Legio Metalica - Chaos Campaigns: The portion of the Legio Metalica that turned to the service of the Ruinous Powers during the Horus Heresy also fought in multiple campaigns against the servants of the Emperor over the centuries.Battle of Cruciatus Primus (Unknown Date.M31) - At the very beginning of what would later be called the Horus Heresy, the Legio Pallidus Mor had been deployed alongside a force of the Legio Metalica. Unknown to the Pallidus Mor, the formation of the Iron Skulls they were deployed alongside were secretly in league with the Arch-traitor Horus and believed they could succeed where others had failed: to fully corrupt the Legio Pallidus Mor and rally them to the banner of the Traitor Warmaster. Once the ploy was discovered, the infuriated Legio Pallidus Mor vented their fury on the Iron Skulls, shocked that the Traitors had even dared to suggest that they would so easily spit on their oaths of fidelity to the Throne.Doom of Katara (Unknown Date.M41) - In the Sevasmos System, the homeworld of the Kataran Spears Astra Militarum regiment, Katara, called for aid. The planetary capital city of Creontiades had already fallen into the hands of Khorne-worshipping Chaos Cultists, who had called forth powerful allies -- the Traitor faction of the Legio Metalica. In a sense, the Imperium was fortunate, for the war to free the neighboring world of Khania from the Tyranids had just ended and formations from both the Legio Pallidus Mor and the Legio Solaria had not yet been reassigned to other warzones. However, tensions had flared between the new commanding officers of the Legio Pallidus Mor, Princeps Senioris Krezoc, and Marshal Syagrius of the Legio Solaria, the Imperial Hunters. During the victory feast, a diplomatic incident was only narrowly avoided, which boded ill for the future deployment of both Legions. As the Loyalist Legions had suffered casualties, the most efficient solution was for the surplus Imperial Hunter god-engines to integrate into the battle maniples of the Pallidus Mors, a decision both commanders reluctantly agreed to. Before their departure from Khania, the Imperial Hunter Reaver-class Titan Nobilis Arma and the two Warhound-class Titans Canis Imperio and Sacra Canis were loaded into the cavernous holds of the Legio Pallidus Mor’s Titan Barque Nunctius Mortis. The war on Katara would be Princeps Senioris Krezoc's first autonomous command of this magnitude, and although operational control resided yet again in the hands of Marshal Syagrius, Krezoc vowed that this time she would not let an ill-advised order cost her Legion so dearly. Upon arriving at Katara, the Imperial forces gathered enough intelligence to determine that their enemy had lingered at Creontiades and not crossed the Kazani Bridge, the sole link between the island upon which Creontiades had been erected and the continental mainland. Seemingly as an act of good will, Marshal Syagrius gave the honour of leading the spearhead to the Demi-legio under Krezoc's command. The Pallidus Mor would land just outside the city of Deicoon, the settlement closest to the Kazani Bridge. Krezoc argued that the wider strategy would be best served by landing their full force at Deicoon and holding back the enemy on the Kazani Bridge, a plan Syagrius had deemed interesting enough to pursue. But when the moment came to order the deployment of the Imperial Hunters, Syagrius chose instead to let the Legio Pallidus Mor hold Deicoon alone whilst his demi-Legio secured the remaining large city of Therimachus. However, Therimachus lay more than a thousand kilometres further west, a distance too great for each demi-Legio to provide support to the other in case of attack. Furthermore, Syagrius ordered Krezoc to merely secure and defend the city until the Imperial Hunters returned. Having vowed not to repeat her previous mistake, Princeps Senioris Krezoc extended her orders and commanded the Legio Pallidus Mors and the supporting Kataran Spears to mount an attack on the Kazani Bridge. So it was that when the Iron Skulls tried to cross the bridge, they marched straight into the defences of the Legio Pallidus Mors. Krezoc's objective was not to take control of the bridge or defeat the enemy, but to slow it down and inflict as many casualties as she could. With the Kazani Bridge acting as a funnel, the Iron Skulls were incapable of bringing their superior numbers to bear. Under the cover of the Kataran Spears' Basilisks and other Loyalist artillery pieces, the Legio Pallidus Mor engaged in a fighting retreat, destroying several Titans before demolishing the bridge itself, causing several Titans of the Iron Skulls to helplessly plunge into the roaring waters of the Kazani Straits. The bridge's destruction also trapped the remaining Iron Skulls and their Chaos Cultists at Creontiades, thus safeguarding Deicoon as Krezoc had been ordered to do. Returning in victory to Deicoon, the Legio Pallidus Mors believed matters resolved. As a precautionnary measure, the Kataran Spears remained to defend the Straits. This precaution proved prescient, for through the use of blasphemous sorcery, the Archenemy rebuilt the Kazani Bridge and crossed it in strength. Worse yet, the cultists struck the Loyalists in the rear at Deicoon, plunging the defenders into chaos. Emerging from Deicoon's lower levels, the Chaos Cultists attacked in force at the very moment the princeps of the Legio Pallidus Mor had been invited to a great banquet. The Chaos Cultists managed to seize both the crews and their Titans after having overcome the Mechanicum defenders through the use of a bomb designed to emit a potent electromagnetic pulse that made most forms of machinery and electronics inoperable. Believing the Legio Pallidus Mor vanquished, the main strength of the Iron Skulls marched on Therimachus and the hopelessly outnumbered Imperial Hunters. The Khornate cultists put the Princeps and Moderatii in chains, holding them at the top of the twin-spires of Deicoon's Ecclesiarchy cathedral, where the crew would be able to watch as their Titans were corrupted and reconsecrated to serve the Blood Good. The cultists also tried to corrupt Krezoc and her fellow Princeps, but were ultimately thwarted in their efforts as a ragged but fervent group of Imperial citizens succeeded first in liberating the Mechanicum Secutarii Hoplites and then the Princeps. Fighting their way through the ranks of the cultists to reach their god-engines, the Legio Pallidus Mors took back their sacred war machines. Once the crews re-linked to their Titans, the cultists stood no chance. Shortly afterwards, the retreating Kataran Spears heralded the arrival of the Chaos Titans. With the city's guns in the hand of the Traitors, the Kataran Spears suffered heavy casualties, whilst the Pallidus Mor had to be wary of where they positioned their god-engines within the urban sprawl. Krezoc decided to use the city itself as cover, forcing the Traitors and the Iron Skulls to level parts of Deicoon just to see their true target. Through concentrated efforts and fierce fighting, the Legio Pallidus Mor emerged victorious, but the city had been transformed into a burning wasteland, the Legio having had no other choice than to fire at the ground beneath Deicoon's central keep and let it crash into the embrace of Katara's fiery heart. Battle-weary, the Kataran Spears and the Legio Pallidus Mor could not rest, for they were needed at Therimachus. The Traitors' sorcery had destroyed the coastal highway, which was the sole route linking Deicoon to Therimachus. Their only option was to cross the continent's heartlands and the dangerous promethium-fields of the Klivanos Plains, which the Iron Skulls had lit on fire. For three solar days and three solar nights, the Legio Pallidus Mor marched through the blazing inferno, a hard march which cost the lives of several Titans and many tanks of the Kataran Spears before the Loyalists reached the foothills around Hive Therimachus. Several Imperial Hunters Titans still fought on, but Marshal Syagrius had been slain. The unexpected Loyalist counterattack forced the Iron Skulls to divide their forces: fully half of them stayed in the city, destroying it in preparation of yet another corrupting ritual. Krezoc realized that the Traitor Titans marching against her were only there to delay the Loyalists' advance, as the enemy's true intention was to complete the blasphemous ritual. Krezoc ordered the survivors of the Katara Spears to shell the city, disrupting the enemy ritual by any means necessary while her Titans sought to cut a path through the Iron Skulls. The Legio Pallidus Mor paid the butcher's bill during this offensive. Krezoc's own Warlord-class Titan, the Gloria Vastator, suffered a catastrophic reactor failure. Krezoc's last mental command before ejection was to guide the great God-engine straight at her opponent so that when the reactor exploded it also caused the enemy Titan's death. In a last-ditch effort to wring victory from the enemy's grasp, Krezoc ordered the Nunctio Mortis to deliver the repaired Ferrum Salvator to the battlefield. Guiding the Titan on foot, and using her own pain and loss of her own Titan as a catalyst to bond with the Ferrum Salvator's Machine Spirit, Krez turned the Titan's guns on her final foe and then upon the city, killing thousands of innocent Imperial citizens to prevent them from being sacrificed in the name of Khorne. At battle's end, Ferrum Salvator was the only Titan of the line still standing. Demi-Legio Syagrius and demi-Legio Balzahn had been virtually annihiliated, but the Iron Skulls had suffered a humbling defeat. Katara remained in Imperial hands, but the Inquisition's hand proved a heavy one and Katara was declared a Penal World. After having so valiantly fought for the survival of their homeworld, the Kataran Spears were disbanded and the survivors confined to forced labour camps. Without remorse, Princeps Senioris Ferantha Krezoc departed Katara, her duty done and her conscience clear.13th Black Crusade (999.M41) - When Abaddon the Despoiler led the largest Chaos incursion into Imperial space during the 13th Black Crusade, the Iron Skulls were one of the Traitor Titan Legions that had involvement in the campaign. There was a major Iron Skulls battlegroup sighted near the Imperial world of Vorga Torq.