Ferrumgard Crusade

Ferrumgard was supposed to be nothing more than a joint live fire exercise, it ended up being a brutal war of annihilation. - Sebastian Kahler,

The Ferrumgard Crusade was a campaign to conquer the Forge World of Ferrumgard undertaken at the Regent's behest by the Obsidian Guard and Black Stars in 009.M31. It was launched after numerous Imperial fleets went missing in the vicinity of Ferrumgard for unknown reasons. It concluded with an Imperial Victory but not until after heavy fighting against the [REDACTED BY ORDER OF REGENT VONSALIM].

Prelude
Following the disappearance of a Rogue Trader Militant Flotilla a full Expeditionary Fleet was dispatched and likewise went missing with the only evidence of their demise a scrambled message sent to Terra with the name and coordinates of a previously unknown Forge World: Ferrumgard.

Sensing an opportunity and desiring answers Alexandros Darshan VonSalim, Imperial Regent, ordered the mustering of both the Obsidian Guard and Black Stars Legions to uncover the fates of the Rogue Traders and the Excertus Imperialis and punish the responsible parties.

Blood in the Void
The first indication Lords Keath and Vaughn received that something was amiss was when their scouts vanished without a trace shortly after entering the Ferrumgard System. After that the Crusade Fleet traveled together at full strength, a risky gambit going in blind but the idea of losing more ships was even less appealing. When the Crusade Fleet arrived it found a formidable armada of voidcraft in its path, and hostile voidcraft at that. No sooner had the order been given to raise shields and form up than the vanguard was subjected to a scathing barrage of lance fire. An unlucky Grand Cruiser at the very front was blown up when one lance struck its reactor.

It is a testament to the skills of the crews that the next salvo fell upon fully charged and overlapping void shields. In short order the Imperial vessels were in motion and their guns issuing a furious reply to the enemy fire. The more heavily armored Obsidian Guard warships concentrated around the Herald of Judgement and drove into the heart of the unknown fleet even as the Black Stars followed the Antares 's example and swept around and above to strike from a dozen directions at once. Their combined efforts forced the enemy further into the system and gave the Crusade Fleet the opportunity to take stock of the situation.

Half a hundred Imperial ships had either been utterly destroyed or rendered inoperable in the brief but intense engagement for a measly score of the enemy's. An inauspicious start if ever there was one. But the Amber King had a plan, which Keath outright refused to hear at first as a matter of course, though he did eventually discuss and agree to the scheme once the casualty figures were compiled. Some hours later the Black Stars fleet broke away and began withdrawing towards the Mandeville point as the Obsidian Guard and Excertus advanced on Ferrumgard in battle formation. Temporarily forgotten the Black Stars fleet double backed as the battle began in earnest, sweeping around and coming upon the hostile fleet from the flank. Caught out of position and outnumbered the enemy suffered grievous losses in a fighting retreat to Ferrumgard, holding orbit over the planet's northern pole and ceding the rest of the orbit to the Imperials.

Planetfall
As could be expected Ferrumgard had an orbital defense network composed of gun platforms in the void and surface based weaponry but such defenses were no more than a speed bump to Lord Keath. Herald of Judgement and the largest of the Obsidian Guard Battle Barges smashed aside the orbital platforms and then allowed the surface weapons to fire upon them. Such pinpricks were nothing to the Tenth Legion's capital ships but the response, a fusillade of shells the size of hab blocks and lance strikes that burned with the fury of suns made quick work of the various torpedo silos, missile launchers, and laser defense batteries on Ferrumgard's surface.

Thus, with any serious threat to the landing of ground troops eliminated the Crusade force began doing just that. First into the fray were the Black Stars under the direct command of their Primarch, deploying via drop pod and teleportarium to secure a large, fortified industrial complex that would become the main staging ground for all future ground operations. Obsidian Guard troops followed and began the process of further reinforcing the defenses as well as removing the production machinery to make space for the men and material of the Crusade. To capitalize on the disparate strengths of the Obsidian Guard and Black Stars the two legions would not fight directly alongside each other, rather they supported one another on the strategic level through complementary operations.

Battle for Ferrumgard
Because of their excellent working relationship and expertise the Obsidian Guard would be spread out and attached to Imperial Army, Skitarii, and Taghmata units along the whole front to resist any enemy counteroffensives long enough for further reserves to be rush to the area. Meanwhile the vast bulk of the Black Stars would be concentrated into a mighty fist to punch its way through the enemy lines through localized numerical and firepower superiority. That was the plan decided upon by Lukas and Absalom anyway.

The defenders of Ferrumgard however were not accommodating of this simple strategy, instead launching an endless wave of combat automata that individually were the equal if not in some rare cases superior to the Legiones Astartes. The simple blitzkrieg campaign planned by the Black Stars was blunted time and again by a complex defense-in-depth combined with rapid armored ripostes. Bogged down by kilometers of trenches, bunkers, and artillery emplacements the Third Legion was left wide open to the fast moving formations of tanks employed by the enemy in truly terrifying numbers.

Things did not go much, if at all, better for the Obsidian Guard and their mortal compatriots. Even while the Black Stars fought tens of thousands of unfeeling machine soldiers as many struck the Imperial lines in multiple places. Were it not for the presence of Legio Praesagius, who laid waste to every single force once in the area of operations, and the valiant efforts of the Tenth Legion the Ferrumgard crusade could very well have been destroyed. Once more the Primarchs met to decide how best to secure victory, which took place without the usual pettiness as a result of the painful losses suffered by the entire crusade force.

After that the Black Stars reformed for another offensive, broader and more spread out than the last and including a significant aerial element. The plan was simple in theory, the ground troops would identify targets for the aircraft and suppress any AA long enough for the attack runs to be carried out. At first it met with the same dismal failure of the previous offensive with the aircraft and ground troops taking not inconsiderable casualties but as time went on and more of the AA was destroyed progress accelerated from a standstill to the kind of swift breakthrough long hoped for. The last stand of the enemy was made at what Imperial writers have dubbed the Pillar of Iron, an orbital elevator fortified to ludicrous levels. It took the focused efforts of every Battle Titan Legio Praesagius had operational to turn the Pillar's mighty defenses into slag to allow the Black Stars inside. Once within the Third Legion was in its element, reveling in the cut and thrust of close combat in the ruined fortress. Cogitators recovered from the Pillar of Iron granted new insight to Crusade command but exactly what data was on them has been classified since the Crusade's conclusion.

Suffice it to so say the information was useful as it gave the Imperials the ability to better predict when, where, and in how many numbers the foe would strike. Armed with this intelligence the Black Stars offensive picked up momentum and the Obsidian Guard defenses were better able to resist the counterattacks of the enemy. Unbeknownst to Lord Keath the Amber King had already decided upon rebelling against the Imperium in the near future and seeking to eliminate a likely opponent left Lukas high and dry on more than one occasion. Frequently these events came in the form of promising reinforcements to embattled positions or not engaging enemy formations headed for Lukas's current command post. Lord Keath survived all the attacks but eventually ceased bothering to request anything from his brother and instead recalled the entirety of Legio Praesagius to once more take up the role of response force.

In turn this robbed the offensive significant firepower, a hole filled shortly after by the fleet in orbit. While the ground war raged neither the Crusade nor defending vessels were idle, at first launching probing attacks before the Crusade fleet mustered in more or less full strength to annihilate the enemy. The Obsidian Guard ships were assigned the enemy squadrons over the north pole while the Black Stars were assigned those above the south. The Excertus and Mechanicum ships stayed in their geosynchronous orbit above the main staging ground for the crusade to cover the supply transports. Both Astartes flotillas met with stunning success, securing void supremacy and consequently freedom of movement in the nearspace around Ferrumgard. Without the worry of hostile intervention the Imperial ships were free to turn their weapons to aiding the troops on the surface.

Faced with unmolested orbital bombardment and the unrelenting ground campaign the defenders of Ferrumgard were forced from first the northern hemisphere then the southern one. Victory had been achieved but at a cost, many Legionnaires, Titans, and mortals had lost their lives while the industrial capacity of the forge world had been greatly reduced. These details inevitably became the headache of the Administratum and Mechanicum as the Obsidian Guard and Black Stars left for other warzones in desperate need of Astartes reinforcement. Before the pencil pushers or cog-men arrived however large numbers of Legio Custodes and Obsequarii were deployed to Ferrumgard to erase all evidence of the enemy, an action undertaken on the orders of the High Regent Alexandros Darshan VonSalim.

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