Alpha War

The Alpha War was an Imperial castigation campaign and one of the earliest recorded engagements of the formerly loyalist Polar Flares Space Marine Chapter. When the insidious Alpha Legion Traitor Legion attacks the Polaris Sub-Sector, decade old Polar Flares Chapter, with the assistance of the ferocious Space Wolves, just barely managed to contain the Alpha Legion and its allies within the system. This campaign also shapes their tactics for the rest of their history.

The Prewar Era
During the middle centuries of M32, the Polaris sub-sector had enjoyed relative peace for several decades, until the beginning of the Alpha War. During that time, the people of this sub-sector had begun the colonization of the Moons Of Uther. Unknown to the civilian population of the sub-sector, the insidious Alpha Legion had already been inserting operatives on several worlds in the sector, distributing propaganda to incite civil unrest and outright rebellion, organizing anti-Imperial activity and supplying heretical groups and cultists. They bided their time until the perfect opportunity presented itself. Once they had their forces strategically placed, they would then launch their campaign in earnest against the unsuspecting Imperial worlds.

The First Attack
The Alpha Legions' first attack occurred on the forest moon of Teth which was a decisive victory. After this, they went on to destroy several moons in the first ten days of the war.

Turning Point
The first point of Resistance occurred upon the Death World of Nicko, where the Imperial defenders were killed by the very people they were protecting. The Alpha Legion suffered many casualties during this battle during the turn of the first year of the conflict. This gave the rest of the worlds in the besieged sector a little beam of hope, that there was the possibility of surviving this destructive war. But things soon went from bad to worse when the Alpha Legion began raiding the core moons. During the fifth year of the war, the Alpha Legion would finally suffer another defeat at the Battle of Yavio, as the Polar Flares Chapter had fully mobilized.

The Battle of Gavin VI
After the Polar Flares launched a lightning assault on Gavin VI, upon arriving on the surface of the planet, the first thing they did was fling a massive polarite at the Alpha Legion's flagship, which caused catastrophic damage to the massive battleship. Despite the destruction caused by the Polar Flare, this did not faze the Alpha Legion in the least. In fact, they broke off and started murdering the Polar Flare fleet in orbit after launching a full-scale assault on the loyalist Space Marine fleet, aiming to drive it back through a massed volume of concentrated ship-to-ship fire.

Meanwhile on the surface of Gavin VI, the Alpha Legion forces were losing. With their flagship effectively removed from the ongoing battle, there were no orders being given, and the local PDF managed to butcher the Alpha Legion's Chaos Cultist ground forces. There situation was further compounded when it became apparent that they were losing both ground and air superiority. But the war in the void, the Traitor Legion appeared to already have achieved inevitable victory..that is, until a large Space Wolves Chapter fleet arrived and began to launch a devastating counter-strike against the Traitor's fleet. Reinforced by their fellow Chapter, the remaining Polar Flares harried the Chaos ships until they were driven entirely from the sector, resulting in ultimate victory for the Imperial forces.