The majority of Death Guard warriors advanced through the thickest rubble outside the city, thus enjoying some protection from Imperial fire.

“When the will defies fear, when duty throws the gauntlet down to fate, when honor scorns to compromise with death—that is heroism.” — Robert Green Ingersoll, M2 philosopher

* * *

Continued from Part 1 . . .

The choke point

Yet the traitors followed Galba’s forces with determination, and that was their doom, said Barbu, who personally observed this part of the battle from an observation post behind his regiment’s defensive line.

“Galba drew the traitors into a corridor of heavy rubble that gradually narrowed to a 10-meter-wide gap between two massive ruins,” he said. “Once the enemy was deep into this corridor, it was difficult to advance to the left or right.

Unable to outflank the Space Marines, the enemy was forced to rush the gap with limited numbers—or waste significant time under Imperial fire withdrawing 200 meters and finding a new line of advance.”

The Death Guard opted to press forward and, only when they neared the gap, did Galba order his Astartes to stand their ground. But the gap was so narrow that the Death Guard could only attack with a squad or two of traitor Astartes at a time, giving the loyalist troops an even fight in melee.

The hand-to-hand fighting that followed was fierce. Observers noted that, despite rising dust as Astartes fought and stumbled amidst the ruins, that loyalists and traitors were firing at one another from distances as short as three meters, and the sound of war cries, the whine of chainswords, and the glow of power swords made clear the fighting was intense.

At some point, an alarm was raised to all nearby regiments: the taint of witchcraft had joined the fighting. Thick clouds of green miasma began to descend on the battleground, and Imperial-sanctioned psykers in the region warned Imperial officers there was a powerful traitor psyker casting heretical spells.

While Landspeeders attacked the rear of the Death Guard attack, Stormtalon gunships harassed the enemy from above.

Imperial harassment

Unsure of Galba’s ability to hold back the enemy, the Land Speeder squadron and a reserve squadron of Skytalon gunships were ordered to harass the rear of the enemy vanguard—and, if nothing else, hinder their ability to advance.

These attacks were successful. Significant numbers of enemy cultists were killed by these units’ heavy weapons, the rising number of casualties leading the rear of the traitor vanguard to end efforts to outflank Galba and instead focus their attention on the Imperial harassment to their rear.

“This was a significant development in the battle,” Botha said. “Attempting to advance through the vanguard was a six-meter tall siege dreadnought—a massive and powerful war machine that could have punched through the ruins or overwhelmed Galba’s defenses through its sheer malevolency.”

To distract the heretical walker, one Skytalon gunship deliberately slowed to a hover behind the dreadnought and open fire. For the next few minutes, the dreadnought turned and traded fire with the Imperial gunship, and the enemy war machine eventually scored a direct hit. The gunship exploded, its wreckage crushing a dozen heretics as it crashed to the ground.

To the west of the fighting, the heretical Defiler sought to continue its advance forward, but again was distracted—this time by the advance by an ancient Imperial dreadnought and several squads of loyalist Astartes.

“Our Space Marines were able to drive back the Death Guard warriors, and the dreadnought drew the Defiler into a firefight that stymied every enemy attempt to advance.,” Botha said.

Captain Galba deliberately drew the enemy vanguard toward a narrow break in the city’s outer ruins so that the battlefront narrowed, and the enemy could not bring its superior numbers to bear. Here is where Galba sought to stop the Death Guard.

Final stand

By mid-afternoon,the pressure on Galba’s defenses were at a breaking point. A number of loyalist Space Marines were down, whereas the Death Guard had a significant reserve that could fill in for the casualties suffered by the traitors.

At this point, the company champion, Jean Danjou, confronted the Death Guard warlord, a traitor known as Ghaz Tak, and challenged him to a duel.

“Our beloved Brother Danjou fought with the ferocity that would have pleased our Primarch Rogal Dorn,” Galba wrote in an after-action report to the Imperial High Command.

“Where other warriors died after trading a few blows with the accursed traitor warlord, Danjou held against the traitor champion for nearly 10 minutes as surrounding warriors halted their fighting to watch the epic duel.”

Despite the champion’s skill, he ultimately lost the match. Ghaz Tek struck him down with a massive axe and, emboldened, the Death Guard renewed its assault against into the Imperials, who counterattacked in outrage at their champion’s fall.

In the subsequent fighting, most of Galba’s command squad fell. But, by this point, a squad of Sternguard arrived, having been ordered earlier by the captain to race to his side. With these reinforcements, Galba managed to stabilize the Imperial line.

Click here to read the conclusion of this battle report.

Click here to return to Part 1.

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The Corvus Cluster is a Warhammer 40K blog documenting our hobby adventures in the fantastical sci-fi universe of Games Workshop.