>>5648006"Battlefield Ultramar" might barely be a battlefield at this rate. More like a self-isolated anti-guerilla campaign against two annoying little shits.
The WB are smaller in this setting due to our machinations, and even if they aren't, they're being split between Kor Phaeron and Lorgar which is a worse idea for Lorgar anyway cause he would have needed every troop he can get. And Kor Phaeron is a godawful commander.
Ultramar only suffered badly because of the surprise left hook from the WB fleet in orbit. Even supposing this still happened, there are fewer WB they don't have Lorgar or Angron. Even supposing the Night Haunters started with them and proceeded to pull of Calth like shenanigans, Lion and Sanguineous arrival basically ended the war. I don't this front being worse than OTL, I see them doing much better. Lion's fleet will remain intact and whole because the NH would have done the footwork of the WE against Ultramar, without having had spent themselves against the lion (which they lost in canon).
Luther might still be pulling shit off in Caliban though.
Battlefield Lucius should also go well. We've built it for this kind of war, and neither Fulgrim nor Lorgar are especially good strategians. The federation is even larger than Ultramar, has Corax there to hold the line from behind the scenes, is resistant to both Chaos conversion, wars of attrition (Skitarii, Servitors, Proelitors and Knight's don't retreat), and with the blackstone fortress, even scrapcode and Chaos effects are reduced. TalOS himself designed many of its defenses and we have the largest concentration of both Techpriests and Techmarines experienced in Scrapcode. And Loyalist Perturabo will definitely help defend against that too. Fulgrim's legion is smaller than in canon, even if he is more fanatical, because of what we did early on. Same with Lorgar, he's split between there and Ultramar and his psychic powers are not going to go very well against a legion steeped in null.
Khan being dead is actually one of the worst thing out of this. Khan REALLY would have come in handy not dying here, and might have won the war or badly blooded Horus. He could have exploited the Thramas flank and fucked Horus up or caused a major distraction, and honestly in canon he was doing murder on the Trators in general and really made things harder for Pert and Horus. That sucks that he's dead.
At this stage of the War iirc the Alpha Legion may try to hunt down Russ after his failed attempt on Horus life. Then Alpharius would have made his mistake of challenging Dorn. But honestly Alpharius can do anything now he's changed, and he knows our secrets, which is dangerous.
Mars should go well esp. with our arrival. We've already done major purges before we began, Kelbor Hal is loyal, and the majority of the people of Mars know we are the true Prophet of the Omnissiah. Our arrival should essentially end any further doubts.
That's an optimistic outlook anyway.
