It reduced Traitor Titans, armoured vehicles, Chaos Cult auxiliary and Word Bearers infantry formations to so much ash within only seconds. However, the weapon strike occurred less than half a kilometre from where the Loyalists had taken shelter from the coming impact. Finally, the Word Bearers player sets up his Legion Veteran Tactical Squad anywhere in the Word Bearers Deployment Zone, and sets up Sor Gharax in the Access Way hex.

In the aftermath of the fighting on Calth, it was all but impossible to form an accurate picture of the losses incurred on the combatants. With the surface of the planet rendered all but uninhabitable by the actions of Kor Phaeron, it has since proved impractical to recover many of the fallen or verify the deaths of those who came to Calth with treachery in their hearts.Reaching the guildhall, Ventanus leapt the barricades, leading the assault forward. He tore into the fleeing Chaos Cultists who shrieked in fear at the prospect of facing the fierce Astartes officer. As the Ultramarines moved forward into the building they continued to be pounded by the XVII th Legion's artillery and heavy weapons. Reaching the Cogitator that was their goal, Magos Tawren attempted to connect into it and upload the kill code that would shut down the planetary defence grid. Over a million soldiers the Imperial Army were mustered for the planned Ghaslaskh Crusade, including several established army groups such as the Calaq War Host, and nearly a dozen newly raised regiments from the various cities and agricultural provinces of Calth. Also added to the muster was a number of Solar Auxilia pattern regiments in anticipation of void actions against Ork asteroid-craft at Ghaslakh, including the much renowned 41 st Espandor High Guard. Other notable regiments include: On the surface, havoc entered Leptius Numinus in the form of the daemon Samus, who had "entered" the compound in the body of the captured Commander Cxir. Ventanus only managed to slay it by the slimmest of margins [2s] [2t]. In coordination with Erebus on the surface, who had nearly completed his ritual, Kor Phaeron turned the orbital platform's weapons onto the Veridian sun itself. [2u] Endgame The battle lines are drawn beneath the surface of Calth, the Ultramarines holding their ground against the Word Bearers. Yet the brutal onslaught of the XVII Legion has left both sides desperately low on ammunition. As the Ultramarines search out hidden caches of weapons and munitions, the Word Bearers infiltrate their lines, waiting for the right moment to strike and steal their contents. Yet one amongst the Word Bearers is not so subtle in their approach to warfare…

Fortunately, amidst all this negative information, somehow Magos Tawren managed to discover a killcode that her former mentor Hesst had hidden within a secure data-engine at the Zetsun Verid Fleet Yard that had then been closed off from the rest of Calth's planetary network. This data-engine was the manifest Cogitator of the Cargo Handling Guild, which was located in a secured bunker in the industrial zone between Numinus Starport and the Lanshear landing grounds. It was responsible for running cargo operations for both Numinus and Lanshear, and thus was more than powerful enough to manage the data load of the planetary weapons grid. The campaign was launched by the Word Bearers' Primarch Lorgar Aurelian with the goal of exterminating the XIII th Space Marine Legion outright. The purpose of the Word Bearers' invasion of the Ultramarines' Realm of Ultramar in the Eastern Fringes of the galaxy was to tie down the XIII th Legion and prevent them from reinforcing their fellow Loyalists as the Traitor Legions marched relentlessly on Terra itself. War has raged under Calth long after the actions on the surface, protracted conflicts to slay entrenched Word Bearers throughout the planets depths carry on. It has been 4 years since Squad Acastus secured a teleportarium and routed the Word Bearers from their librarium outpost.By the time Gage was able to see a near-complete picture, the odds were grim: half or more of the Ultramarines' muster had been destroyed (as many as one hundred thousand Legionnaires or more) [2m], the fleet had been reduced to a fifth of its original strength [2t], and the survivors planetside had been reduced to roughly thirty thousand Legionnaires and two hundred thousand Army regulars and Mechanicum soldiers, split into roughly seventy disparate groups around the planet; in every respect, they were grossly outnumbered by the Word Bearers. As Magos Tawren reflected, any other force than the Ultramarines would have conceded defeat already. [2s] [2v] According to the novel Know No Fear, the Battle of Calth concludes just short of twenty-four hours after Mark Zero, while the ground forces are evacuating the surface to escape the poisoned sun's radiation [2aa]; however, according to Garro: Oath of Moment, the 21st Company has been dug in "for days" following the initial Word Bearer Assault. [5b] See also Related articles Just as the Word Bearers' First Chaplain Erebus had turned the Warmaster to the service of the Dark Gods on Davin's moon, so too, would Kor Phaeron achieve the impossible and bring another Primarch over to the service of Chaos. One cut of the Chaos-corrupted blade would damage Guilliman's sanity whilst Kor Phaeron took advantage of his weakened state, and slowly sliced away the inhibitions that kept him loyal to the False Emperor. It would be a fitting revenge for the Ultramarines' actions on Khur, to return to the court of Lorgar and Horus with Roboute Guilliman as a willing and pliant ally in their Great Betrayal. The Battle of Calth, also referred to as the Calth Atrocity, was the name given by later Imperial scholars to the treacherous campaign conducted during the early stages of the Horus Heresy in beginning in 007.M31 by the traitorous XVII th Space Marine Legion, the Word Bearers, on behalf of the Warmaster Horus against their hated rivals, the XIII th Space Marine Legion, better known as the Ultramarines. As the southern island cities were being pounded to dust and vapour, the battle in the void was spilling ever further across Calth Near-Space. The world was ringed by over nine hundred orbital defence platforms, each bristling with lance turrets, weapons

In addition to Legiones Astartes assets, a great mass of cultic auxiliary units that accompanied the Word Bearers which may have numbered in excess of half a million men-under-arms, though the proficiency and sanity of most was questionable: Battle of Molech • Breaking of Anvillus • Xana Incursion • Carnage of Morox • Sangraal Campaign • Battle of Arissak • Battle of Perditus • Battle of Sotha • Drussen Atrocity • Scouring of Gilden's Star • Battle of Nyrcon • Battle of Tallarn • Cataclysm of Iron • Battle of Nocturne • War of Drakes • Battle of Pluto • Siege of Inwit • Burning of Ohmn-Mat • Bitter War Suddenly the Primarch’s attention was diverted when he looked below their position and saw half a dozen surviving Word Bearers carrying the bloody carcass of Kor Phaeron. Somehow, the wretched First Captain of the XVII th Legion remained alive despite the fact that Guilliman had torn out his primary heart. Drawing their Bolters, the Ultramarines fired upon the retreating Word Bearers, just as their forms shimmered and vanished in a cascade of teleporter energy. Mission 3_1 will rarely freeze after a few rounds, this occasionally can be resolved by waiting a moment but otherwise will require an application restart.Two solar hours into the orbital battle, the Master of Vox of the Ultramarines flagship reported to Roboute Guilliman that the Word Bearers flagship, the Fidelitas Lex, had opened a lithocast-hailing channel. The Primarch of the Ultramarines stepped onto the holocaster platform at the centre of his bridge as the hooded figure of his brother Primarch Lorgar manifested before him in grainy hard-light. For perhaps the first time in his life, the famously measured Guilliman was lost to fury. He raged at his brother for his betrayal and swore to exact merciless vengeance. Guilliman denounced Lorgar's very sanity and swore that he and all his sons would be punished. But the Lorgar that listened to all of this with a smirk upon his lips and the remainder of his face hidden in shadow was not the being Guilliman had once known. No longer was Lorgar the cerebral seeker after truth who had debated the nature of the universe with his brother Magnus for days on end, nor was he the over-zealous son who had brought upon himself the censure of the father-Emperor he had decalred a god. Neither was Lorgar the chastened warrior who alone of all the Primarchs sought not conquest, but enlightenment. Here instead was a transcended being radiating a newfound self-assurance, as if he and he alone was party to knowledge still hidden from others, but which they would soon learn whether they willed it or not. No longer cowed or eclipsed before a more overtly purposeful or assured Primarch, Lorgar was the very essence of phlegmatic defiance. Yet, despite the Loyalists' last-minute victory and the survival of the Ultramarines Legion and its Primarch, the forces of Chaos could consider their assault on Calth a success. The XIII th Legion had been badly crippled and no longer presented a viable threat to Horus' plan to drive on Terra. During the Great Scouring, the Ultramarines, led by Captain Ventanus, presided over the destruction of the Word Bearers homeworld of Colchis. [2ad] In 999.M41, ten thousand years after the Heresy, Hol Beloth's Dark Apostle, Maloq Kartho, would revisit Ultramar as the Daemon Prince M'kar, though he was unable to set foot on Calth, declaring the world "anathema" to him. [6a] [6b]

Yet, the Ultramarines and Imperial Army forces remained untouched, though some eardrums had burst and many Imperial Army troops suffered radiation burns to any exposed skin. Hot ash plastered the rain-soaked Power Armour of the Space Marines, spattering them with the remnants of their enemies. Ironically, the Ultramarines' ash-covered armour soon appeared a gun-metal grey, the old livery of the Loyalist XVII th Legion. It's still a turn-based board game, driven by dice, but the radical shift in perspective does give the game a distinct look. The current early access build includes multiplayer and the first of five story-mode acts, with the rest of the story content and a full skirmish vs AI mode planned to roll out in later updates. The developers estimate that they'll need about six months in early access to get everything in line for the v1.0 launch. Twenty minutes before Mark Zero, the Campanile, which had bypassed Calth's outer defence grid, accelerated to full sub-light velocity. At the same time, Sorot Tchure, a Captain of the Word Bearers who had boarded the Ultramarines' cruiser Samothrace, opened fire on Captain Honorius Luciel and his entourage, killing them outright. [2f] Luciel and his seventeen men were regarded by many as the first "official" casualties of the Battle of Calth. [2a] First things first – this ain't no game for rookies. It's an expensive (but great value), tactically sophisticated board game that will demand a good few hours of preparation before you can play. The miniatures included in the game – all those beautiful old-school Space Marines and Terminators and such – come on the traditional Games Workshop sprues, and you're going to have to cut, snip and glue every one together using the elegant new construction instructions. I The Solar War • II The Lost and the Damned • III The First Wall • Sons of the Selenar • IV Saturnine • Fury of Magnus • V Mortis • VI Warhawk • VII Echoes of Eternity • Garro: Knight of Grey • VIII The End and the Death ( Volume I • Volume II • Volume III)After the massacres of loyalist forces at Isstvan III and V, and having gained the allegiance of Lorgar and the other Traitor Primarchs, Horus believed that the Ultramarines - the largest of all the Space Marine Legions - were the last and only significant obstacle to his total victory over the Emperor [2k]. and terrible ritual unfolding on Calth. Much later, it was determined that the intent of this cruelty was to sear the sight of the dying world into each victim's consciousness as an act of witnessing, a scene the Word Bearers believed the dead would take with them to the afterlife as evidence to the powers that hold sway there of the Traitor Legion's deeds. I Horus Rising • II False Gods • III Galaxy in Flames • IV The Flight of the Eisenstein • V Fulgrim • VI Descent of Angels • VII Legion • VIII Battle for the Abyss • IX Mechanicum • X Tales of Heresy • XI Fallen Angels • XII A Thousand Sons • XIII Nemesis • XIV The First Heretic • XV Prospero Burns • XVI Age of Darkness • XVII The Outcast Dead • XVIII Deliverance Lost • XIX Know No Fear • XX The Primarchs • XXI Fear to Tread • XXII Shadows of Treachery • XXIII Angel Exterminatus • XXIV Betrayer • XXV Mark of Calth • XXVI Vulkan Lives • XXVII The Unremembered Empire • XXVIII Scars • XXIX Vengeful Spirit • XXX The Damnation of Pythos • XXXI Legacies of Betrayal • XXXII Deathfire • XXXIII War Without End • XXXIV Pharos • XXXV Eye of Terra • XXXVI The Path of Heaven • XXXVII The Silent War • XXXVIII Angels of Caliban • XXXIX Praetorian of Dorn • XL Corax • XLI The Master of Mankind • XLII Garro • XLIII Shattered Legions • XLIV The Crimson King • XLV Tallarn • XLVI Ruinstorm • XLVII Old Earth • XLVIII The Burden of Loyalty • XLIX Wolfsbane • L Born of Flame • LI Slaves to Darkness • LII Heralds of the Siege • LIII Titandeath • LIV The Buried Dagger The Ultramarines learned another hard lesson at Calth. The Calth Atrocity represented the Loyalist Astartes' first sustained experience with fighting the Warp entities later known as daemons in realspace. The Ultramarines realised that their decision to accept the anti- psyker dictates of the Council of Nikaea had led to their voluntary surrender of the one weapon that might have proved most potent against the horrors of the Warp. Magos Tawren next redeployed the defence grid elements available to her, hitting other surface targets. Simultaneously, she re-tasked the orbital platforms and began to systematically exact punishment upon the Word Bearers' fleet. It was now the crimson-hulled warships of the XVII th Legion that were annihilated one by one. The dynamic of the entire battle had finally shifted in the Ultramarines' favour.