Editing Siege of Terra (section)

==The Siege Begins==
[[File:Map-2800x1983.jpg|500px|right|thumb|Map of the Siege.]]
{{topquote|'''Father! I have come for you!'''|[[Angron]] upon making planetfall, met by snickering from Fulgrim, 15th of Quartus, 014.M31}}

With the space around Terra uncontested, most of the traitor armada settled into orbit above the Palace. On the thirteenth of Secundus, they began bombarding the Aegis, the vast shield network protecting the entire Palace complex. Unlike regular void shields, the Aegis consisted of multiple overlapping layers of shields that individually regenerated as fast as they could be depleted by the bombardment. On the ground, the Palace was protected by colossal networks of walls and bastions, static defenses, and vast numbers of Imperial Army units bolstered by hordes of press-ganged conscripts. Unknown to almost everyone, the Imperial Palace was also the focal point of the telesthetic ward, a psychic ward generated by the Emperor that would royally fuck up any daemon that set foot near it, daemon Primarchs included. At the start of the siege, the Emperor's power was such that the ward was able to cover all of Terra, and was so potent that any daemon which set foot on Terra would likely suffer a True Death.

The rest of Terra wasn't so lucky. Barring a few isolated holdouts, the rest of the planet was virtually defenseless. It should be noted that if the goal was to destroy Terra wholesale, it could have been easily accomplished by [[Exterminatus]]-level weaponry. Perturabo, as the only non-Chaos-ified Primarch, insisted on doing exactly that and grew increasingly angry at what he saw as an irrational and wasteful goal. But Horus was insistent that the Emperor had to be slain in person, and so the Palace had to be reduced the old-fashioned way. In all fairness, one must also ask if Exterminatus was even possible when a being like the Emperor was on Terra, to say nothing of the void shields and defenses on Terra itself (with the answer depending on how much Ext-grade weaponry and warheads the Chaos forces could bring along). And to be fair, Perty did suggest striking directly at the sun as Kor Phaeron had done at [[Battle of Calth|Calth]]. Destroying Sol would indirectly and undoubtedly fuck up Terra beyond saving.

Unable to use Exterminatus grade weaponry, Perturabo used the fleet's bombardment to test the Aegis' abilities. Within two weeks, Perturabo developed a bombardment pattern designed to serially weaken the Aegis to the point that fighters and bombers could begin attacking the Palace's anti-ship and anti-air batteries, which would allow full deployment of ground forces. Magnus also explained that if the traitors made the Star of Chaos around the Palace (with the lines intersecting where the Emperor sat within the Sanctum Imperialis) and spilled sufficient amounts of blood, the telesthetic ward would weaken enough that the Neverborn could safely walk upon Terra. Horus ordered the Traitor Legions to remain on their vessels while this process played out. The daemon primarchs were kept in orbit, safe from the Emperor's wards, although this meant that Angron had to be imprisoned in the maze Perturabo had built to contain Vulkan to stop him from [[Leeroy Jenkins]]ing the whole thing as he had done at [[Battle of Isstvan III|Istvaan III]].

Hordes of mutants, beastmen, cultists, and traitor Army units were thrown at the conventional defenses. Entire wings of aircraft dueled above the Palace. Precision bombardments gradually weakened minute sections of the Aegis long enough for bombers to get through and destroy the projectors. The Dark Mechanicum landed siege camps at 8 points around the Palace, partly to surround it but also to act as the focus for the ritual that would enable the Warp to take a foothold on the surface of the Throneworld. The Dark Mechanicum also began building massive siege towers to get Traitor Legionaries on the Palace walls. The Astartes were held in reserve on both sides whilst the more conventional forces softened each other up. The Death Guard were the first traitor Astartes to land on Terra, with the Khan and the White Scars riding forth on jetbikes and aircraft to meet them and wreck the Dark Mechanicum's siege camps. The Night Lords were the first Astartes to breach the walls of the Palace, albeit in small numbers; this attack also cost them their ''de facto'' commander, Gendor Skraivok. Sanguinius himself descended to help the mortal forces, acting as force multiplier, decoy, and morale booster.

Unfortunately, by that point, enough bloodshed had occurred that the perimeter of the Emperor's wards were reduced to just a few meters from the walls of the Palace, meaning daemons could now manifest on Terra. Horus responded by sending the World Eaters as the second wave, and this time Angron was leading the charge. Recognizing the outworks were about to be overrun, Sanguinius used an impending sally by the Legio Solaria to evacuate the surviving conscripts through the Helios Gate, while Legio Solaria destroyed the remaining siege tower. The loyalists had managed to repulse the first serious attempts on the Eternity Wall, but were now completely cut off from the rest of Terra, surrounded on all sides.