Assault on Attis VI

Aside from the agri-worlds themselves the only other point of interest in the Attis system was its frozen outer planet, Attis VI. This ball of ice, riven by kilometre deep ravines scratched into its fractured surface, was home to a large fuel depot whose underground storage tanks could be used to supply passing starships as they entered and exited the system. There were also barracks for a small military garrison to protect the valuable infrastructure from raiders and pirates. Seizing it would provide an excellent base of operations for an invasion of the primary agri-worlds.

First to land were elements of the Emperor's Children and Iron Warriors traitor legions who immediately massacred the small garrison and began securing the fuel depot for the Warmaster. They were not to be given the chance to dig in however as a far larger loyalist force of Iron Hands, Death Guard and multiple chapters of Dark Angels landed on the outskirts of the facility. The legions worked poorly together, with the Iron Hands immediately attacking the Death Guard in the belief they were traitors loyal to Mortarian rather than the Emperor. The Iron Hands were repelled by a massed infantry counter-attack by the Death Guard and both sides fell back in disarray.

The Dark Angels ignored the confusion and swept into the fuel depot in a well co-ordinated pincer movement. Land Raider mounted infantry and squadrons of Predator tanks breached the perimeter, allowing a well timed infantry assault to sweep into the interior facilities and secure Attis VI for the loyalist cause.

The first stepping stone

 The ultimate goal for both sides was the Fornax system itself. Rich in subterranean promethium fields and covered in sprawling industry the worlds of the Fornax system were a tempting prize. If the loyalists could hold them and turn their industrial capacity to their own ends it would facilitate an offensive into neighbouring sectors, maybe even on to Terra itself. If the traitors could claim it they would have all the materials they needed to increase their stranglehold on the Imperium Secundus and snuff out what might well be the Imperium's last hope.

But the Fornax system itself was a formidable target. Ruled with an iron fist by the patriarchs of the techno-prelates, the worlds of the Fornax system were protected by orbital battle stations and fortified planetary defence silos. Any direct assault would be costly in the extreme. But a fortress is only as strong as its weakest link, and for Fornax that weak link was its dependence on its supply chain. Its swollen workforce could only be sustained by food imported from nearby agri-worlds and its formidable armies of cyber-augmented hearth guardians needed munitions, weapons and vehicles from as far afield as Metallica itself.

The most vulnerable part of that supply chain was the Attis system. Its benign G2 Yellow Dwarf star had two life bearing temperate agri-worlds orbiting it. Covered in verdant plantations they had only a bare minimum of planetary defence forces garrisoning them.

Both sides dispatched task forces to secure this poorly defended prize for themselves.

Night falls on the golden age of humanity.

Horus Lupercal, Warmaster and favoured son of the Emperor has plunged the Imperium of Mankind into a brutal civil war that will tear the galaxy asunder.

The atrocity of the Isstvan Drop Site Massacre has revealed the full extent of the Warmaster's treachery. Brother fights brother and the the Ruinstorm occludes the Emperor's light from much of the galaxy.

Roboute Guilliman, fearing the Emperor dead and the grand dream of the Imperium lost, has founded the Imperium Secundus in an effort to keep the flame of the Emperor's ambitions alive.

Sanguinius is its regent, the Lion is its Lord Protector.

Three full loyalist legions, along with chapters from many more, are cut off from Terra. But they do not stand idle.

Across the Imperium Secundus the beleaguered loyalists do battle with the traitor legions, attempting to secure the boundaries of their new Empire.

In the galactic west of their domain lies the Fornax sub-sector. Its lords, the techno-prelates of the Foraxian Hegemony, have refused to declare for either side. Paralysed with indecision they have chosen instead to build up their defences and hope to ride out the conflagration as the galaxy burns around them.

In doing so they have chosen their own destruction.

Both loyalist and traitor task forces approach the Fornax cluster, intent on securing its vital promethium rigs, refineries and prodigious industrial capacity for themselves.