With the battle of Isstvan V over and the loyalist forces scattered,
the Traitors had a clear advantage. But the galaxy was enormous, with millions of stars.
One giant traitor army could not possibly conquer or hold all of it. An expansion
of influence was needed before an assault on Terra was possible. Without stable supply lines,
secured flanks and amassed experimental or xeno weaponry, the Horus Heresy would surely
fail. None of this daunted the traitors, who were undaunted in their mission to take control of the
galaxy. Welcome to our series on Warhammer 40k and Horus Heresy, explaining the origins of the
Imperium and Chaos. In this sixth video in our history of the 40k universe, we will explore how
Horus seized important parts of the galaxy, leading up to the crucial battle of Phall.
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After three loyalist legions were destroyed on the surface of the Istvaan V, the traitors took
the initiative. It would take time for the news of the Dropsite Massacre to spread. Using this
narrow time window, the traitors split up into dozens of smaller fleets to conquer as
many unsuspecting planets as possible. With their forces so scattered, a counteroffensive from Terra
would be deadly. The loyalist fleet there would surely have to go through the Paramar star system,
a major supply hub in that part of the galaxy. That crucial system was heavily
fortified by Mechanicum loyal to the Emperor, protecting hive worlds and mining stations,
but most importantly, the forge world Paramar V, which was full of military equipment and supplies.
Horus decided to capture this planet as soon as possible, sending half of the Alpha Legion with
extensive Dark Mechanicum support. The traitors exited the Immaterium outside the planetary
ring and prepared a trap. All incoming ships were intercepted, and the crew was replaced with Alpha
Legion infiltrators. Thirty-eight days after the Dropsite Massacre, the Alpha Legion started their
offensive. Five traitor ships emerged from the Warp, posing as loyalists, and requested supplies.
Everything went according to plan until a small fleet of Iron Warriors emerged from the Warp.
Even though they were part of the traitor legion, they had no clue about the ongoing civil war. For
years, they had been fighting Xenos, and after ending their mission, they had returned to Paramar
to resupply. The Alpha Legion, seeing unexpected reinforcements, revealed too much through the vox
radio, blowing up their cover. Subsequently, the Iron Warriors opened fire on the traitors
and informed the planet about the incoming attack. The traitor fleet was shred to pieces,
but all of the planetary and orbital defences were turned off by the infiltrators. More Alpha Legion
and Dark Mechanicum ships emerged from the star system's outer regions. The Iron Warriors' fleet
was outmatched and started to avoid direct combat, taking the battle to the surface. The traitors
shuttled eighteen thousand Alpha Legion Space Marines, fifty titans and thousands of tanks,
hoping to overwhelm the defenders before the supply storages would exhaust.
The loyalists mustered three thousand Iron Warriors, twenty-five Titans, armoured support
and several thousand cybernetically augmented Mechanicum infantry. Both sides deployed their
titans on a flat desert. The Titans, upon reaching firing distance, turned their surroundings into
hellfire. None could hope to survive between these horrifying wonders of technology. Dust
clouds from gunfire and collapsing machines covered the battlefield for hours. Alpha Legion
launched a sneak attack through these clouds, capturing most of the spaceport. However, the
loyalists didn’t sit idly during this attack. With armoured support, the Iron Warriors launched their
own offensive, exhausting the traitor forces. Three hours into the battle, the Iron Warriors,
without any tanks left, decided to withdraw, as victory was deemed unattainable. Two hours later,
the battle ended in a traitor victory, although not as smooth as was planned.
With Paramar V captured, the scattered traitor forces could continue their offensive. As their
sphere of influence grew, so did the news of Horus Heresy. Throughout the entire galaxy, few knew
how to react. The majority of humanity remained loyal to the Emperor, while some pragmatic souls
remembered that Horus was against taxation and sided with the traitors for that reason. Others
saw Horus’ rebellion as an opportunity to free themselves from the Empire and become independent
nations. Many planets wished to remain neutral and not engage in any war, but their dreams were
often shattered when armies from either side burned their world. With so many choices, the
population of individual planets often couldn’t agree with the decision of the planetary governor,
which consequently sparked rebellions. This happened especially often when trade stopped
on any given planet due to the raging war. Additionally, Xenos, seeing the weakness of
the Imperium, started a counter-offensive against humanity on all possible fronts.
The traitor fleets used this wavering stability to expand rapidly. In the
hundreds of skirmishes that followed, another player arose: the Blackshields,
Space Marines of the splinter fleets of the traitor legions. Each one consisted of less
than five thousand Astartes and had been too far away or too busy on other missions to be included
in the major campaigns on Istvaan. Now, they were finding out that their brothers and primarchs had
betrayed the Emperor. Without the warrior lodges and months of convincing by agents of chaos,
most of them decided to remain loyal to Terra. Unfortunately, due to their heraldry and sizes,
it was impossible to discern them from traitor fleets, and they were attacked by the loyalists.
To end this friendly fire, their heraldry was scraped, revealing the natural black color of
their armour, hence the name Blackshields. Unfortunately, this change was used against
them when Horus ordered some of his fleets to imitate Blackshields in order to bypass
loyalist defences. After that incident, the Blackshileds were fired upon from both sides,
swaying some to swear loyalty to Horus and others to remain neutral or serve the Empire
against invading xenos. The few remaining Blackshields who were willing to aid Terra
helped only as free agents, acting independently to turn the tides and leave shortly thereafter.
With the galaxy burning, billions dying daily, and the cults of the Chaos gods expanding,
the Warp became unstable. The Warp Storms became an increasing issue, slowing or even blocking
travel through the Immaterium for loyalists. The traitors had been given passage through them,
but it came at a cost. Instead of being lost in the warp, they directly interacted with pure
Chaos. Disciplined legions started to transform into hordes of bloodthirsty barbarians. Instead
of conquering, they pillaged, sacrificing entire planets to the Chaos gods. Key strongholds were
left without any garrison as all flocked to the next bloodbath. Even the Iron Warriors,
who maintained discipline, started to resent one another, transforming their legion into selfish
achievement-hoarding individuals capable of killing their own to get the credit for victory.
Soon, psykers once again bolstered their ranks, and with them, daemon possessions and mutations
followed. The traitor Space Marine gene seed became so unstable that all new Space Marines were
mutated from the beginning of their life. Even the primarchs started changing. Some got their ideals
warped, while others showed signs of madness. This degeneration led them to be seen as power-hungry
tyrants rather than the universally admired demigods they had once been. All of these factors
combined lowered traitor combat effectiveness, after all, a war waged by emotions can’t compete
with cold calculations, and a mindless charge will always break on carefully laid out fortifications.
The first battle affected by Chaos influence was the battle of Phall. On the plains of Istvaan V,
one more loyalist army remained: the retribution fleet of Iron Fists. This army originally was
composed of 561 ships, and while on the way to the Istvaan V was caught in the
warp storm and was severely damaged. A third of the fleet was destroyed in this tempest,
leaving 363 operational vessels. To make matters worse, their commander had died. Additionally,
the storm forced them to stay in the Phall system. The newly appointed commander,
Alexis Polux, thought that their predicament was a trap laid by Horus and decided to
drill his army in preparation for the incoming traitor forces. After almost
half a year of drilling, his forces were perfectly ready for any incoming threat.
When the traitors came in the form of the Iron Warriors under the command of the primarch
Perturabo, they saw a spherical formation of loyalist ships there to greet them. The
attacking fleet of 400 ships formed a cone, a 3D wedge, with the heaviest battleships and
battle barges in the front. In the initial four minutes of the battle, over seventy
loyalist ships were destroyed or severely damaged. Upon inflicting such heavy losses
and finding out that the fleet wasn’t commanded by Sigismund, the Imperial Fist second in command,
Perturabo lost interest in the battle and ordered his fleet to end it as fast as possible.
The vanguard of the traitor fleet started to break formation, chasing deep into the
sphere. Everything to this point was part of the loyalist defensive strategy. The Iron
Warriors chased too deep and were attacked from below, above and sides. Every loyalist
ship knew how to proceed in this situation after extensive drilling. The sphere enveloped
the wedge. Loyalists started tearing apart the traitor formation after destroying the
lone chasing heavy ships. Consequently, the outer layers were forced to leave formation,
while being attacked from all sides, and if any ship showed even a hint of assuming leadership,
it was immediately boarded. The only one capable of turning the tides was the primarch Perturabo,
but he wasn’t watching the battle. His soldiers were scared to relay this information to him,
for in his anger, he would surely kill the messenger. Eventually,
someone mustered the courage and died giving the message. But it was too late,
the traitors had barely any reserves to turn the tides of battle, to make matters worse,
their flagship was exposed, and a strike force of fifty ships was heading there to kill Perturabo.
With battle being one step away from being won by loyalists, the chaos gods intervened.
Rogal Dorn had been sending messages for the retribution fleet to return to Terra for months,
but all of these messages were lost in the warp. The Chaos gods allowed one of these messages to
pierce the Warp storm and opened a corridor inside the Immaterium to allow loyalists to escape from
the battle. This was catastrophic. To leave the battle meant that most of the ships had to be
left behind. Larger ships, those encircling the back of the traitors and the strike fleet sent to
kill Perturabo, had no chance to escape a battle on the brink of being won. Yet their primarch
had given the order, so the Iron Fists started their costly retreat. With barely any cohesion,
the loyalists became easy prey. The only saving grace was the strike group. Instead of retreating,
it attacked relentlessly, managing to board the Iron Warriors flagship with thirteen hundred Space
Marines. This overwhelming force breached all defence lines, reaching the Primarch. In the
brutal melee combat, all loyalists died, but not before killing all of Perturabo's personal
guards. Less than a hundred ships escaped from Phall, and half of them were scattered inside
the Warp storm. Even though this was a traitor victory, it was a pyrrhic one,
with the Iron Warriors swearing rivalry to the Iron Fists, hoping to settle the score in a fair
engagement. Following the battle, Perturabo became so disappointed with his sons that he
replaced his personal guard with robots that were forbidden to use since the Dark Age of Technology.
Even though the traitors were achieving dozens of victories, many others were causing some
negative backslash for the cause. One mission in particular had been too important for Horus to
delegate to anyone. The Coronid Deeps region was full of forge worlds and mining worlds. If these
five-star sectors were captured by traitors, it would fuel their entire war effort. To that end,
at the end of 006.M30, Horus took elements of five legions: Sons of Horus, Iron Warriors,
Death Guard, Alpha Legion and Night Lords, to take control of this region. Their onslaught
was heralded by a single message: “Bow before him who is the Warmaster. Abase yourself before his
truth. Serve those who serve him. Harken only to their words. The Imperium is His. Mankind
is His. You are His. Submit to the Warmaster or die by his hand. There is no other choice,
you will be given the chance to kneel but once. Horus is Lord. Horus is Death.”
In the opening stage of what is now called the Manachean War, traitors were waiting on the
edges of Coronid Deeps, raising panic amongst the populace. Stories of destroyed patrols,
strike groups, and solitary planets being conquered in a mere nine hours all took their
toll on public morale. Civilians started fleeing, only to discover drifting hulls
filled with corpses of people who had had the same idea. Horus' message was true: die or serve him,
there was no escape. Presented with that choice, worlds started rebelling. A defence force that
consisted of hundreds of spaceships and four million Solar Auxilla, the best of normal
humans in the army, was now forced to pacify rebellions while getting harassed by traitors.
The first Star sector to fall was the Cyclops Cluster when a Dark Mechanicum emissary swayed
M’Pandex, one of the two forge worlds, to join the side of Horus. The other one, Mezoa, was blockaded
and starved from all resources. To capture the rest of the planets in the Cyclops Cluster,
Horus sent the Death Guard led by Mortarion. Their first two merciless attacks were preceded by virus
bombardment. Entire planets, just like Istvaan III, were stripped of all living beings. This
tactic of terror caused more worlds to surrender to Horus. By now, news had spread all around the
sector, and reinforcements in the form of splinter Space Marines fleets arrived, one of which was
Blackshield. While the battles in the Cyclops Cluster were finishing, Alpha Legion infiltrated
the capital sector of Manachea and instigated additional rebellions of civilians and Mechanicum.
Additionally, the traitors lured an Ork army to spread the loyalists further. In the moment of
absolute chaos, Horus descended with the might of all his forces, swiftly conquering the world of
Manachea and Port Maw as well as obliterating the armada of the Imperial fleet. Having all of the
goals accomplished, Horus left with most of the forces, leaving less than twenty thousand Space
Marines to finish the defenders, a task they couldn’t accomplish until 008.M30.
Even though traitors took control over Coronid Deeps, it was considered a stalemate. Billions
of potential workers died, not allowing them to unleash the full potential of production. Splinter
fleet harassment slowed it even harder, but most importantly, the forge world Mezoa remained in the
loyalist's hands, although blockaded. With the galaxy full of war and billions dying,
who would emerge victorious? The traitors had a clear advantage as, at this point, they had lost
only around one hundred thousand Astartes compared to the four hundred thousand on the loyalist side.
The future of the Imperium now depended on the separated loyalist legions. In the next episode,
we will explore their whereabouts. Our series on the Warhammer 40k: Horus Heresy will continue,
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