Phase 1 Outcome

Phase 1 Outcome
The initial ground invasion fared much better than expected, with attrition rates well below those projected by traitor high command. A series of decapitation strikes decimated the local command structure, and whilst the legion chain of command was able to cope in the aftermath, planetary defence and imperial army forces proved much more brittle and significant time was lost before proper counter attacks could be mounted against traitor landing zones.
Desertion and mutiny amongst planetary defence forces spiked in this early stage of the war, with a significant number of echelon commanders executed, either for perceived perfidy or incompetence.
In the polar expanses, the loyalist defenders of installation delta bravely held out against multiple fanatical storm assaults and heavy bombardment by the traitors, but having been forced into a smaller and smaller pocket around the primary lance battery, were forced to scuttle the guns and make a breakout attempt. For their part, the traitors made significant gains in the final hours and the sabotage of the facilities was not as complete as the loyalists hoped. Captured suborbital fighters would be put to immediate use strafing and bombing the evacuation barges as they left the polar coast heading south.
On the mainland, the warmaster's forces struck the spaceport in overwhelming force. A series of deepstrike assaults, lead by the Son's of horus, managed to capture a number of vital defensive installations and cleared the way for columns of traitor armour to assault gate Alpha.
Having breached the hive and effectively wiped out local command, the spaceport's key facilities fell into traitor hands. While it would take weeks to repair the damage to the port and many months of sweeps and searched to root out and run to ground the last of loyalist resistance, the majority of loyalist defenders were forced to pull back or face being overrun.
Kicking off what would be later called the 'great rout', it saw the withdrawal of many loyalist units, either to the mountains of the western masiffs and the forge complexes there to prepare resistance positions, east by rail to the mighty hive hephestus, or for the unlucky, a part in the vast columns of survivors slogging into the rad wastes.
Those forced to withdraw into the rad wastes saw weeks of sporadic fighting under terrible conditions, as many of the survivors fleeing the spaceport were poorly equipped to handle to dangers of the wastes. It would be weeks of desperate holding actions and spoiling attacks before the front lines stabilised across the wastes.
The next stage of the war would see two main theatres of conflict, the central desert of the rad wastes and the great hive factorums of Hephestus.

'The opening hours of the ground invasion of Semita IV saw traitor drop craft blot out the sky and overwhelm planetary sensor grids. An estimated 16 Macro-tonnes of ordinance was fired by planetary defence batteries in the first day, to little result against the traitor fleet' – Lesser known battles of the late heresy and scouring, Scrivenger Elias, M33

'[Static, unintelligible machine noise] Get those bulkheads sealed! The western approaches are crawling with [inaudible]. Loyalist Command, to all channels – the spaceport has fallen, we are sounding the general retreat. Any units receiving this are to make for the hives or the southern railheads, take whatever, whoever you can and scuttle all stockpiles. [Gunfire - 12 seconds] [New speaker resumes broadcast] They're outside, emperor preserve us, the astartes are right outside. We're wiping the databanks and burning out the voids, [inaudible, Gunfire - 5 seconds] Loyalist command is overrun, loyalist command is overrun!' - Last Transmission from Spire 001, Hanged man's spaceport.