The Iron Warriors launched a grand Pacification Campaign.
The warriors of the IV Legion in the Warp rallied their morale after their last defeat. Every force Vashtorr could contact received the Primarch's orders.
They did not assemble first. As soon as the fighting began, they attacked the Iron Warriors traitors serving the various Dark Gods.
Operating by warband, the Iron Warriors purged their fellow Iron Warriors who had been corrupted by the Dark Gods.
Rotting bodies crowned with enormous antlers were crushed beneath brand-new silver Power Armor, while gladiators fighting in arenas were torn apart by artillery fire raining from above...
This time, the Iron Warriors' artillery was just as effective as it had been in realspace. Vashtorr had blessed all their equipment, granting it properties comparable to the blessings of the other Dark Gods.
For example, Khorne's warriors could mitigate ranged damage, but the shells fired by the Iron Warriors contained Vashtorr's power. It canceled out the Chaos blessings on the Khorne Berserkers, leaving both sides in much the same position as if neither had any divine blessings: Power Armour against shells.
This restored the Iron Warriors' army to the fair fights they had once fought in realspace. Neither side had large-scale psychic reinforcement, which amounted to an enormous increase in the IV Legion's fighting strength.
The price was that the Iron Warriors had to shoulder more calamities. After all, the Dark Machine God could not truly contend with the Dark Gods. To ascend into a full-fledged Dark God, he had set his sights on Forge Worlds.
Corrupting Forge Worlds.
So the mission Perturabo had currently received was actually to capture Mars. That was only a teeny, tiny, tiny bit easier than breaching the Imperial Palace back then.
If more than half the galaxy chose mechanical ascension and worshipped