Mezoan Campaign - The Last Battle: For nine long solar days, Autilon Skorr led the Traitor host in an unrelenting siege of Mezoa's great forge-fanes and their spired halls. In high orbit, the Mangonel-class Bombardment Cruisers rained down clusters of kinetic munition to which the Mezoan Tech-adepts responded by hurling the white-hot burning blood of Mezoa itself into space. Entire chunks of the planet's mantle were blown into lower orbit, causing small, artificially-created meteor showers to rain down on the tortured landscape beneath. Venting scalding clouds of ash and steam, the rage of Mezoa's lifeblood cleansed entire battlefields of Traitors while fresh tides of magma buried armoured columns beneath them, consigning them to a fiery grave. To those that followed Autilon Skorr it must have seemed as if they had penetrated a living rendition of the mythological hell of Old Terra.Safely entrenched behind the armoured walls of Mezoa's principal forge-fane, Xiaphas Jurr contemplated the battlefield and bore witness to the slow erosion of the Forge World's outer defences. Isolated as they were by the expansion of Horus' shadow empire, hopes of Loyalist reinforcements reaching Mezoa were nonexistent. In truth there remained little hope at all. Cassian Dracos, the true leader of the Disciples of the Flame, had yet to resurface from his isolation. Despite the losses inflicted to the Warmaster's lackeys, the enemy still heavily outnumbered the Mezoan defenders. Regardless of the inescapable logic of their defeat, the Loyalists of Mezoa had no intention of surrendering. The Norn-regents had decreed that Mezoa would not bow to the invaders and that as long as a single Battle-Automata still functioned, the Third Siege of Mezoa would not end. The Astartes, especially those of the Salamanders, were paragons of stoicism, determined to bleed the enemy for every inch of ground they took. With this grim resolve in their hearts, the Loyalists met each Traitor assault with stubborn resistance. While defeat might be inevitable, Jurr and the others like him would ensure that Horus' armies were denied a swift or effortless victory. The defenders' tenacity did not pass unnoticed and is said to have angered Autilon Skorr, like all ambitious military leaders under the Warmaster's banner, Skorr yearned to fight at the forefront of Horus' dark crusade and eventually stand beside him for the climactic Battle of Terra. To tarry here on Mezoa would only serve to incite the Warmaster's displeasure and see Skorr relegated to less glorious battlefields. Thus, Autilon Skorr could not afford to sit idle: Mezoa had to fall, and it had to fall quickly. In order to ensure victory, Skorr began plotting a single, decisive attack that would seal the defenders' fate and secure him a return to the favour of both the Warmaster and his own inscrutable gene-sire.What remained of the 114th Grand Battalion of the IV Legion was committed en masse to a frontal assault on one of Mezoa's walls, a key defence bastion designated as Tertial-05 which protected the approach to the main forge spires. Despite the formal protest of the Iron Warriors' Consul Praevian, Nârik Dreygur, the attack was launched according to Skorr's plan, though the Iron Warriors only agreed to this on the assurance that Skorr and the Alpha Legion would support the attack. With the characteristic violence of a IV Legion assault, the Iron Warriors struck the defences at Tertial-05 like a hammer blow, wave after wave of gun-metal grey armoured Legiones Astartes advancing into heavy fire, heedless to the losses the Loyalists inflicted on them. Dreygur's attack quickly drew in defenders from other sectors of the walls, as even Tertial-05's mighty defences were unable to stop the advance of the 114th Grand Battalion. However, with steady reinforcements, the Loyalists stopped the retreat and slowly brought the Iron Warriors to a halt. Bogged down in the outer defences of Tertial-05, surrounded by Loyalist units and caught in a murderous crossfire, Dreygur ordered his men to dig in and set up makeshift defences within the captured positions they now occupied. Wherever the Loyalists threatened to break through, Dreygur sent his cohorts of Battle-Automata. As the Traitor casualties began to rise, Dreygur sent a pre-determined Vox-signal, later retrieved and deciphered by the Mezoan Magi, to the Alpha Legion, calling them to launch the second assault. But the Traitor Vox-network remained eerily silent.Uncaring of the Iron Warriors' fate, Autilon Skorr and his elite Legion headhunter cohorts were already conducting their own assault on the Mezoan forge. With the majority of the defenders, and all of its Legionaries drawn away to engage the Iron Warriors, and his own forces still relatively fresh, Skorr and the Alpha Legion infiltrators only encountered depleted Battle-Automata maniples which they quickly overwhelmed. Soon, the infiltrators were nearing the main spindle-spires of the forge, where in the central chambers resided the Norn-regents themselves. Only the regents' own bodyguard now stood between Skorr and his main objective, a few dozen Domitar-class Battle-Automata. While each was a fearsome engine of war and one of the finest creations of the Mezoan Mechanicum, they could not hold out for long against the skill and sheer numbers of the Traitor Marines they now faced.Fortunately for the defenders, Mezoa's central halls also harboured a fifty-Astartes-strong Honour Guard of the Disciples of the Flames. These Space Marines awaited the return of their lord, Cassian Dracos, who was still sealed within the forge-fane's inner sanctum. They had received strict orders from Dracos to guard the vaults, sparing no Legionaries for the battle raging but a short distance away. Led by the former Raven Guard Veteran Aleckto Kirhane, some Disciples chose to disobey their orders and joined the defence of the Norn-regents. With these unexpected reinforcments, the Domitar-class Battle-Automata and Space Marines were able to hold the line at the great spoked portals leading to the chambers of the Norn-queens, enabling a horde of multi-limbed Servitors to evacuate Mezoa's supreme rulers. Despite their heroic efforts, Autilon Skorr and his personal guard were able to penetrate the hall. With Lascutters and Meltaguns they set about hacking the sole remaining Norn-regent free of the intricate neural webwork linking her to Mezoa's defences. Once she was cut free, Skorr executed her. With the death of one of the ancient Tech-magi, utter chaos erupted amongst the mechanical defenders of Mezoa. All across the battlefield, Battle-Automata either collapsed or entered a stage of berserk and fratricidal fury, tearing each other or the enemy apart. Sentient units like the Skitarii or Thallax cohorts found themselves cut off from all external direction, focusing on the fight at hand. Sensing the defenders' distress, Traitor units surged forward to attack all across the warzone. Only at Tertial-05, where the Lethe Solar Auxilia and the Disciples of the Flames kept the Iron Warriors pinned down in a murderous crossfire was the enemy kept in check. It seemed that the end had finally arrived.