Cybon

Lord Militant Cybon was one of the senior Imperial commanders that served under Warmaster Slaydo during the Sabbat Worlds Crusade.

History
Cybon was a competent and very able commander who had a creditable history of Imperial victories over his long career. But like his contemporary, Hechtor Dravere, he was known to be predisposed to use the regular infantry as gun fodder to achieve his strategic objectives. When Warmaster Slaydo was severely wounded during the fighting on Balhaut in 765 and lay dying, Cybon was the strongest placed contender for the role of Warmaster, due to his seniority of command and long list of Imperial victories. Though Cybon possessed Slaydo's admiration as a leader, and expected the dying Warmaster's favour and support in the light of the Western Plains Campaign and the victory at Ascension Valley, Slaydo despised Cybon's barbaric attitude to the common soldiery.

When Marshal Macaroth was appointed as Slaydo's successor as Warmaster, Cybon was inflamed with rage at the decision, regarding the young officer and too inexperienced and too junior in command. But the newly appointed Warmaster persevered, and managed to maintain his rightful position, outplaying his rivals politically, showing everyone that he possessed the ideal talent and temperament for the role. When Macaroth began his campaign into the Cabal Salient in late 765, many thought that the Warmaster was overstretching his forces, taking actions that were considered too bold. Some of the senior officers, including, to an extent, Cybon himself, came to admire and respect Macaroth's tenacious ability.

In the years immediately following 773, the Archenemy attempted a considerable counter attack, pincering behind the advancing Imperial front at Macaroth's overstretched lines of supply and communication. By the eighteenth year of the Crusade the Imperial forces now found themselves subdivided, hard-pressed and overstretched, fighting simultaneous actions right across the Khan Group and trail-ward half of the Cabal Systems. Up until that moment in the Crusade's history, never had warfare been spread out across such a grievously wide scope. Cybon complained in his personal journals that 'Old Slaydo' would be appalled at how Macaroth had dismissed the methodical approach he favoured. By the close of 773, the impetus of the Crusade advance was broken, and the Warmaster's forces were in disarray. The fate of the Crusade hung in the balance at this point. By the close of 775, as the Crusade entered its third decade, Imperial forces soon found themselves fighting a war on two fronts.

Macaroth charged Cybon with unifying and strengthening the support and the flank, a task he clearly despised. Cybon felt that he was warrior and that his place should be at the front line of advance, not being sent to the back to 'mop up the dirt'. In a communique' to the Warmaster he complained incessantly of being relegated to such an unglamorous position and that insult of having to follow in the Warmaster's glory and clean up the destruction left in his wake. Macaroth answered him bluntly the following day by responding one word 'Yes'. Several of Macaroth's senior commanders soon found themselves charged with the prosecution of this 'Second Front', including Generals Van Voytz, Kelso, Bulledin, and Luswchiem, Marshal Blackwood, and Lord Militants Humel and Cybon, himself. Their unpalatable task was to block and defend against the counter attack, but this often meant they had to retake strongly held enemy worlds that Macaroth had bypassed on his way to glory. Cybon would be relegated to this position for the remainder of the Crusade, reluctantly following the Warmaster's orders to the bitter end.

Source

 * Sabbat Worlds Crusade (Background Book) by Dan Abnett
 * Tactica Imperialis, p. 26