Battle of Calth - A Nightmare made Flesh: Despite a few small victories, the onset of dusk over the capital city of Numinas appeared to herald the end of the Ultramarines Legion. In less than twelve hours, almost one hundred thousand Ultramarines had been slain and the Word Bearers controlled almost every major city and strategic target on Calth. With debris from the orbital massacre continuing to rain down on the besieged planet, orbital strikes obliterating vast swathes of the landscape and the catastrophic collateral damage caused by any battle between the Legiones Astartes, casualties amongst the civilian population were beyond nightmarish. Millions upon millions of Imperial citizens perished in fear and agony in the first few hours, and millions more continued to die as the fighting carried on. Indeed, the Word Bearers' intent seemed less to persecute the Ultramarines of the XIIIth Legion than it was to cause as much death and destruction as was possible.This design, for it was not simply bloodlust or madness on the part of Lorgar's sons, was intended to facilitate some malign psychic ritual on a grand scale. While the deeper religious connotations of these actions amongst the Word Bearers remain unknown to us, the immediate consequences are well documented by the few survivors of the Battle for Calth. Many accounts attest to bizarre aberrant weather patterns during the early stages of the conflict -- freak typhoons, unnatural aurora and cloud cover being the most prevalent. As the death toll mounted and the fighting spread, these phenomena became more pronounced and the first instances of manifesting warp entities were recorded. Such creatures were all but unknown to the Imperium at large, the subject of long discredited legend and the ramblings of delusional Astropaths and Navigators, and their appearance only inflamed the abject panic which gripped many areas, even affecting the ranks of the usually stoic Legiones Astartes. The emergence of these aberrant manifestations follows no sane strategic plan. Indeed, the Word Bearers seem to have treated their appearance as a vital goal in and of itself rather than in furtherance of their military campaign. Most such incursions are noted as occurring in areas where the fighting was particularly fierce or the death toll excessively high, where their rampages, whilst stunningly brutal, rarely impacted on the wider strategic situation.Not only were the surviving Loyalist elements tormented by the depredations of the Word Bearers' tenebrous allies, but also by the deterioration of the situation in the Veridia System. The Word Bearers had turned the full destructive capability of the Calth orbital defence platforms, as well as the formidable firepower of their own fleet, against the system's sun itself and the resulting flare in solar radiation was beginning to take its toll on the warriors on Calth's surface. Those not shielded from the sun's glare or protected by the augmented physiology of the Legiones Astartes, were soon blistered and burned, and most would later to succumb to extreme radiation poisoning. Only those scant enclaves that were within one of the few shielded structures still held by the Loyalists escaped this lingering death, though few who still lived could see this as anything but a temporary reprieve.