Legio Defensor - Notable Campaigns: Second Battle of Paramar V (011.M31) - The strategic Mechanicum provender world of Paramar V fell to the Warmaster Horus' hosts led by the Alpha Legion and the Dark Mechanicum in one of the opening moves of the Horus Heresy. Several Terran years later, a mixed force of Loyalists consisting of the Legio Ignatum, Legio Atarus ("Firebrands"), Legio Solaria ("Imperial Hunters") and elements of the Legio Defensor, with ground assault units from the Blood Angels and White Scars Legions, clashed with the defending Traitors. The Traitor forces were comprised of god-engines drawn from the Legio Fureans ("Tiger Eyes") and Legio Mortis ("Death's Heads") Titan Legions that were rearming and resupplying in the system after several Terran years of intensive campaigning, as well as extensive elements of the Sons of Horus and Word Bearers Legions. The Loyalists conducted a series of diversionary attacks across the Paramar System in order to draw troops away from their true target, before conducting a full scale planetstrike against Paramar V's primary spaceport, the Paramar Nexus. They captured it intact and then pressed outwards to begin the destruction of the mass-provender silos containing wargear and vehicles that sprawled across the plateau beyond. It was soon revealed, however, that the Traitors had seen through the ploy and prepared a huge counterattack force. Though they inflicted heavy damage on the provender silos before the Traitor counterattack hit home, the vast majority of the Loyalist invasion forces was surrounded and destroyed without mercy. The Paramar System would remain in Traitor hands for the rest of the Horus Heresy.Tarren Suppression (011.M31) - During the Horus Heresy, the world of Tarren IV declared for Horus, its rulers having fallen for the honeyed words of the Warmaster's emissaries. A Loyalist retribution fleet moved quickly to crush the treachery, occupying Tarren IV's capital city of Brandstat and stamping out anti-Imperium sentiment in a mirror of the Traitor's so-called "Dark Compliance" of conquered worlds. Key to the suppression were the Titans of the Legio Defensor, who bestrode the surface of Tarren IV, the mournful dirge of their war sirens demanding submission to Terra and making examples of cities that refused to do so by blasting them to flaming ruins. As if to mock the natural order of things still further, later on, it was an allied Traitor force of the Emperor's Children Legion, the Legio Cybernetica and the Legio Mortis (Death's Heads) that conducted a heavy planetary landing and "liberated" the world from the Loyalists during the Relief of Brandstat.Imperial Muster at Beta-Garmon (012-013.M31) - For reasons only understood later in the war, the Ruinstorm that had been invoked by Lorgar, primarch of the Word Bearers, several standard years earlier during the Battle of Calth, began to abate across vast swathes of the galaxy. Loyalist high commanders were able to utilise the potent astropathic relay at Beta-Garmon to contact and recall formerly lost or stranded forces from across the war-torn reaches of the northern Imperium. The Imperial Muster at Beta-Garmon rapidly escalated into the largest gathering of Loyalist might since the early years of the war, a concentration of forces so mighty that the Traitors had to respond in kind. The resulting clash of arms would become known as the Great Slaughter, a theatre of war of such scale that it would encompass the "Titandeath" and the Sea of Fire campaigns, each major campaigns in their own right. By its end, both sides were so badly bled that their only remaining option for ultimate victory was to force a final, decisive confrontation. As history related, the final battle would be fought at Terra, but only after the weighty butcher's bill of the Great Slaughter was paid in full.Battle of Beta-Garmon, the "Titandeath" (006-013.M31) - The Legio Defensor took part in the long and savage Beta-Garmon campaign, which included hundreds of war zones across dozens of worlds. Even before the greater armies of the Warmaster Horus reached the star cluster, the battle lines had long since been drawn, and fighting had been going on for many Terran years. It was a cauldron of battle that would consume millions of lives before its end and see the demise of entire Titan Legions, earning this campaign the dire moniker, the "Titandeath."Hive War on Beta-Garmon III (643.012.M31) - While Beta-Garmon II has all but fallen to the Traitors, Beta-Garmon III remains loyal to the Imperium, though its hive cities are under constant assault by Sons of Horus and Iron Warriors siege battalions. Nova Guard Titans muster around its hives, defending against ground assault, while other Legions patrol the storm-covered wastes repelling battle groups sent across the void from Beta-Garmon II. On the shores of the Chymist's Sea, Legio Solaria Titans oppose landings by neuro-slave armies of captured Garmonite soldiers, the Loyalists forced to annihilate their former allies and drive their formations into the caustic ocean.War for the Outer Worlds (859.012.M31) - Fresh Traitor forces continued to pour into the Beta-Garmon star cluster, while the astropathic choirs of the Cathega Telepathica send out an almost constant cry to the Emperor's armies for aid. Across the outer systems of the cluster, the Loyalists abandon any pretence at strategy and hurl their reinforcements into the fray as they arrive. Heavily damaged Titans of the Legio Defensor, Legio Astorum and a dozen smaller Titan Legions continue to hold the line on Alpha-Garmon IX around the last remaining Mechanicum citadels, their exhausted crews facing the Legio Krytos over barricades built from fallen god-machines.A Hole in the Sky (559.013.M31) - While the war on Beta-Garmon II unfolds, the Warmaster Horus launches his fleets and reserve Titan Legions against Beta Garmon III. Detonating a vortex warhead in the upper atmosphere, the Traitors create a hole in the caustic storms surrounding Caldrea Primus, and for the first time in millennia the sun touches its spires. Without the constant toxic storm assailing it, the hive city's ancient and esoteric void shields fall dormant. In the vacuum created by the warhead, the Legio Defensor and Legio Krytos Titans fight for the fate of the hive as the boiling storm closes back in around them.The Needle Breaks (788.013.M31) - The tipping point of the Beta Garmon campaign comes in the shadow of the Carthega Telepathica on Beta-Garmon III, its astropaths still screaming out for aid from Terra. Having pinned the bulk of the Loyalist forces against the defences of Caldera Hive, only a handful of Loyalist Titans drawn from different Legions defend the Diviner's Needle along with their Knight allies, among them the Legio Defensor, Legio Astorum, Legio Atarus and Legio Solaria -- some reduced to a single maniple of undamaged war machines. Unbroken by solar months of fighting, the Legio Mortis leads a massive host of Traitor Titan Legions against the tower's defences, the Titans and Renegade Knights marching up through the toxic storms to battle on the mountain top, and ultimately bring the spire down. As it falls, a psychic scream reaches out across the cluster and beyond, spreading dismay and horror to all Loyalists it reaches. Though the fighting at Beta-Garmon will continue until Horus stands at the gates of Terra, and long after, history will record this as the point when the fate of the cluster was sealed, and the Warmaster's armies began their final march toward the heart of the Imperium.