With Horus' forces preparing to invade the Sol Sytem, Dorn decides to make a stand at Beta-Garmon to earn just a little more time to prepare for the final battle. Worlds will burn as the might of the titan legions is brought to bare.
- Amazon Brigade: The Legio Solaria are an all-female titan legion specializing in ambush tactics, and are lead by Lady Mohana Monkata VI. A fair amount of the book is exposition on their origins and culture - the originate from the daughters of the noble houses of Procon, and made it a point that any male children they had for whatever reason were either trained as techpriests or made into servitors, explicitly in defiance of the chauvanism they faced. The end of the novel has the dying Mohanna Monkata Vi admit they may need to abandon these traditions after the losses they suffered in the Titandeath.
- Colony Drop: The Traitor forces destroy one of the space stations orbiting Beta Garmon II and drop its remains on the loyalists.
- Godzilla Threshold:
- Dorn decides to cross it here to avoid doing so on Terra — Dorn deploys most of the remaining loyalist titan legions to Beta-Garmon to delay Horus and weaken the traitor titans, in part because he's worried that if he does so on Earth, the planet will be destroyed by the forces brought to bare.
- The entire battle of Beta Garmon sees both sides crossing the threshold - the Imperium by deploying their titan forces, the Traitors by resorting to Slave Mooks and Orbital Bombardment to win.
- Haunted Technology: One of the subplots focuses on Terent Harrtek of the traitor Legio Vulpa undergoing a Chaos ritual to bind daemons to himself and his titan, Nuntio Dolores, after the titan's machine spirit starts becoming increasingly aggressive and giving him migraines even when they aren't bonded. At the end of the battle, his titan finally overcomes Harrtek's will and mutates into a fleshy abomination, becoming the first Banelord Titan.
- Slave Mooks: The Dark Mechanicum starts using cybernetic implants to enslave Imperial Army soldiers to fight for them. They are still aware of themselves when the implants force them to fight their allies.
- So Proud of You: Harrtek, who treats his personal servant slightly better than everyone else, is nonetheless genuinely impressed when said servant (now a follower of Khorne) finally seeks to grow a spine and verbally force his fellows to perform a Khornate ritual. Keep in mind that Harrtek is the focus of said ritual.
- War Is Hell: The Battle of Beta-Garmon is by far one of the most brutal battles in the entire series, seeing more casualties than all the previous years of the conflict combined. Multiple scenes show off the absolute massacre everyone faces in this fight.
- We ARE Struggling Together: One of the big problems for the Imperial forces is that initially, they're extremely disorganized due to the various space marine captains and titan princeps refusing to defer to any outside of their own chain of command. This ends when Sanguinus and Jaghatai Khan arrive later in the conflict, as the primarchs outrank all of the other warriors present and Khan is willing to let Sanguinus take command.
- Who's Laughing Now?: The Legio Solaria were originally comprised of the daughters of the noble families of Procon, whose king viewed this as massively favorable deal since it allowed his men to keep their Imperial Knights and their best warriors. He ended up regretting this when those girls, among them his daughter Mohana, returned later piloting Imperial Titans (which are castle sized and dwarf the Knights) and forced him to swear allegiance to Legio Solaria.
- Your Days Are Numbered: The first few chapters make it clear that regardless of what happens on Beta-Garmon, Mohana Monkata Vi will die of old age in a few weeks. She ultimately ends up expiring from her injuries after the Imperium retreats, but not before naming Esha her successor.
