The Iron Hands' Borgus Clan was still in an acceptable state. The Bronze Claws were faring far worse.
The Bronze Claws Chapter generally equipped its warriors with melee Power Blades. Some maddened warriors injured their comrades as they swung wildly, or struck deadly weapons just as they were about to fire, triggering sympathetic detonations.
What? You wanted to know where the warriors with other gene-seed were?
The Iron Hands were famously insular. All warriors who were not from their Successor Chapters were fighting alongside the Dawn Goddess Chapter.
Even the Bronze Claws had only been allowed to cooperate with them after signing an agreement to keep any mechanical technology revealed in battle confidential.
Chaos reigned all around. The Chemos Performers advanced triumphantly, and amid their surging "music," the surrounding traps either detonated prematurely or became corrupted, turning into balls of flesh that gestated daemons.
The battlefield was carved apart. Slaaneshi cultists occupied vast stretches of ruins. At the King of Sapphires' command, they rushed to the maddened sons of Ferrus Manus, cut through their steel, extracted their gene-seed, and sealed it in sterile containers.
The King of Sapphires wanted as much pure gene-seed as possible, with as little Warp corruption as he could manage.
He was even preparing a purification ritual to remove the corruption caused by the emotional bomb he had detonated within their genes.
As the Slaaneshi cultists swept forward, the Mordian Iron Guard helping defend this sector were affected as well. The most obvious problem was...
They had no idea whether the Iron Hands warriors charging toward them from the front were still loyal.
The communications channel had become completely unusable, filled with the incoherent singing of madmen. The warriors at every position could only judge for themselves.
The Mordian Iron Guard were renowned for fighting in