Fall of Tectonia Prime

The Fall of Tectonia, or the Tectonian War, lasted from 10.1 to 11 post TPCM.M41. It was fought between the forces of the Archenemy and the Imperial defenders of Tectonia Prime. The war resulted in a victory for the Archenemy Host, the ascension of the planet as a daemon world of Chaos, and the severing of the Vlaktes Sector from the wider Imperium. It also heralded the opening of the broader Tectonian Front, which would consume most of the resources and manpower of the deeper Vlaktes Sector for years to come.

Forces of the Imperium
Imperial forces during the war were under the overall command of Lord Sector Governor Lorsum Ippalia ser Dolor XVII, who held command from the capital hive Varrendonk. The majority of the defenders were local Tectonian forces supplemented by select off-world specialist forces.


 * Battlefleet Tectonia (2 capital ships, 6 grand cruisers, 7 cruisers, and associated escort squadrons)
 * Questor Imperialis House Vyronii (1 banner)
 * Iron Hands Adeptus Astartes (1 strike cruiser, 1 Clan-Company)
 * 48 regiments of Tectonian Igneous Guard (mainline infantry)
 * 29 regiments of Tectonian Siege Breakers (armored regiments)
 * 16 cohorts of Anvil Worlds Skitarii
 * Approximately 20 million conscripted Tectonian PDF

Forces of Chaos
Archenemy forces were led by joint command of Rutus Bileheart of the Corpsemakers and Zekyr Daemonsblade of the Court of the Onyx King. This command structure fluctuated over the course of the war as the two warlords fought a smaller, schismatic war for primary control over the war host.


 * The Court of the Onyx King, Black Legion warband (approximately 400 operational Astartes)
 * The Onyx Fleet (1 Hellblade-class battle barge, 2 Carnage-class cruisers,
 * The Corpsemakers, Death Guard warband (1 Despoiler-class battleship, 1 Pesilent-class light cruiser, approximately 777 operational Astartes)
 * 30 Kill-Brigades of Cataphract Generationals
 * Uncounted millions of mutants, heretics, and plague-riddled poxwalkers

Other Belligerents

 * The Sons of Jorgmundr (representatives in all major cities and Battlefleet Tectonia)
 * Unidentified xenos incursion

The Void War
The combined Archenemy fleet breached the warp at the system's Mandeville point at 10.101 post TPCM.M41. Initial contact along the defense envelope consisted of anti-ship gun satellites, which were quickly overrun by the fleet's leading escort squadrons. As the fleet moved in-system, the Corpsemakers' plague fleet made a direct push, while the Onyx Fleet split along two arcing trajectories, seeking to envelope Battlefleet Tectonia in a pincer maneuver. Their objective was clear: bypass the ancillary worlds of the system, destroy the defending battlefleet, and focus their invasion effort on the capital world.

Admiral Crispar von Vuld, in charge of the battlefleet, recognized this plan clearly, and sought to meet each spar in turn, while leaving a reserve force in close orbit around Tectonia Prime. His counter-offensive moved to speed, his fleet separating into smaller battlegroups and set to climb out of the Tectonian star's gravity well.

During the stellar hours that it took for the fleets to engage one another, an uprising began on Tectonia Prime. Likely spurred on by news of the coming invasion, and seeking to use the planet side military preparations as cover, the Sons of Jorgmundr rose up in violent fashion. These xenos hybrids engulfed several key points of the igneous wastes and sewed discontent through the major cities Asalhive and Varrendonk, so that before the Archenemy had even set foot on the world, fires already burned. These cult forces proved a destabilizing element to all sides during the war, though their largest contribution by far was the effect they had upon the void war.

When the fleets joined in battle, the cults sprung their largest trap yet: Spread throughout the ranks of the Imperial Navy, the hybrids caused untold confusion amongst the planet's spaceborne defenders, causing Imperial vessels to fire on one another instead of the assaulting Chaos fleet. The destroyers Final Illumination and Dolor Rex flanked the battleship Ramiel's Fury, their combined broadsides ripping the larger vessel apart. The capital ship Lothair's Greatness simply detonated without warning, its enginarium explosively destabilized by xenos-infested crewmen.

The cult's motives for these attacks were unclear. Inquisitorial investigation speculates that the main goal was to allow the cult to splinter, evacuating from the planet in the face of the Chaos onslaught. Certainly, some of the battlefleet vessels which made it out of the system at the end of the war have since gone missing from sector records, disappearing into the lost stars of the Ketamo Deep.

Whatever the reason for this insurrection, it did much to nullify the Imperium's numerical superiority and firepower advantage during the early war. Once capitalized on by the Archenemy, this advantage resulted in eighty-percent losses for the battlefleet and allowed Chaos forces free orbital reign during much of the war.

Planetfall
The Heretic Astartes were aided in their assault by over ten million mortal soldiers, ranging from the elite-trained Cataphract Generationals to mobs of mutants and liberated penal soldiery. Asalhive was taken in a direct orbital assault, its void shield deactivated from within by seeded cults. Among these cults were the ruling noble families of Asalhive, all cousins to the Lord Sector Governor. Perhaps their jealousy led them to make a deal with the Ruinous Powers, though this did not pay dividends. Once the Onyx King took the city, its ruling nobility was slaughtered, their entrails strewn as charnel tapestries from their blood-bedewed halls.

One feature of the early war for Tectonia was a struggle for control of the planet's multiple spaceports, battles which sought to cut the planet's defenders or attackers off from any outside support. One survivor of the disastrous void defense was the Iron Hands strike cruiser Emperor's Forge. After the loss of Admiral von Vuld, it was Captain Maarkol Feirrus who took overall command of the remnant fleet, engaging in hit-and-run maneuvers against the larger Chaos fleet.

Feirrus also led his clan company to capture a spaceport in the northern reaches of the main continent, northwest of Varrendonk. In the early going, Feirrus's company drove the Corpsemakers from the planet's southernmost spaceport. The Astartes held the port for weeks against mortal soldiery before being driven out in turn by the Court of the Onyx King, but not without a cost--the Iron Hands would not leave the port to be used by anyone else. Detonations ripped the port to pieces from the inside, holing its vast form and ruining any utility it could provide to the landing Archenemy armies.