Battle of the Iron Cross

The Battle of the Iron Cross was an engagement between a Primaris arm of the Celestial Lions, the 5th Company of the Blood Angels Chapter and a strike force of the Night Hammers Chapter on the planet of Dust II. This battle was one of the earliest fights for the Night Hammers and the first significant victory for the Celestial Lions since the War of Armageddon.

Prelude to Battle
The Night Hammers strike force led by their Chapter Master, Raven Halmer, had been on the world for some time prior looking for a forge capable of producing Terminator heavy armour. With him were the three company Captains (Gin Aven of the 1st, Lupo Domitus of the 2nd and Gavrial Qruze of the 3rd) and a small group of Primaris Marines, among them the veteran Tiger Squad, a five-man Hellblaster formation from the Ultramarines.

The Blood Angels descended on the planet with their respective Chapter Master, Dante, seeking an informant that was going to give them the location of a lost batch of Blood Angels geneseed.

Not too far behind the Blood Angels were the Celestial Lions, their leader Ekene Dubaku seeking to draw redemption against the Blood Angels as the latter had abandoned them during the War of Armageddon when they left to defend their homeworld Baal from Hive Fleet Kraken, which then resulted in the chapter being decimated by 'accurate Ork snipers'.

At that time the Night Hammers were not a known loyalist chapter and Raven was at large still declared a heretic by the majority of Space Marines which would lead to them getting shot at first in the conflict.

First Contact
The three forces moved into position in a desolate part of a Planetary Defence Force barracks approximately at the same time.

The first two factions to make combat were the Blood Angels and the Night Hammers. Captain Aven, the du-facto second-in-command of the group, opened out onto open area that the Blood Angels strike force were surveying. A Space Wolf being on a planet that they shouldn't have been wasn't the issue. The fact that an abnormally large man in Cataphracii-pattern Terminator Armour with Black Legion colours (Raven had yet to repair or change his colour pattern at this point) followed shortly after escorting a number of Primaris Marines in a new scheme was what caused the Blood Angels to fire, therefore starting the battle.

A burst of plasma fire and bolt shells injured half of the first group of Intercessors who were forced to take cover in a nearby bunker. This lance of fire also separated Tiger Squad from the rest of the strike group which led to the Hellblaster squad to take a different route. This also led them straight into a Celestial Lions Repulsor Executioner tank which then promptly began to light them up. At the front of the group, Raven, Gin and Captain Lupo advanced towards the Blood Angels line, the second group of Intercessors led by Captain Gavrial helping to suppress one of the Blood Angel's own Intercessor squads.

Infiltrators from the Celestial Lions began to probe and chip away at the Blood Angel's right flank, held by a Death Company dreadnought, some Sanguinius Guard and Chapter Master Dante. They were now surrounded on all sides. The situation growing increasingly desperate, Dante and his guard took to the skies with jump backs and hammered the Infiltrators at close range. Both sides endured losses, a guard being killed by covering fire from a team of Eliminator snipers, the Lions losing their Infilitrators to sword and axe.

Back with the Night Hammers, Tiger Squad got slammed by the Executioner when they chose to fire at the Blood Angels despite already being under fire. The advancing group faced some injuries despite the suppressing fire of Gavrial's Intercessors; the Blood Angel Hellblasters managed to land damaging hits on Gin and Lupo. Their Intercessor squad attempted to break suppression, but failed, counter-suppressed by Raven with his storm bolter. This exchange of fire gained the first kill for the Night Hammers, one of the Intercessors catching a bolt round to the head. Gin got within melee range of the Hellblasters but was caught on sandbags that he couldn't cross over with his Terminator armour. However, his presence had forced them to keep their attention on the Space Wolf, allowing the others to approach closer. Raven got close enough to engage the Blood Angel Intercessors with his relic blade ''Bane of the Warmaster. ''The squad feebly tried to fight back with bolt rifles and power sword. The point man was riddled with storm bolter rounds the second Raven passed the corner. Their own bolts either disintergrated or disappeared, curtosy of Raven's Iron Halo. The sergeant, the only man with a weapon actually capable of harming the Terminator-clad Space Marine, charged with a power sword in hand. Raven parried the blow with his own sword and smashed the sergeant across the face with his storm bolter, dazing the sergeant and knocking him over. The only other living Intercessor of the squad followed his leader into the ground as the blade of Raven's sword rent his head from his shoulders. Bleeding from the mouth, the sergeant's last sight was that same sword impaling him into the ground, finishing him off.

At the same time on the Blood Angel's right flank, the dreadnought and remainder of the Guard were cut down by laser weaponry from both the Repulsor and the Executioner. Dante himself barely escaped, saved by one of the guard throwing himself in front of Dante to take a slug round.