Battle of Calth
| The Battle of Calth | |
| Date | 007.M31 |
| Scale | Intrasolar & planetary |
| Theatre | Shadow Crusade |
| Status | Pyrrhic Ultramarines victory |
| Belligerents | |
| Word Bearers | Ultramarines |
| Commanders and Leaders | |
| Kor Phaeron Erebus |
Roboute Guilliman |
| Strength | |
| Entirety of the Legion with Imperial Army support | ~200,000 Legionaries with Imperial Army support |
| Losses | |
| ~50,000 Legionaries, unknown number of Auxilia | 119,422 Legionaries, half a million Auxilia |
| Outcome | |
| Created the Ruinstorm, preventing passage out of the Five Hundred Worlds | |
The Battle of Calth was one of the major battles of the Horus Heresy and the reason for most of the current hatred between the Word Bearers and Ultramarines.
Short Summary
After Big E. chastised and publicly shamed the Word Bearers by making them kneel in front of him and the Ultramarines, Lorgar was slightly miffed, fell to Chaos, started the Horus Heresy... You know the drill.
One of Lorgar's desires was to get back at Guilliman, and in the opening stages of the Heresy he would get his chance. Horus ordered the Ultramarines to muster at Calth, ostensibly for a joint operation with the Word Bearers against Orks. Guilliman, who at that point suspected nothing and hoped that this action would mend his relation with his brother, assembled (almost all of) his Legion and waited for Lorgar's troops to arrive.
The Word Bearers did arrive, but the only thing they did was immediately launch an all-out attack on the Ultramarine's fleet. The Battle of Calth, as it would be come to known, was one of the largest engagements of Space Marines turning upon one another (It is only dwarfed by the battles at Istvaan and Terra). After an titanic engagement lasting over twelve hours, almost two-hundred thousand Astartes lay dead, dying or permanently disabled. The Ultramarines were forced to retreat from Calth, leaving the whole of Ultramar open for the Word Bearers (soon reinforced by Angron and his World Eaters) to have some fun in Guilliman's backyard. In the end, though, Guilliman rallied and managed to boot them off his lawn and Lorgar lost again...
Or that's what he wanted Guilliman to think. As had been prophesied to Lorgar, the 'failed' attack on Ultramar caused Guilliman, now cut off from the rest of the Imperium by a massive Warp storm, to create his Imperium Secundus and divert much-needed Loyalist reinforcements away from Terra, including the Blood Angels and Dark Angels, a bunch of still loyal Iron Warriors and some Salamanders. Luckily for the Imperium and unluckily for Lorgar, Guilliman & Co managed to get their collective heads out of their asses just in time to thwart Horus' plans.