 One of the more terrible things about a tragedy is that all too often, by the time any mind may suddenly comprehend the true scope of what is about to unfold, it is far, far too late to affect any change at all. Wheels are in motion. The pieces are moving. The grand tableau unfolds to the horror of those with the Ken to see it in its fullest. There is not to do, but let it all play out. For the forces that chose to set such a thing in motion did so long ago, wittingly or unwittingly, and Momentum is a terrible force indeed. That helplessness, that confusion, that sheer panic at seeing what simply should not be occur before one's very eyes. Well, in the case of this record, one can only imagine what it must have felt like. The pain of what one shall recount echoes to this very day. A blightful stain upon the history of all involved, a locus for forces dark and terrible to enact their sinister plans, yet at the same time an event so grimly, utterly human in its unfolding that to know it is to know the flaws we all bear within ourselves. No, then, that this is the truest account of the Great Calamity. Confrontation of brother against brother, legion against legion before such a thing could even have been imagined. The burning of Prospero. As the censure host of the emperor cleaved a path through the tides of the immaterium, powering at full wake towards the planet of Prospero, homeworld of the 15th legion. Magnus the Red sat ensconced within his sanctum. Around him, throughout the capital of Tizca, were gathered the overwhelming majority of his thousand sons. Yet the potent and of course condemned collection of astartes were not, as the ships of Russ and Valdor powered ever closer, fortifying their home against invasion. They were instead obliviously tending to their studies and initiatives. Training their bodies and minds for whatever expedition they anticipated their primarch was surely preparing to lead them upon. Should any acolytes wonder as to how a legion possessed of literal prescience have been able to be caught by surprise, let alone remain unalerted by entirely mundane communication apparatuses, know that it is simply because they were all of them deceived. Magnus the Red appears to have been fully aware that his judgment was nigh, approaching now with slavering jaws, and he made every effort possible to conceal this from his sons, and indeed almost eased the approach of the fleet. What scanned records of the legion, as captured and archived by the Ligio Custodis, dictate that the primarch issued no defensive preparation orders. Instead he withdrew Honor Guard and watched garrisons from the world that lay in the path of the censure host, shuttering all holdfasts of the legion that could potentially deliver any advance warning. Similarly, the fleet of the Thousand Sons was broken into dozens of separate squadrons and dispatched to far more distant legion outposts, or on unclear patrol routes that would take them into the deep void and as far from the orbit of their home world as possible. The astropathic choirs of Prospero were removed from their chambers, records of their recent communiques redacted, and in some cases the minds and memories of the telepaths themselves altered to remove information deemed sensitive. All of these measures were made explicitly by the order of Magnus. Indeed the informational aspect appears to be crucial, as by throttling all incoming off-world missives Magnus managed to prevent his sons from not only discovering that their doom approached, but that the Emperor had even censured him in the first place. None saved the members of the Rahati, his inner circle, even knew of the ritual Magnus had attempted, and it is unclear if any were even aware of the results or what had transpired as the spirit form of the primarch had flown to Terra. Magnus clearly went through great lengths to disguise his failure from the Thousand Sons, even going so far as to alter the memories of those he deemed a threat to its revelation. The motivations of the Crimson King for this are of course only open to supposition. Some will claim that it was his means of surrendering to the oncoming judgment, while others will state it was guilt and shame that drove his hand, a mad rush to conceal the truth from his sons until the last possible moment, as he sought martyrdom as penance for his crimes. Official Terran Chronicles, compiled in the aftermath of the Great Heresy, stated categorically that it was by the will of the Emperor alone that his traitorous son and his brood had their sight stripped from them, and while one may admire the fervour behind such a statement, it is unlikely that it was anything other than propaganda. Yet, for all their obliviousness, a legion homeworld was to never be considered an easy target, and Prospero was now host to the majority of the legion it had borne, as well as auxiliaries of the Prosper I Inspire Guard regiments and the subterranean Mechanicum Entlave from the local Forge world of Shawark had. All of these were contained within the mighty capital of Tizca, with the exception of the Mechanicum Forge Fane, for without lay the wastes of a world overrun with predatory Xenos megafauna, the most lethal amongst them being the deadly Psyknoen. The ancient cities of pre-Fall Prospero were nothing more than time-worn ruins, occasionally occupied by training outposts of the legion or heavily defended scientific endeavors, nothing more. It was not outside the central metropolis for an enemy to capture or destroy. The Xenos infestations made such a possibility of establishing any forward operating base for a traditional siege completely impractical. Even if a foundation for such a holdfast could have been in place, constant predation would have drained vital resources of the censure host, now apparently set in its aim of a full-scale military invasion. Such losses would be ill-afforded. The capital itself presented no easy task for any that wished to attack it, as it had been specifically constructed within a geographically isolated location. To the north of it lay the White Mountains, impassable to most any army and strung through with defense batteries and fortified bunkers providing overlapping fire cover on any potential approach. To the west was the Valparine Sea, its tides naturally preventing any assault from that vector. The only conventional land approach to the city had long ago been clad behind 100 meter tall walls, embedded with void shield generators to ward off the Psycnoian. Tisca had always been a fortress by sheer necessity, the last bastion of humanity upon a hostile world. The coming of the legion had only refined and upgraded this, and, given the Thousand Sons' proclivities, this went far, far beyond void shield and turbo laser batteries. Its skyward vector was protected by a giant telekinetic barrier, designed to channel the power of raptora cult astartes and enhance it by orders of magnitude. It formed what was essentially a biologically and a theoretically generated void battleship equivalent barrier, one that required no power beyond the mental fortitude of those who were delegated to maintain it. While technically the usage of such powers was banned under the edict of Nekia, the commanders of the censor host were under no doubt that the legion would immediately utilize it if placed under threat, and had included it in their assault planning. These commanders were painfully aware that this was merely one of the potentially dozens of esoteric and paranormal defenses that the Thousand Sons could mount at any moment. The cult arcologies of the city were gigantic and could form perfect loci for defensive efforts, and, as to what lay within the warren of buildings that formed the old quarter and other parts of the conurbation, no terror official could warrant any suppositions. These issues with forming a planetary assault would have under normal circumstances necessitated a far longer period of planning, or a different configuration of the attackers, or sundry other applications of military logistics and strategizing. But we must remember one crucial aspect above all else when it comes to considering how the censor host began its opening gambits. It had been formed originally to be an honor guard under arms, not explicitly at least, as a hostile military expedition in any real sense. Perpetrating an invasion in force was a last resort, and eventuality Legio Custodas genetic programming forced them to consider in every situation they engaged with. Horus Lupercal, and to an extent Leemann Russ, had manipulated the events to transform an escort fleet into an assault flotilla, and while the former had swelled its offensive capabilities with the addition of sons of Horus Astartes, warmaster pledged exurtus imperialis regiments, and the god engines of legio mortis, they were still ranged against an entire Astartes legion. While no efforts had been made since they were not necessary to conceal Prospero's capabilities, there was a significant difference in being able to ascertain the serving number of Prospera inspired guard to, say, accurately plotting out just what technologies the Mechanicum of Shao Arcad held in their underground fame, or just how effective the psychic might of the Thousand Sons would be, should they decide to unleash it. In short, even supplemented by the warmaster's forces, even with the auric might of the Legio Custodas, the anti-psychur specialities of the silent sisterhood, and the terrifying power of the titans of the Ordo Sinister, the equation that was the balance of power was far too close to parity for any commander to be comfortable with. Typically orbital invasions predicated themselves around numerical superiority as the absolute base element, all the better to eliminate the home field advantage possessed by entrenched defenders. This, the censor host completely lacked, and that is before anything else was taken into consideration, such as the psychic powers of the Thousand Sons or that of their Primark. While the censor host was making unimpeded progress towards Prospero, sustaining nothing in the way of delays, let alone losses, and was thus able to count on their arrival in full force, they nevertheless expected the enemy to quickly adapt to any outbreak of hostilities, counting not on the fact that they were seemingly arriving with total surprise on their side. And it was best they did, for the defences ranged against them were formidable indeed, even for all their lack of preparation. At the pinnacle, figuratively and literally, was Magnus the Red, withdrawn in seclusion, but remaining the supreme authority over all that transpired under Prosperine skies. Outside of the legion, but still beholden to Magnus, were Majus Prime Tacitus Proctor of the Arcadian Mechanicum Fane, whose heresy Technologica had been declared by Mars at the same time the censor of Magnus had been announced Lucretia Eleunari, Seneshal Prime of the Prosperine Spearguard Regiments, and Calvlar Ibraenum, Princeps Warden of the Vigil of the Ligio Zestobiax Titans stationed planet side. While these latter were present in force, and were served as potent auxiliaries, the bulk of Prospero's might was absolutely maintained within the 15th Legion, there in its vast majority, some 62,000 Astartes out of an estimated 80 to 90,000. The first fellowship indeed were present in its entirety, 9,000 Astartes including the whole of the Legion's Terminator elite. The remaining eight fellowships varied in disposition, with only the fourth being severely underrepresented, a mere 200 Astartes with the rest off-world abroad across the galaxy. Outside the bounds of the fellowships, the Order of Ruin possessed 1,800 Astartes and nearly 800 Battle Automata of the psychically sensitive Castilex Achia pattern. The Order of the Blind were a round 888 Astartes withdrawn from their secretive operations galaxy wide, and the Order of the Jackal supplemented their Legion with 604 Astartes that could be withdrawn from their ceremonial and practical Legion management duties. Of the auxiliaries, strength therein was nothing to be sniffed at, regardless of the transhuman fury they were about to face. The Spire Guard counted 85,000 soldiers under arms. The combined arms force arraigned along standard Exertus Imperialis lines, but considered within its upper echelons in terms of training, quality of equipment, and discipline. The Arcadian Mechanicum counted a typically diverse and fractious set of Tagma amongst its presence planetside, but could, if required, form a Tagmata consisting of 8,000 soldiers and automata, as well as attached esoteric war machines. Finally, a full vigil of the Ligio Zestobiacs was also present, 12 Titans of various configurations contained within the Geller and Void shielded Mechanicum Fane just outside the city limits. These were the considerations as a censure host slipped anchor at Beter Garmin and made the months-long journey from the coreward reaches towards Prospero. However, what they found, both along the route and as they drew closer, surprised them. As mentioned earlier, not only were the outposts of the Thousand Sons vacated, but not a single picket craft, defense monitor or lone roving frigate was even encountered. Ironically, this only increased the combat readiness of the host, translating in-system at each necessary staging point in staggered formations that would allow for rapid retreat through the Mandeville point. No explanation could be offered for the dearth of 15th Legion vessels, and when the time had finally come to breach the bounds of Prospero's own system, the host did so as tentatively as possible, sending a formation of silent sisterhood, anathema-class Pinochet, and a flotilla of 6th Legion interdiction destroyers far ahead of the main fleet. Surely, most host commanders believed, Thousand Sons had gathered the full might of their fleet in orbit around their homeworld. But no. Within the light of Prospero's sun was found the same situation as every other leg of the censure host's journey. Not a single ship under the 15th Legion flag was detectable on any all-spec sweeps. Indeed, the only craft in-system were the typical merchant vessels common in all Imperial space, and approximately two dozen monitor vessels aligned to the Mechanicum Forge of Shawark had, none of which were even warp-capable. Without a trace of any Legion vessels, the censure host delayed its arrival in force, fearing an ambush of some kind. Nearby systems were scouted for the 15th's fleet, and all merchant-chipping was rapidly seized, with their crews turned over to the silent sisterhood in Terra-Gatrixes for debriefing. The idea that the fleet was simply dismissed by Magnus did not even enter into the considerations of Russ and Valdor at the time, for what possible reason could there be for such a decision? One wonders what these august figures would make of it to know that even 10,000 years later, the reason for this is still a mystery that weighs heavy upon those who chronicle it. All due caution was paid to the possibility that, through means either mundane or arcane, Magnus had disguised his fleet's presence. The Mechanicum ships whose commanders were all Prosperine natives were rapidly seized by Sixth Legion boarding actions, the wolves moving professionally and fairly bloodlessly to capture their crews intact. While no match for the battleships of the host, these craft were deemed both a threat of note enough, due to their macro-canon batteries, that they could disrupt landing operations, but also for the potentially sensitive information their crews could be aware of. One such capture, that of the monitor-sloop Tempest, is often highlighted by those who seek to criticize prevailing opinions of the wolves' rather bloodthirsty nature. Only 64 members of the ship's crew were killed in her capture, and only one Astartes was lost on the Imperial side. Ironically enough, the first casualty of war for the entire burning of Prospero, on those who went under the Emperor's flag. A single wolf was slain by the ship's captain, who themselves was dispatched along with the entirety of the bridge crew subsequently. The remaining personnel on board were informed by the attackers that they were to surrender, or all life support would be immediately turned off. The pattern was repeated system-wide, with all non-sensor hosts aligned ships being immediately seized. Unfortunately for the commanders, the Mechanicum appeared to be just as in the dark as they were. None of the surviving Magi were capable of offering any explanation as to the disappearance of the Thousand Sun's fleet, never mind their surprise at seeing themselves being captured by those who were apparently on the same side as them. With no choice but to act, Russ gave the order for full fleet translation. First came the heavy cruisers and the battleships, spreading out across the Prosperine orbital reaches and neutralizing its satellite communications network and weapons platform arrays, although the latter proved to be far less of an issue than anticipated. Not a single shot was fired in return as the platformed were sundered from the skies. The transport barks and Titan macro conveyors translated in shortly thereafter, directly into high anchor. Prosperine space had been seized in the matter of a few hours. The sensor host was in complete and uncontested control of the orbital volume. That an Imperial planet, an Allegiant homeworld no less, had fallen in such time was unthinkable, a travesty and a tragedy in kind, all that defensive artifice of Imperial genius, that it could be stripped aside so easily even by those who had made it. That they had, surely speaks volumes to the degree that Magnus the Red had sought to pave the path forward for this sensor host. Since their departure from Beta Garmin to their complete mastery of prosperous skies, not a single shot had been fired at their approach, not in warning, nor in anger. Upon the surface, the host's sudden arrival was now becoming known, but not in anything approaching a coherent fashion. The destruction of the communication grid had wrought havoc on the planet's civilian government, and the rain of satellite debris that was now plummeting from the atmosphere only added to this. Several regiments of the Smire Guard, lacking direct command and with their Vox networks in chaos, began to mobilize, their commanders assuming that an invasion was somehow already underway. Elsewhere, Tizca's emergency responders were deploying, assuming an entirely different scenario, that there had been some form of orbital catastrophe and their services would soon be needed. The Thousand Sons were utterly silent in their cult arcologies. Not a single member of the Legion's senior staff could be raised on the Vox, and what contact existed between civilians and the starties of the line only proved that the lower ranks would absolutely not budge without direct orders to do so. It has been suspected, based on writings recovered, that the Legion was now beginning to realize something was afoot, although if they were, they made no show of it. In orbit, Lehman Russ took one final step to avoid the end he had by some estimates already concluded would occur. He offered clemency for the world, in exchange for the Primarch. From the flagship of the Ligio Custodes, the appointed Vox Imperiosa, voted voice of the Sisters of Silence, proclaimed again the writ of censure, that the Emperor himself had declared months previously. The Crimson King was to surrender himself for transportation to Terra. The communique was delivered on all bands, civilian, military, and astrophathic. There was no response. Russ' ire began to build. He is recorded to have spent a standard hour pacing the bridge of his flagship, fury kindling, requesting updates from his master of Vox repeatedly, only to be told the same each time. There was no response. Valdor raised the Primarch, cautioning him against rash action and requesting that Magnus be given more time, as the censure proclamation was obviously one of great import. There was not. There was no word of resign surrender. There were no pleas of forgiveness. There was no staunch resistance or hot-headed hostility. There was not even acknowledgement that the fleet was even there. Russ had had enough. And Prospero began to burn. To any who may believe that the Appalachian burning is a poetic one, let me disperse any notions thus forthwith. The literal burning of Prospero began as soon as Russ gave his command. From the bowels of the Sixth Legion fleet came a barrage of the world-killer weapons of Beter Garmin. Viral cascades emulsified all biological life upon the planet, while land strikes ignited gaseous aftermaths, creating firestorm deluges that incinerated whole continents. The verdant wilderness of Prospero vanished in fire and ash, a biosphere so redolent of old earth now lost to the punitive fury of Lehman Russ and his wolves. It only took an hour. Yet when augury suites scryed the burning world, one thing was incontrovertible. Tizca had survived, unblemished, the sole area unscathed in a world of flame, and doing so under a shimmering aegis of psychokinetic force. Clearly at the last instance the rage of the Sixth Legion had been detected by the Thousand Sons, whose adepts had rushed to raise their unique shield above the capital. In doing so, almost ironically, they had damned themselves even further. Whatever their desire to protect their city, their home, their civilians, they had done so through clearly arcane means. Not even a gloriana-class battleship's shields could have withstood the bombardment that had rained down on Prospero. Here, then, was evidence incontrovertible, but the Fifteenth Legion shared their father's crimes, that the Emperor's edict of Nikia had been truly violated and before the watching eyes of those who bore the Magisterii Imperator too. It seemed so petty a thing at this juncture to have guilt pronounced upon those who were literally enduring an orbital bombardment for crimes they had not even known they were accused of, but such are the curious twists of history. It is true, however, that up until the survival of the Metropole of Tiska, it had not been proven that the Thousand Sons yet continued to utilize their powers. Observing the shield from orbit, Russ and Valdor had been handed evidence entirely to the contrary. It had, of course, always been assumed that no orbital attack would scour the planet completely of the Legion. Exterminatus can be, oddly enough, an imprecise tool within the Imperium's arsenal, especially when the Legion's Astartes are concerned. Russ and Valdor managed to correctly assume what Horus Lupercal did not, years later, at Istvan III, although both would be stunned by just how many of those they had subjected to the punitive bombardments had managed to weather them. The censor host now faced not a punished Legion reeling from an attack unexpected, but a resolved and dug-in opponent whose numbers were almost exactly one-to-one with their own. The bombardment had only served to set the defenders home ablaze. It had not reduced their capabilities one Iota, something the censors of the fleet were now clearly detecting as a prosperous Spire Guard rushed to their fortifications around the Acropolis of Tiska, unfurling defense lasers and establishing barricades and readouts. Of the Thousand Sons themselves, however, still nothing was seen. The orbital strikes had, of course, not accomplished nothing. In the mountains surrounding the city, lance strikes had disabled many of the orbital and air defense batteries, unprotected by the shield as they were, and had set avalanches of snow and rock plummeting into the civilian quarters of Tiska. The Valparine Sea had likewise endured punishment that had sent tsunamis to pound the coastal quarters of the capital, as well as clouds of scalding mists from superheated water boiled by lance beams. As the Spire Guard were rushing to defend against what was now, clearly, an invasion, they had to battle their way through crowds of panicked, fleeing civilians, as well as aid the overwhelmed civil defense units in coordinating evacuations and crowd control. The Legion was still nowhere in sight, and though they were clearly aware of an invasion owing to the raising of the Kine Shield, their silence and that of Magnus only worsened matters as civilian government order completely broke down, bereft of the leadership they had come to rely on from the Astartes. Chaos was reigning, and while the Spire Guard were engaging in admirable efforts to mitigate it, the situation was only growing worse. No word, likewise, could be raised from the Mechanicum. Their Forge Fane was a subterranean one, but it was located outside of Reach of the Shield. What surface facilities it had once borne had simply vanished, scoured from the earth by the guns of the host. All Stratagoy officers aboard the fleet advocated an immediate drop en masse to Tisca itself. The destruction wrecked by the bombardment rendered all landing zones outside of the city useless, not to mention that any army would then have to contend with the walls of the Metropolis and the still very much active Kine Shield. Russ, however, gainsaid part of this order. He had, by all accounts, sworn a form of oath, that he and his wolves would be the first boots on the ground. Despite the protests of all other host command officers, including Valdor, Russ ordered that all non-Astartes combatants of the censure host remain in orbit until he and his legion had established a beachhead, and immediately set about gathering the might of An, his legion's first company, and the most bellicose of his assault cadres for an immediate landing in force. This consisting of warriors of the 2nd, 3rd, 8th, and 12th companies. At 0758 local Tiscan time, on 743004 M31, the first six legion aircraft broke the atmospheric boundaries of Prospero. In a fashion perfected by the wolves for aerial assault of dug-in enemies, their approach dive was taken at such a speed and descent angle that it would have literally killed unaugmented humans, with the aircraft levelling out of the dive over the still-boiling Valparine Sea, mere meters above the angrily tempestuous waves, slamming ramjets to their limits as they burned towards the Tiscan shoreline. Such an approach mitigated the vast majority of potential anti-aircraft fire volumes, something which the wolves, unaware of the Spire Guard's hastily established batteries, had not realized was ultimately unnecessary. The response that came from the Prosperine was in the form of scrambled air interdiction fighters, Arcadian patterned lightning and thunderbolt aircraft from the fields that had been protected by the Tiscan kine shield. The pilots, brave as they were, had of course never been called upon to face the legion as a starty, and followed standard engagement protocol with presumed enemy dropships, namely that they presumed them to be ill-equipped to defend themselves. They were of course quite the opposite. Prosperine aircraft on approach vectors found their planes shredded by deluges of heavy bolt fire, or plucked from the sky by pinpoint las cannon shots. One lightning suffered a head-on collision with the legion stormbird, obliterating it in its entirety as the Astartes craft continued on completely unscathed. The Prosperine only got to make one pass, as the airguard banked around for a second potential run. They were set upon immediately by the Xiphon interceptors of the Wolves, supported by a small number of Ligio Custodis equinox fighters running aerial support and reconnaissance. Cognizant of the oath, Russ was insisting on maintaining. The interdiction was so one-sided it would have been laughable had it not been tragic. Astartes and Custodis aircraft isolated individual Prosperine fighters from their squadrons with ruthless efficiency, completely occupying the airguard in what had become nothing less than a fight for survival, as the baseline humans of the defenders pitted their piloting against the transhuman mastery of the invaders. The landercraft continued on towards the city, freed from what little interference the airguard had been even able to run, grounding themselves at pre-selected landing zones along the immediate coastline. The Stormbirds formed a concentric ring, a tactic pioneered by the Wolves of Russ for orbital landings, as it allowed the massive aircraft to merge their void shields in a manner not entirely dissimilar from the hunting packs of warhound scout titans. The protective bubble was immediately useful, as ranging artillery strikes from the smireguard began to almost immediately fall. Just as he had so sworn in orbit, the first warrior of the censure host to disembark was Lehman Russ himself, doing so with no words of rousing wisdom or assured conviction, but with a bestial howl that tore through the terrified streets of the capital. Following the pounding of Russ's armored tread came 30,000 Wolves, equipped with the most brutal of short-range equipment for urban firefights, from the Terran Bolters of the line to the Volkites and plasma guns of Mars, and her forges to the simple blades of Fenris. Acting upon standard Legion practices, the force immediately fragmented into hunting packs, authority delegated through the Legion's fluid and personality-driven command structure. There would be little in the way of a hierarchy for the enemy to disrupt, or to gain access to. The Wolves were as fiercely independent upon the battlefield as they were in temperament, answering only to the word of their direct superiors and that of their king. Initial landing zones were rapidly secured and delivered to Legion hands, allowing for the straggler transports to make hard landings. The area of Tisca in question was its oldest, predating both the arrival of Magnus and the Imperium both. It lacked the palatial squares and impeccable urban planning of the newer reaches of the Metropolis, instead being a dense, winding warren of relatively primitive housing, arrayed in no coherent fashion. Tide streets, overhanging roofs, dead-end alleys, scores of potential ways for any defender to bleed and trap an unwitting or unprepared attacker. It was also densely packed with civilians, many of whom had not yet heeded the evacuation orders, and were even now stirring in terror as Grey Armoured Astartes in furs and blood began to swarm through their once peaceful district. The local Spireguard commander, Caiton Afea, commanded the elite regiments of the Northern Palatine Guard Division, and was rapidly digging in where possible to brace his soldiers for the tide he knew would soon arrive. The knowledge of the locale was being lent upon heavily, with choke points and ambush locations prepared, and fallback corridors mapped out. Overall, Afea was confident that a sufficient delay could be affected against the invaders to allow the bulk of the Spireguard in the central districts to mobilize and fortify. That the maze-like patterns of the old city would help his soldiers retreat in safety if they needed to. They were broken in two minutes. Simply put, the tactics employed by the Spireguard would have been superlative against almost any conventional foe. But the foe was anything but. The Legion as Astartes are, thanks to a combination of equipment and biological enhancement, effectively proof against all small arms fire in anything but the most concentrated quantity. Atop this, the Sixth Legion specifically had been fighting for two centuries as a shock infantry assault force, conducted as one Remembrancer has noted, at a tempo that is literally more than human. Carefully laid out ambushes the Spireguard hoped to trap the invaders in, instead became desperate fights for survival as the wolves simply crashed into each one with near impunity. Striding into deluges of small arms fire and butchering those who had moments before believed them surprised. Against any other army, these tactics would have been incisive and demoralizing affairs. Bloody traps sprung to bleed the enemy, but against the wolves they were no impediment at all. The Spireguard were some of the best trained and equipped Auxilia in the Imperium, but the Sixth Legion that stalked the stars themselves for two centuries to fight and kill the most lethal abominations of the galaxy destroyed them. Against such a thing, a baseline human with a las gun or light support weapon offered no resistance. The violence meted out against the Spireguard was monstrous butchery. The regiments of the Palatine Guard found that it was now they, not the invaders, who were trapped in the old city. They were routed literally within minutes, all resistance crumbling against the sheer ferocity of the Astartes, but the slaughter that ensued went on for more than 15, with the wolves offering absolutely no mercy to those before them. This too extended to the civilians of Prospero, who, seeing the horrors of what was happening around them, fled in catatonic terror alongside the broken soldiery, a tide of humanity streaming out of the old city towards the central district. The alabaster housing of the ancient quarter, once known for shining so brightly in the sun, was drenched in arterial red as the men of Russ spared none. The estimated military casualties for this initial engagement have been placed at around 10,000, based on the records of Palatine Guard membership, with the civilian toll at least equal to that. All of it taking place in a quarter of an hour, none of it having slowed the wolves one bit. From a coldly strategic point of view, the sheer speed of the assault made sound military sense. The thousand sons were still entirely uncommitted, and without anything approaching the numerical superiority typically demanded of a planetary assault operation, the wolves could ill afford to become mired in the type of building-to-building fighting that typified urban conflicts. Speed was of the essence, and if the fury of the assault happened to create a flow of panic and terror that would go on to sow chaos in areas of the city they had not occupied, well that was a mark in its favor all the same. Innocent casualties be damned. It was in some ways a gamble though, as it risked the beachhead the wolves had established being attacked in the absence of a proper rear guard. Initially, it paid off, but that was until the Sixth Legion reached the Lesma River. This video and this channel were made possible thanks to the very kind donations and support from my Patreon subscribers. If you'd like to help support the channel, head on over to patreon.com slash Oculus Imperia. If you'd like to receive more updates about the channel and any future videos, you can contact me or follow me on Twitter at Oculus Imperia. Otherwise, please like, subscribe, comment, let me know your feedback, and as ever, thank you very much for watching.