Bitter War
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The Bitter War[1a] was a campaign that began in 010.M31 during the Horus Heresy,[1a] pitting various Loyalist forces of the Imperium against the Word Bearers defending Colchis and the outlying Colchisian Satrapy. The conflict was concluded in 032.M31 when Colchis was destroyed in the Great Scouring.[2]
History
The "Bitter War" began in 010.M31 when the Medusa-based faction of the Iron Hands, commanded by their Medusan Council, initiated an offensive against the Word Bearers Homeworld Colchis.[1a] This was in response to a raid the Traitor Legion launched against Medusa in 007.M31, in order to claim the Keys of Hel. Though only a few of the Keys were stolen before the attack was stopped, it galvanized Medusa's Iron Hands and led the Council to wage the Bitter War against the Word Bearers.[5]
The operation saw the Iron Hands unleash an array of proscribed weapons from the Vaults of Medusa, including Nano-Plagues, Amalgam Bioautoma, and Rad-Phages.[1a] In response, "a significant number" of Word Bearers warbands from across the Galaxy were recalled to join the defense of Colchis.[1c] The Word Bearers put up a fanatical defence, and the campaign for the worlds of the wider Colchisian Satrapy included such bloody struggles as the Adramite Purges, the Narasima Dissolution, and the Cull of Sarcosa.[4]
Sundering of Milhand
The Sundering of Milhand took place in 271010.M31 as part of the conflict. The Iron Hands sacked a dozen systems in the outer sphere of the Colchisian Satrapy as the Word Bearers continued to hurl numberless hordes of fanatical militia and entire fleets of Fire Ships in their path. The Word Bearers were in the midst of a massive reinforcement effort, withdrawing troops and material from distant planets to the heartland of their domain. The Forge World of Milhand was one such planet, which produced a large amount of the war material for the Word Bearers. The Word Bearers were in the midst of evacuating much of the worlds industry and supplies as the first Iron Hands vessels arrived. With much of Milhand's Taghmata away or devastated from the Heresy and the Legio Ablutum having taken the path of the Blackshield, it fell to the Word Bearers under Yshaan Tur aboard the Battle Barge Exegesis to resist the assault. Due to the devastation and chaos of the Heresy, only a small Word Bearers skeleton force existed on Milhand to defend it.[4]
The Iron Hands fleet was led by the titanic Memorius, and as the loyalists arrived the Word Bearers were rapidly attempting to evacuate everything from Milhand. The Iron Hands Strike Cruiser Unalloyed Hate made a mad rush through the Traitor flotilla cordon, launching a wave of Drop Pods and orbital landers above Milhand before being ripped apart by the Exegesis. The Iron Hands succeeded in landing hundreds of troops on Milhand as the Memorius grew ever closer. The Iron Hands directed their landing towards the largest remaining forge-fan where the Word Bearers were overseeing the evacuation. Without time to established a fortified defense, the Word Bearers had instead seeded the landing zone with large number of Araknae and Tarantula sentry batteries. These reaped a heavy toll on the first wave of Drop Pods, those these were largely unmmaned Deathstorm models. In the wake of these came Kharybdis Assault Claws, which penetrated the central rotunda of the forge-complex and landed directly on parked Word Bearers gunships. Iron Hands Breacher Squads and Rapier carriers then emerged, being met by frenzied Word Bearers defenders. The determined Word Bearers defense prevented the evacuation from becoming a rout.[4]
The Word Bearers repurposed a number of grounded gunships into gun emplacements, cutting through the flanks of the Loyalists before their Rapiers were able to destroy them. Despite the Traitor efforts, the Iron Hands made a relentless advance and continued to push forward against the Word Bearers. The Iron Hands unleashed Despoiler Squads to mercilessly butcher any surviving Milhand aircraft crew, Tech-Priests, Servitors, or logistical personnel they encountered behind their newly captured lines. A quartet of Iron Hands Deredeo Dreadnoughts were used to defend the dropsite from incoming Word Bearers aircraft as the Loyalists set about destroying cargo craft full of precious wargear, such as Sicaran Tanks, Leviathan Dreadnoughts, Mk.VI Power Armour, and Warp-flasks. Not all of the Iron hands encountered success however, as seen when a group of their Contemptor Dreadnoughts were mauled by Araknae and Tarantula batteries.[4]
As the battle raged, 56 Iron Hands Terminators moved into the heart of the forge-complex, meeting the remaining Milhand Taghmata such as small numbers of rusted Castellax and Scyllax-class Automata. Despite their poorly maintained state, the Robots were still able to wage a vicious defense before being overcome by the Iron Hands Terminators. However as the Iron Hands advanced further into the forge, they encountered a Word Bearers arcane ritual that made the very factory come alive, assailing them with servo-arms and Mechadendrites. By now, the Word Bearers had been reduced to around 50 surviving Space Marines, but were still able to blunt the Iron Hands attack at the landing zone thanks to a handful of newly commissioned tanks as they desperately sought to save their remaining war material by loading them on waiting Stormbirds. The Iron Hands managed to regain the initiative and advance once more by landing a massive Saturnine Dreadnought as well as newly Teleported Saturnine Terminators, which had enough firepower to overload the Stormbird's Void Shields.[4]
Inside the Forge-complex, the Iron Hands Terminators, all either Cataphractii or Gorgon patterns, had by now encountered the cowering Tech-Priests of Milhand, which were butchered in seconds. The commanding Iron Father emerged, and as he inspected the captured armoury a dozen Word Bearers Saturnine Terminators of the Dark Heart Chapter teleported into the complex. Their Saturnine armour was modified with the Daemonic powers of the Warp. Unleashing punishing fire upon the Loyalists, and to the horror of the Iron Hands they discovered that the Dark Heart Terminators were defended by warp-infused aetheric energy shields as opposed to the standard Refractor Fields. Though the Iron Hands outnumbered the Word Bearers almost two-to-one, the Dark Heart Terminators were too much and wiped out all of the Loyalists inside the forge-complex. Their mission accomplished, the Word Bearers Terminators the teleported out of the chamber.[4]
The Dark Heart Terminators then reappeared at the now-despoiled landing zone, though with far more dubious results. This time, the Word Bearers elite did not meet a shocked foe in close-quarters but rather a concentrated battleline including Dreadnoughts and Rapier gun-carriers. Taking heavy fire, the Word Bearers were then beset by the Iron Hands Saturnine Dreadnought. The Word Bearers lost a full half of their number before falling back via teleportation to the Exegesis in orbit. However this distraction had allowed a quintet of Word Bearers Stormbirds to evacuate with material. The Exegesis retrieved these craft and then sped for the System's Mandeville Point with surviving transport craft. Shortly after the Memorius and its escort fleet arrived in orbit to sunder the planet. In the aftermath, the Iron Hands enslaved Milhand to their own purposes.[4]
Fall of Colchis
At one point after the Siege of Cthonia, an Imperial Fists and Loyalist Thousand Sons rogue fleet commanded by Lord Castellan Evander Garrius joined the "final cataclysmic battle for Colchis".[1b] This battle saw an invasion of Colchis itself which included Ultramarines commanded by Captain Remus Ventanus. After breaking the Word Bearers, Ventanus symbolically planted the standard previously used in the Battle of Calth on Colchis in 032.M31. Having done so, he and his forces departed.[2] The war for Colchis was then concluded, when the Ultramarines and Inquisition destroyed Colchis with cyclonic torpedoes[2][3] carried by the Ultramarines battle barge Octavius.[2] At this point, the planet's government, infrastructure, and industry had largely collapsed.[3]
See also
Sources
- 1: Campaigns of the Age of Darkness: The Siege of Cthonia:
- 2: Know No Fear (Novel), Epilogue
- 3: Index Astartes IV — Word Bearers
- 4: Journal Tactica: The Forges of Saturn, pgs. 23-28
- 5: Journal Tactica: Skitarii, pg. 24 - The Bloody Trials of the Skitarii: The Broken Key
