Second Battle for Vrykul

The Second Battle for Vrykul was one of several campaigns fought by the Death Templars Space Marine Chapter to defend their chapter homeworld of Vrykul against the various foes of Mankind. During this particular conflict, the Death Templars were forced to once again defend their homeworld from the predations of the detestable Drukhari. Having resoundly defeated them two millennia earlier, the Drukhari sent a large Kabalite raiding force to destroy the upstart Astartes once and for all.

History
The Drukhari returned to the Vrykul System to enact their revenge against the upstart Space Marine Chapter that had humiliated them two millennia earlier. A large Kabalite Raiding Party struck the feral planet in order to inflict as much suffering and terror as they possibly could. The Second Battle for Vrykul lasted many months, with both sides inflicting horrific casualties upon one another. Often, small strike forces would engage each other in smaller skirmishes that saw both sides fighting each other to mutual annihilation.

Unbeknownst to the Death Templars, a small cabal of Word Bearers Chaos Space Marines had made a dark compact with the Drukhari raiders, who would distract the Death Templars in open conflict while the Word Bearers infiltrated the Death Templars fortress-monastery Castellum Mortem. Led by a Dark Apostle, the Word Bearers were intent on stealing the Chapter's sacred relics and inflicting as much destruction as possible, but fortunately, the Chaos Space Marines were quickly discovered and a small firefight ensued, forcing the Word Bearers to retreat. Lord Marshal Dhargus Voltan concocted a cunning plan that would trap both the Dark Eldar Kabalites and the Word Bearers on Crysemel's moon, Dimalas. Though it galled them to do so, the Death Templars feigned a tactical withdrawal from Vrykul, and made their way to the isolated moon.

Sensing inevitable victory, both the Drukhari and Word Bearers believed they had forced the ignominious retreat of the Death Templars, and quickly gave chase. Luring them to the moon's surface, the enemy forces believed they faced the last of the Chapter's survivors, but this was when the Lord Marshal sprung his trap. The token Death Templars force drew the opposing forces into a ravine, where unknown to them, the rest of the Chapter's forces had been shielded and unseen. Falling into a fighting withdrawal, the Death Templars lured the Drukhari and Word Bearers further into the ravine. Then, the Lord Marshal ordered his Chapter to attack.

At point-blank range the unsuspecting enemy were cut down by the hundreds, by the Death Templars' tanks and Dreadnoughts, catching them in a blizzard of missile and lascannon fire. Explosive pyres ignited in droves up and down the enemy's battle lines. Death Templars gunships raked across the sky, raining down phosphex and cluster munitions, screaming Thunderhawk gunships followed in their wake, and without warning, the Chapter's Terminator veterans of the elite 1st Company, cut their way through the enemy's flanks, murdering with ruthless efficiency, while the Death Templars fast-moving armour and mechanized squads encircled the Drukhari and Word Bearers before slicing into them with a surgeon's precision.

In orbit, the Death Templars fleet, which had remained hidden by powering down their vessels to bare minimum power on the far side of the moon, launched a brutal orbital attack on the joint fleet of the Drukhari and Word Bearers. Caught unawares, the foul xenos and Chaos Space Marines were utterly decimated as the Death Templars secured swift victory before the full might of the foe could be roused to wakeful wrath against them. The Lord Marshal's plan was executed brilliantly. The few remaining Dark Eldar and Word Bearers' vessels were forced to retreat, leaving the majority of their vessels behind as ravaged and burning hulks within the moon's orbit. The enemy forces on the ground were utterly annihilated. The Death Templars ensured that their foes would never again rear their ugly heads within the Vrykul System.