The Crimson Tide's senior leadership believed this was a bloody performance staged to deceive Chaos. A huge proportion of their warriors and Auxiliary Army believed they were doing the right thing: avenging destroyed worlds and defeating the Dark Angels.
The Dark Angels believed they were putting down a rebellion of unprecedented scale. The Inner Circle, who knew something of the truth, believed that the blood of both the Crimson Tide and the Dark Angels was needed to fulfill some psychic condition and bring out Marbas and the Chaos traitors. They also intended to purge warriors whose sins had grown too deep.
Both sides endured the pain while frantically ordering more forces into battle, ensuring their troops would not be overwhelmed by superior firepower and annihilated.
When the war truly began, the Crimson Tide attacked ships bearing unmistakable Ecclesiarchy markings without hesitation, but remained cautious toward the other warships.
Evan sharply criticized this approach to warfare.
Now, the fighting below had reached a fever pitch. Across the entire planet, reconnaissance met counter-reconnaissance and decapitation strikes met counterstrikes. Armored forces and aerospace support turned vast swathes of land into death zones.
The key to ending this battle lay in defeating the opposing fleet. Without enough ships to transport their warriors, the Dark Angels would naturally withdraw. Otherwise, once the warships could no longer keep the enemy in check, a single Exterminatus strike could destroy every Astartes below. At least their ordinary soldiers knew nothing of our plan.
What they needed to do now was concentrate fire to cripple the enemy's Astartes vessels, forcing them back to a Forge World for repairs while letting the Ecclesiarchy's ships advance deep into the battlefield.
Only when the Dark Angels Expeditionary Force withdrew would the Ecclesiarchy's "Holy Ships," their fighting strength intact, have a chance of