse of the [[Heraclid Nebula]]. The fighting now spanned across four different Sectors and the battle grinded into stalemate. The Dark Angels were not large enough to force a breakthrough without abandoning the worlds they liberated, while the Night Lords were spread too thin to push back their loyalist brethren. As the Night Haunter fell into mania Sevatar and [[Anrek Barbatos]] sought to mitigate his often contradictory orders, holding back the Dark Angels through constant guerrilla and harrying actions. Seeking to turn the tide, Sevatar and Barbatos also enacted secret agreements the Night Haunter had made with debased factions throughout the Eastern Fringe known as the '''Midnight Treaties'''. Small scout craft were dispatched, winning new allies such as the debased [[Warriors of Tohruk]], Predator-Forge of [[Ulan Huda]], the traitor [[White Scars]] [[Brotherhood of the Shattered Shield]], cannibal legions of [[Glabro]], battle-[[Psyker]]s of [[Thex]], and dozens more abominations and aberrations.{{Fn|4c}}

===Traitor Counterattack===

Faced with these reinforcements, the Night Lords struck at Crucible and several other worlds with wanton cruelty. With enemy ships observing in orbit the Dark Angels threw their lesser allies against the foe to disguise their true strength and drain the supplies of their foes. At [[Yrrdek]] the Night Lords cleared Dark Angels minefields with their conscript militias. On [[Chenro IX]] the Night Lords overseers wagered on how long it would take the Dark Angels to slaughter the crude conscript armor sent against them while they countered enemy gun emplacements. However on [[Sedrrice]] the White Scars [[Brotherhood of the Shattered Shield]] acted chivalrously, allowing the decimated loyalists to retreat with their wounded. With the preparations complete the Night Haunter himself once again appeared, summoning all the disparate elements of the Night Lords to his side and mustering some 100,000 Legionaries. The only Night Lords commander to not answer the muster was Nakrid Thole, his hatred fixed upon [[Thramas (Hive World)|Thramas]] alone. Thole was finally able to break Thramas with the arrival of the predator-world of [[Ulan Huda]].{{Fn|4d}}

**{{Endn|4f}}: pgs. 51-60

**{{Endn|4g}}: pg. 61

{{HHBattles}}