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The Burning of Ohmn-Mat was a battle of the Horus Heresy.[1]
Overview
By the time Horus' Dark Empire encroached on the Forge World of Ohmn-Mat in 008.M31, it was already embroiled by war. News of the Betrayal on Isstvan brought great turmoil amongst its ruling synod, plunging the planet into civil war. After two years of war, its wealth and industrial capability had been reduced even further. However, Horus wished to conquer the world in order to secure the Warp Route between Cyclothrathe and Honorum. Sons of Horus Captain Jharran Deygen was charged with the conquest of Ohmn-Mat for the Warmaster. His forces included thousands of Sons of Horus and Word Bearers as well as millions of traitor Solar Auxilia and Imperial Army. Guided by his Esoterists and Word Bearers Diabolists, Deygen let Ohmn-Mat bleed for two years as his fleet orchestrated a campaign of precise ritual killings in the outlying System.[1]
In 010.M31, Ohmn-Mat was finally fully assaulted by Deygen's forces. After moving unopposed into orbit, Deygen launched a Drop Pod assault on the loyalist Forge-Fane of Thyaetira. However, its Defense Lasers proved too cumbersome to target the incoming Kharybdis Assault Claws and Dreadclaws. 9 in every 10 of the assault craft landed intact, unleashing hordes of traitor Legionaries which began their slaughter across Thyaetira and pushed back Scyllax Automata and Tech-Thralls. Deygen's own 84th Company, the "Strife Bringers", led the assault and used their sole Leviathan Dreadnought to smash its way into the Forge-Fane's inner domain. Soon enough the Traitors encountered Thyaetira's elite in the form of Vorax and Arlatax Robots. The 84th Company's course was driven by their own ritualistic schemes, and their rear began to suffer heavy casualties at the hand of heavier loyalist robots until 3 Contemptor Dreadnoughts were deployed.[1]
At length, the Sons of Horus resorted to collapsing tunnels and intersections with breaching charges to cut off routes of approach, abandoning entire squads in delaying actions against the relentless Cybernetica as they sought to avoid being drawn into a protracted battle that would delay their advance. Such efforts allowed Deygen to reach their target after 3 hours of heavy fighting and the death of at least 200 Space Marines. Here at Thyaetira's vast Servitor harvesting precincts was the disturbance the Legion Esoterists had first detected and sought. The traitors used the suffering of millions at this site to power their own ritual, but it was soon interrupted by the arrival of Iron Hands under Warleader Durante Osch, who was a former Thaumaturge Librarian. Even as the loyalist Astartes fell, the loyalist Mechanicum forces pushed into a fresh counterattack in the form of Myrmidon Destructors and Thanatar Robots. Pinned between two forces, the 84th Company was forced into a defensive posture. Thanks to the 84th's Reavers, the attack was blunted and dead or dying Iron Hands were dragged back to Traitor lines to power their ongoing ritual.[1]
After heavy fighting, all six of the remaining Sons of Horus Dreadnoughts were overwhelmed by the incoming hundred-strong cybernetica assault. However despite efforts to rescue their captured kin, the captured Iron Hands and Mechanicum Taghmata further powered the traitor ritual and allowed it to come to a head. Daemon Brutes that were bound to the Traitor Legion began to manifest into the captured victims and quickly charged into the loyalist lines and reaped destruction there. The now badly-wounded Osch unleashed his own psychic powers, engaging Deygen and his retinue in a duel before being struck down. However as Deygen turned to gloat of his triumph, Osch used one last gasp of strength to smash in the traitorous Captain's head with his own Thunderhammer. However, Deygen's body proved to be the vessel from which the Daemon Samus manifested.[1]
Madness erupted across Ohmn-Mat as soon as Samus first manifested. Warp-Born horrors of all the Chaos Gods erupted across the Forge World, who began attacking everyone on Ohmn-Mat. The remaining loyalist forces within the Forge-Fane Thyaetira conducted a desperate last stand, but it was futile before Samus and his Daemonic hordes. As the bound Daemons conducted their rampage, the Sons of Horus aided them in hunting down the last of the loyalist Magi and Iron Hands within the Forge-Fane. Not even three of the Legion's Dreadnoughts were enough to bring down Samus. As the world fell, the remaining Loyalist Tech-Priests and Iron Hands chose to deny the traitors their victory, by activating the Primarch Ferrus Manus' Ceaseless Pyre Mimetic Annihilator within Thyaetira's vaults deep below Ohmn-Mat. The weapon set the very atmosphere ablaze and all life on the Forge World was extinguished alongside the traitor forces and even their vessels in orbit. The only evidence of what occurred there, came from data gathered by a damaged Ohmn-Mat Kill-Sat and the account from a Loyalist Tech-Priest from Thyaetira, who managed to escape aboard a modified atomic missile before the doomed Forge World was set ablaze.[1]
See also
Sources
- 1: Warhammer Community: The Bound Daemons of the Ruinstorm Herald a Packed Year for the Horus Heresy - The Burning of Ohmn-Mat PDF, pgs. 2-9 (Posted on 14/03/2023) (Last accessed on 21/03/2023)
