Jornath: State of Conflict Year 3

The Battle For Jornath has now entered into its third year, one that is shaping up to be no less hard fought for the Imperium than the previous two. Here I shall endeavor to recapture the events up to this point in the war in short order, hitting the major highlights of actions and movements around the conflict zone in a brief manner. For more specificity, you can click on the "Jornath [40k]" tab on the top of this page to access a comprehensive list of every blog post made about the war in chronological order. 

Year 1.

Jornath is a largely typical Imperial World located in the Imperium's Eastern Fringe and situated just outside of the southwestern reaches of the domain of the Realm of Ultramar. It has a pseudo-feudal society based heavily on family, hereditary title and inherited wealth. The planet is responsible for sending 2 Regiments of Guardsmen into service every five years. The material export of Jornath pre-war was mostly made of average sized doles of wheat, local fruits, grox, and mineral wealth in the form of iron, copper, and tungsten (which forms in surprising quantities in Jornath's northern hemisphere).

Jornath does not structure its Planetary defenses in a typical manner to most worlds, forfeiting any sense of standardized Regimental system (which its tithed Imperial Guard Regiments are forced to adopt). Instead, it bases its garrisoning forces on ancient martial traditions of the Cohort, Hearthguard, and Mustermen. Each of these types of military formation can vary wildly in size, armament, and administration, because of the nature of the Jornathi political landscape. As a result of this confusing system, the Sub-Sector Capital of Casa Urient, which takes authority for drafting lengthy response plans for the planets under its control set many units into locations and called for actions which would become total compromising to several areas defensive integrity in the early war.

The Ork presence in the Jornath system was announced when a Krooza from the Ork fleet, preemptively threw itself into the teeth of the planets defensive platforms with no support. The Krooza was ripped apart in short order but split in half upon its entry into the atmosphere the back half crashing outside of Kula Hive on Jornath's larger northern continent. The front breaking into smaller fragments over the mountain ranges around the Mechanicus forge-city of Prima Jama. Orks, of course, survived the impact, but fortunately were contained by the natural terrain in the mountains and by immense amounts of PDF forces around Kula (placed there by a lucky clerical error) 

When the main body of the Ork fleet arrived and began its fighting with the Planet's small picket fleet and Orbital Platforms, the crude alien landing craft known as Rok's opted to drop in and around the areas where their ill-fated predecessors had crashed. Possibly to bolster their forces to effect a breakout or more likely, because that was where the fighting was already underway. 

Ork ground forces squabbled amongst themselves for the first few weeks of their deployment in earnest to the planet's surface, attempting to suss out who would command certain warbands into the fight. During this period Tactica Command Jornath is formed by the Council of Patricians and the Battle of Usamiljen Heights takes place. Large-scale pre-emptive strikes on Ork staging areas are not conducted. High Patriarch Neravan sends out a call for aid to any available Imperial assets.

Cohorts in the conflict area are lethargic to react to the planetary invasion, many formations act under the strict dictates of their ancestral boundaries. Meaning they will refuse to fight or engage forces not within the territory controlled by their funding guild or family, will refuse to fight alongside or in support of rival cohorts etc. 

In the North around Guffmans-Platz, Orks make a push south, and The Battle of the Ctre Valley is fought, making it apparent to a collection of larger Cohort commanders that an offensive action here is required before the aliens can gain too much momentum. 

Feeling that superior numbers and speed of action could be utilized to break the spirit of the Ork warbands in the mountains, forcing them into smaller groupings where they could be destroyed. The northern cohorts launched within two weeks of the plans first draft being sent to Tactica Command. 

The offensive, called Operation Remits Maw, was a disastrous affair as many of the cohorts had no experience in mountain combat, could not effectively supply their combat units without suffering severe losses from constant Ork ambush. The sheer size and inexperience of the commanders in operating on such a scale meant that there was little hope of overcoming these obstacles. 

Rather than breaking apart the few dozen large sized Ork concentrations in the mountains, Remits Maw gave the Ork leaders a singular target to descend upon. Drawing more and smaller warbands together towards the southern passes.  Inevitably leading to enormous numbers of PDF troops becoming cut-off in the mountains, without hope of an easy breakthrough.  

Astartes and Imperial Guard forces arrive in earnest at this point in the battle, Captain Vorodivo of the Mortifactors assumes overall theatre command of the battlespace, feeling that a full analysis of the strategic situation would be a better current expenditure of their time, the Mortifactors conduct limited operations, with the Dreadmare Companions, White Scars and members of the Jornathii Special Operations Battalion, to draw off Orks and allow the Imperial forces stuck in the mountains to fall back to Fort Behras.

Newly arrived Imperial Guard personnel spread out through the Jornathi Cohorts to act as military advisors and improve the combat effectiveness of the planetary defense forces. 

Year 2. 

The end of the first year and beginning of the second year were suspiciously quiet, only featuring light skirmishing and raids around the no-mans land of imperial and ork controlled territories. Suddenly at the beginning of Summer, simultaneous assaults on defensive installations occur all across the Northern defensive line. Many sections are totally overrun and Orks begin flooding into the central Kula region. 

Astartes, Navy and PDF Air Forces all conduct delaying strikes as the Orks' press south. Intelligence identifies the commander of the Ork counter-offensive as being a Warboss called simply "Krump" 

Krump's forces lay siege to Fort Behras and are able to overtake Saine Yeltsville surrounding the Fortress in its entirety, threatening the massed armories within.

While Behras is put under siege, in the Ork exclusion zone by Kula, Imperial successes trigger a large grouping of Xenos to assault the city of Bolasku along the eastern portion of the encirclement. The aliens sieze the city and create a scrap fleet, which breaks into two detachments. One heads south along the coast toward Hive Oakenzid, while the other makes for the Isle of Nizajain.  

The southbound fleet is largely obliterated by navy air-strikes.  The assault forces heading into Nizajain are boarded by mixed forces of Naval ratings and Astartes, the surviving aliens are destroyed in a pyrrhic victory on Nizajain itself.  

 The Sons of Medusa arrive in the Battlespace, and begin conducting precision strikes in the Ork exclusion zone and supporting actions at Fort Behras. 

Tactica Command Jornath, in conjunction with the Astartes Commanders, formulate a new operation to regain the initiative. Operation Gray Jewel in launched at the close of the year, targeting the Ork encirclement of Behras, it has so far met with good success thanks to victory in The Battle of Mendorus Grove.

Year 3. 

With a newfound momentum, Imperial forces plan on rolling up the Orks concentrated at Fort Behras, ideally pushing them into the Ctre-Valley Agricultural Complex where they can be annihilated with Orbital Fire without risking damage to vital infrastructure. Hopefully drawing Krump himself into open battle and killing the alien, will aid in this effect. 

Only time shall tell.

Thank you for reading! 

-Your Favorite Madman-

Jornath: Fort Behras

Fort Behras.

Fort Behras is the keystone defensive structure in the north of the continent of Manfredi-At-Prima, in Kula Provence. This structure has existed for generations and stretches all the way into the pre-Imperial history of the planet. During its extensive history, it has played various roles politically and culturally in the identity of the region.

The citadel that would later become known as Fort Behras was established after the system of pseudo-feudalism was introduced to Jornath several thousand years after the initial colonization effort occurred. Jornath in these times saw a great deal of inter-familial skirmishing, large national governments were not established, and so territorial control of prime agricultural land, mineral wealth, and other natural resources was almost constantly in a state of dispute. In Usamiljen, and the glacial plains fed by runoff from the Ctre Valley, this skirmishing was of a particularly elevated intensity. The perfect confluence of agriculture and local material wealth, lords and ladies from Guffmans Platz, and numerous surrounding towns sought to use an asset to hand to fully cement their families claim to the region. Three of these families, representing a coalition of northern mining interests concocted a bold strategy, risking everything these families redirected all of their peasant miners, onto the lone peak to the east of the Ctre Valley, and instructed them to put their skills to use in creating a vast network of hardened tunnels, effectively hollowing out the peak, and turning the mountain into the shell for an underground city. At first, the project seemed to be total folly to the other families of the region. The builders were quickly draining their coffers on what appeared to be a foolish mining enterprise. It wasn't until the first Huscarls moved into the completed mountain complex that the real purpose behind the project was understood. Familial alliances were quickly formed to oust the miner's coalition from their mountain fortress. The extensive tunnel works provided proof enough from initial attacks, impossible to predict the location from which attacks would come, attackers faced enfilade fire from hundreds of hidden bunkers and fire-ports. After the alliances found that conventional attacks would be little proof against the position, their forces withdrew and prepared to lay siege to the mountain. The siege of the miner's coalition lasted for nearly thirty-five years, the mountain was supplied with a reservoir drawn from natural freshwater aquifers, and underground horticultural complexes kept the garrison fed on staple crops. No major fighting erupted for the majority of this period. Sporadic skirmishing would occasionally break out, but no large-scale actions were conducted on either side. The siege would eventually conclude when the families in control of the mining coalition were placed in financial danger by careful posturing from the alliance of families in Guffman’s Platz, who forcefully bought out several transportation cartels that moved ore for the miners. Faced with bankruptcy, the mining families sold their mountain fortress to their rivals, ending the siege.

Within a generation of the siege’s conclusion, Jornath’s nation-states were starting to establish themselves. With much of the contestation of the earlier feudal period slowly fading, the fortress’ role as a military structure began to diminish. Faced with a sizable piece of real estate which now lacked a practical application, the families sought to apply a more domestic purpose to the land. It was decided in short order to turn the mountain to growing a mutation of grape known as the Behras Berry, which has a thick waxy skin and grows small. This makes it horribly bad for eating, but ideal for wine production especially in the foothills where the slopes funnel runoff water and minerals downhill. The tunnel networks under the mountain are the ideal environment to store barrels of wine to ferment, as it's cool and dark. All this combined with the proximity to the transit hubs in Guffmans Platz meant that within a handful of years the Fortress was producing sweet white wine for all of Kula Province to enjoy.

When the Imperium made contact with Jornath, the name “Fort Behras” was a common brand amongst the citizenry of the planet. In the codification of planetary landmarks by surveyors of the Administratum, Fort Behras had its name erased however, purportedly because the adept filing the listings thought that a defensive position named after a grape was terribly inappropriate, and so gave the location the designation Height-906, lumping it in with peaks several dozens of kilometers to the north. The families who owned the fortress took this in stride, in fact, finding it so entertaining that they put the designation on their bottles.

It was not until after the completion of the Horus Heresy, indeed after the scouring had come to a conclusion that members of the Munitorum began to exert pressure on the nobility to open up land for the creation of planetary defense structures to use in maintaining Imperial authority. Private business interests chafed under this pressure, the Heresy had barely affected Jornath and many of the planets noble families, national administrations, and cartel leaders felt that the planet would be better served continuing with the way things had always been. But no planet argues with the will of the Emperor’s administration for very long, and soon enough the foundations of bastions and orbital batteries were being poured all across Jornath’s surface. At Fort Behras, a deal brokered with the Munitorum’s representatives allowed production of wine to continue in the lowland areas around the exterior of the fortress proper and along the slopes of the mountain itself as curtain walls, barracks, and defensive positions were erected in sections around the site. The completion of the work created the base of the defensive structure seen on modern Jornath, a patchwork of vineyard squares separated by auxiliary roads linking various supporting sites such as rail yards, vehicle repair centers, and sensor arrays to the gates of the fortress. The fortress itself now surrounded by a mighty plastcrete wall, dotted with small gates to allow for various automotive traffic, and bolstered from each cardinal direction by sizeable defensive gatehouses that allow access to the interior for heavier vehicles.

The most modern change in the landscape of the fortress is the town of Saine Yeltsville, which began construction just before 741.M41 as a suburban area to serve as overflow housing for members of the garrison, vineyard workers and other laborers needed to tend to the Fortress’ previously mentioned ancillary sites. The suburbs grew ever larger, with the eastern approach to the walls consisting of winding clumps of small housing, and shops.

When Ork forces entered the system at the beginning of the War for Jornath, the fortress was largely in a state of unreadiness, much of the garrison were part-time reservists from Usamiljen and various cities of northwestern Kula province. Readiness drills, weapons tests, proper maintenance of hardware had all been conducted infrequently if at all, which meant that the fortress was woefully ill-prepared to act as northern kula’s primary defensive keystone.  Garrison commanders frantically recalled all the garrison cohorts and scurried to check that weapons batteries could still be summoned to function.  This lapse in readiness prompted pioneer units, and local cohorts under the direction of regional Tactica command, to create the Ctre Valley firebase hopefully to allow more time for the fortress to be brought up to operational condition.

By the time of the withdraw back to the staging areas around the fortress after Operation Remits Maw’s failure, the complex had organized its garrison and brought half of its defensive weapon systems online. The process of restoring the facility to function was being waylaid by xenos incursions on the Usamiljen Heights mechanicus outpost, limiting the number of techpriests that could be flown safely to Behras, past greenskin flakk positions or through contested skies. Therefore, when Orks under Warboss Krump pushed along the highways southward eventually smashing against the walls of the fortress they were met with less than the full strength of the positions capabilities. Enough to stall the beasts, but not anywhere near enough to obliterate them, leading in turn to the protracted siege of the fortress.