Battle of Beta-Garmon
| The Battle of Beta-Garmon | |
| Date | First Phase: 007-010.M31; Second Phase: 012-13.M31 |
| Scale | Cluster-wide |
| Theatre | Horus Heresy |
| Status | Strategic traitor victory |
| Belligerents | |
| Traitor Legions | Imperium |
| Commanders and Leaders | |
| Horus Lupercal, Captain Horus Aximand, Captain Falkus Kibre, Dark Apostle Vorrjuk Kraal, Warsmith Xyrokles, Magos Ardim Protos, Princeps Terent Harrtek | Sanguinius, Jaghatai Khan, First Captain Raldoron, Azkaellon, Nassir Amit, Ishigu Khan, Lord General Bollivar, Princeps Mohana Mankata VI, Cassian Dracos |
| Strength | |
| Majority of Sons of Horus Legion, elements of Iron Warriors, Word Bearers, and Emperor's Children; dozens of Titan Legios; 20 Knight Houses; Dark Mechanicum forces; traitor Imperial Army forces; thousands of ships. | Elements of Imperial Fists, Blood Angels, Salamanders, loyalist Iron Warriors, and White Scars; over 27 Titan Legios; 20 Knight Houses; Solar Auxilia and Imperial Army forces; Mechanicus skitarii and Ordo Reductor forces; thousands of ships. |
| Losses | |
| Massive. Titan Legios devastated on Beta-Garmon II. Horus wounded in action and temporarily incapacitated. | Massive. Millions of soldiers killed, hundreds of ships destroyed. Titan Legios devastated on Beta-Garmon II. Billions of civilians massacred. |
| Outcome | |
| Despite delays, traitor forces secure the route to Terra. Loyalist forces devastated. Horus temporarily incapacitated. Beta-Garmon cluster destroyed and abandoned. | |
The Battle of Beta-Garmon, also known as the Titandeath and the Great Slaughter of Beta-Garmon, was one of the largest and bloodiest battles of the Horus Heresy. It was the last major battle prior to the Siege of Terra and saw more casualties than the last five years of the Great Crusade put together. It was also the largest ever Titan-on-Titan engagement, as dozens of Titan Legios were mustered on both sides of the battle, with hundreds of Titans unleashing cataclysmic fury against their opponents and devastating the worlds upon which they stood.
Background[edit]
The Beta-Garmon Star Cluster, located in the Segmentum Solar, was one of the very few human-inhabited regions of the galaxy to survive the Age of Strife more or less intact. When it was peacefully integrated into the Imperium at the beginning of the Great Crusade, it became a strategically vital area for several reasons, chief of which was its position on the stable Warp routes leading to the Sol system. It had an infrastructure capable of repairing and supporting entire expeditionary fleets and produced valuable resources and crops. Taken together, these factors made Beta-Garmon a favored mustering ground and supply depot for the Imperial military. The Space Wolves, Adeptus Custodes, and Sisters of Silence assembled at Beta-Garmon prior to kicking in Magnus’ front door and setting his house on fire, and it would prove to be a key objective for both sides during the Horus Heresy.
Early Battles[edit]
With the outbreak of the Heresy in 006.M31, Horus and his commanders identified Beta-Garmon as a priority target. Shortly after the Drop Site Massacre, Alpha Legion agents started fomenting unrest across the cluster with the aim of softening it up for follow-on attacks by the less sneaky legions. When the Alphas invaded the nearby Paramar system, open civil war erupted in Beta-Garmon. The Emperor's Children, accompanied by a Reaver Titan maniple from Legio Mortis, attacked Beta-Garmon II, the capital world of the cluster, with the aim of capturing it and impressing their prissy dick of a dad. The Titans stormed Nyrcon City, the largest hive on the planet and the nerve center of the entire cluster, while the Emperor’s Children captured its largest orbital fort and overran the rest of the planet. With the capital firmly in traitor hands, other worlds began declaring for Horus and the cluster descended into all-out war. For the next three years, from 007-010.M31, war raged across Beta-Garmon as the Emperor’s Children sought to subjugate the cluster, aided by elements from other traitor Titan and Astartes Legions. Loyalist forces cut off from the rest of the galaxy by the Ruinstorm filtered into the cluster, providing some relief to the beleaguered defenders, though this was offset by the steady stream of reinforcements pouring in for the traitors.
In 010.M31, Rogal Dorn decided that enough was enough and dispatched a sizable force of Imperial Fists and Salamanders to retake Beta-Garmon II, accompanied by several regiments of Solar Auxilia and a Titan maniple from Legio Astorum, the Warp Runners. The loyalist Astartes attacked Nyrcon directly, while the Solar Auxilia teamed up with some newly raised regiments from Theta-Garmon to storm the planet’s equatorial fortresses and the Warp Runners went to Beta-Garmon III to engage the Mortis Titans holding the hive of Caldera Primus. The Fists and Salamanders made good headway at first, until the Emperor’s Children and Alpha Legion launched a counterattack that threatened to eject them from the city. The loyalists got a break when a new ship entered the system: the Ebon Drake, carrying the Disciples of the Flame, a Shattered Legions warband commanded by Salamanders Dreadnought Cassian Dracos and loyalist Iron Warrior Nârik Dreygur. The Drake barged past the traitor fleet and unleashed a horde of gunships and drop pods on Nyrcon before retreating to the edge of the system. Neither side knew what to make of the new arrivals until they started fucking up the Alpha Legion with a vengeance, confirming that they were loyalists. When the Imperial Fists’ commander tried to coordinate with them, however, the Disciples ignored him completely in favor of charging into the city and setting everything on fire like the berserker-packin’ men-and-a-half they were. Though they suffered heavy casualties from Alpha Legion disruption squads, the Disciples ultimately killed both XX Legion commanders and accomplished their own objectives, while the Imperial Fists were able to chase off the Emperor’s Children. With the cluster mostly back in loyalist hands, Dorn ordered it to be heavily fortified in preparation for the next traitor attack, which he correctly anticipated would be led by Horus himself.
Prelude[edit]
By 012.M31, the Ruinstorm had begun to abate thanks to Sanguinius, Guilliman, and the Lion blowing Davin to fuck with cyclonic torpedoes, and as a result loyalist and traitor reinforcements began pouring into the cluster, with more uprisings occurring as Imperial troops turned their coats in hopes of being spared by Horus when he showed up.
Dorn opted to muster as many of his non-Legion forces as possible at Beta-Garmon, knowing that Horus would have to fight for the cluster because of its position on the Warp routes to Sol; he couldn’t afford to leave such a heavily fortified loyalist stronghold in his rear while he was fighting at Terra. This was also the first stage in Dorn’s plan to delay the traitor forces as long as possible. By putting up a fight at Beta-Garmon, he hoped to buy more time for the Ultramarines and the Dark Angels to show up and hit the traitors from behind. A vast armada of ships descended on the cluster, bringing with them hundreds of thousands of Imperial Army troops and Titan battlegroups from almost 30 loyalist Legios. The Titans were sent to Beta-Garmon because Dorn feared that a full-scale Titan war on Terra would devastate the planet beyond any hope of repair. The traitor fleet arrived not long after the muster was completed, led by Horus himself.
The Battle of Beta-Garmon[edit]
The war for Beta-Garmon spread across the entire cluster, encompassing planetary campaigns across every inhabited world in all five systems and multiple void battles between the loyalist and traitor fleets, and lasted for months as the two sides slowly ground each other to pieces.
403012.M31: On Beta-Garmon II, Horus begins the assault by orbitally bombarding the planet, then unleashes the might of Legios Mortis, Fureans, and Vulpa against Nyrcon City. They smash through a 100-kilometer deep defensive belt manned by the Imperial Army and the Warp Runners, easily defeating both forces and capturing Nyrcon. With the capital city once again in traitor hands, the rest of the planet falls shortly thereafter. On Beta-Garmon III, a Legio Defensor detachment holds its ground against attacks from the Sons of Horus and Iron Warriors, while another Defensor detachment, supplemented by strengths from Legio Astorum, successfully holds the Mechanicum citadels of Alpha-Garmon IX against attacks from Legio Krytos, the God-Breakers.
705012.M31: On Omega-Garmon, loyalist Titans from Legio Atarus clash with a detachment of Legio Mortis, though the precise details of the battle remain a mystery.
919012.M31: The Sea of Fire begins, as the loyalist and traitor fleets engage each other in the space between Beta-Garmon II and Beta-Garmon III. So many ships are destroyed in this battle that their debris rains down on both planets for months, crushing loyalist and traitor alike. At Theta-Garmon V, half of Legio Solaria leads the way for the loyalist forces, seizing the planet’s orbital stations from Legio Fureans. On Beta-Garmon III, the other half of Solaria fights alongside Legio Atarus engines, Knights of House Procon Vi, and the Fasadian Heavy Infantry against traitor Imperial Army regiments, supplemented by captured loyalist soldiers who have been forcibly implanted with sinister neuroslave devices by the Dark Mechanicum. The Iron Warriors land siege battalions with heavy artillery on the planet and score some successes against the loyalists, though they are eventually wiped out. The Dark Mechanicum eventually triggers a solar flare event that blinds the sensors of the loyalist Titans, who are then overrun by the engines of Legio Fureans, though they fight to the bitter end.
840013.M31: The scales of the battle are tipping in favor of the traitor forces. The Warp is disturbed, and loyalist forces can only arrive piecemeal. Further complicating the situation, the loyalists lack a clear command structure. The principes of the Titan Legions refuse to subordinate themselves to anyone else, and no other commander has clear and unquestioned authority over the loyalist armies. This keeps them from creating a united front against the traitors, who are themselves under Horus’ personal command and driven by their fear and fanaticism. This changes with the arrival of a fleet of Blood Angels and White Scars ships, led by Sanguinius and Jaghatai Khan. Sanguinius immediately assumes overall command, while the Khagan leads his Legion in hit-and-run attacks across the cluster. With an unquestioned commander at the helm, the loyalist forces are revitalized.
The Titandeath[edit]
Sanguinius mustered his sons and every loyalist Titan Legion in Beta-Garmon to retake Nyrcon City from Horus’ forces. He ordered a preliminary orbital bombardment, but it proved ineffective thanks to the traitors’ deep entrenchments, the planet’s void shields, and the blizzards of debris clogging its atmosphere. When the loyalist assault force landed, they were confronted by an equally large traitor army. Over a thousand Titans met in battle on the ruined, irradiated landscapes of Beta-Garmon II, as both sides unleashed the full fury of their god-engines against each other. Sanguinius himself descended from the skies, accompanied by his Sanguinary Guard, and personally destroyed the Imperator Titan Axis Mundi. In orbit around the planet, Azkaellon led a IX Legion assault force onto the star fort Anvil, but found that it was guarded only by a skeleton force of the Sons of Horus and a rabble of traitor Army regiments. Realizing that it was a trap, the Blood Angels evacuated just before the fortress self-destructed. Its debris rained down on the planet, annihilating both sides. Tens of thousands of soldiers perished in moments. Titans that had weathered the storms and terrors of Old Night and served proudly through two centuries of crusade were smashed and broken like children’s toys, their carcasses left to rust in the rad-soaked soil of Beta-Garmon II.
It soon became evident that the fight for Beta-Garmon II had been a feint, as the traitor forces attacked the now-lightly defended Beta-Garmon III in force, aiming to destroy the Carthega Telepathica, an astropathic comms station that had been the key to coordinating the loyalist forces. They set off a vortex bomb in the upper atmosphere, triggering a caustic storm that rained down on Caldera Primus. Horus himself led the attack at the head of his own Legion, accompanied by one hundred Titans from Legio Mortis, eight possessed Legio Vulpa engines, and more Titans from Legio Krytos. The loyalist defenders, a mixed bag of Titans from Solaria, Defensor, Astorum, and Atarus backed by Knights and Imperial Army, were swiftly overrun, and the Mortis Titans toppled the Carthega on top of the survivors, wiping most of them out and securing victory for the traitors. At this moment of triumph, Horus collapsed in clear sight of both sides, as the wound Leman Russ had inflicted on him at Trisolian suddenly reopened. Panicked, Horus Aximand and Falkus Kibre frantically bundled the comatose Warmaster off to the Vengeful Spirit.
Aftermath[edit]
With Beta-Garmon II devastated by the Titandeath, the Carthega Telepathica destroyed, and their forces decimated, Sanguinius and Jaghatai recognized that there was no longer any point to staying in the cluster and withdrew to Terra with every loyalist survivor they could find. The traitor forces headed for to Ullanor to regroup and prepare for the final push to Terra, though their efforts would be complicated by Horus’ incapacity and the growing disorganization caused by the Chaotic corruption in their ranks. The Beta-Garmon cluster had been devastated, its worlds shattered and poisoned by the relentless fighting. It was soon forgotten in the great upheavals following the Siege of Terra and the Great Scouring, and the Imperium would not reclaim it for another five millennia. Millions had died on both sides and billions of civilians had been massacred, a butcher’s bill that exceeded the death toll from every battle in the last five years of the Great Crusade put together. Many of the loyalist Legios that had been present at the Titandeath would take millennia to regain their full strength, and the survivors’ resentment at being sacrificed in such a way would cause many of them to refuse to fight during the Siege of Terra. The traitors, meanwhile, strengthened their forces by salvaging wrecked Titans from Beta-Garmon II and using sorcery to “reanimate” them; these revenant Titans would prove to be useful cannon fodder during the Siege.