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Prologue: The Coming Storm The scenes playing out before Captain Tádor were all too familiar; the darkened interior of a vessel, filled with the noise of battle and lit by the flash of gunfire. Normally, he would have led the assault personally, but this time he had to be cautious. This time, his foes were Astartes. The enemy was dug in and skilled. Thirty Astartes held the deck, facing Bright Lords forces as they poured down three assault ramps. Tádor's men had overwhelming numbers, but numbers were not enough when facing their own. He knew dozens more awaited further into the ship, no doubt planning an ambush or trap to even the odds. Thus, unable to risk losing his best men in the opening clash, Tádor and the Torchbearers could only watch as their brothers fought and died to take the beachhead. Fifteen minutes of brutal fighting saw every defender slain, at a cost of almost sixty Bright Lords. With the fighting over, Tádor strode forth into the darkened deck, being careful to step around the fallen. As he reached the centre of the chamber the overhead lights flickered into life. Red-robed tech adepts strode about the deck, taking note of the events. "Fallen forces, clear the deck!" the supervising officer announced, and on their orders the defeated Bright Lords and Supernovas alike stood back up and began filing away. "Not a good sign, Captain!" the Supernovan sergeant chuckled on his way past, "two to one kills in our favour!" Tádor smiled at the man and replied, "how unfortunate for your Chapter that I outnumber you three to one." The games had been Tádor's idea; a way to both train and bond as Astartes from multiple Chapters gathered at the muster point. So far, four hundred Astartes had answered the call, with at least a thousand more on the way. Combined with the forces of the Guard and Navy, the armies promised to be a truly terrifying force able to sweep away even the mightiest of foes. And they would be needed, if the signals from Celadon were any indication. The next stage of the training mission would take place along the inner corridors. Three passages had been selected, running parallel to each other and joining the cargo deck to the outer edge of the drive section. Tádor's scouts brought back word of the enemy's deployment; the outer passages were held by Ironforged - siege specialists of the Supernovas Chapter. The central passage was defended by ordinary Marines, and in fewer numbers. "It seems Master Dyus has set a trap for us," Tádor chuckled. "An obvious one," Lightbearer Heyel replied. "He surely can't expect us to take the bait." "That is precisely what we will do," Tádor answered. Noting the confusion of his peers, he added, "You have all studied the Codex Astartes, and so has our enemy. Master Dyus expects us to attack where he is strong because we are taught to be suspicious of his weakness. In truth, he does not feign weakness; he shows it openly. We shall pin his best on the flanks and smash through the middle for an easy victory!" The decks echoed with gunfire once more as Tádor led the Torchbearers down the central passage. No bullets struck them, but laser designators and beam-detectors monitored where bullets should have landed and fed data to cogitator banks, which the tech-adepts used to determine who lived and who died. Sheer weight of fire pushed the Supernovas back as the Torchbearers advanced. Under such a barrage, the defenders fled through the blast door and sealed it behind them, hoping that the door could buy time where bolters failed. Yet Tádor never reached the door. The monotone, synthetic voice of a tech-adept declared him a casualty. Confused, he turned around to see the rest of his men milling about in confusion, all seemingly dead from an unknown source. Frustrated, Tádor had no choice but to wait and listen to the battle waging elsewhere; a battle that quickly turned against his forces. When the order to cease was announced, the blast door opened to reveal Chapter Master Dyus of the Ironforged, who strolled toward the vanquished elites. The man's face was calm and un-emotive, but Tádor was sure there was an arrogant swagger in the man's stride. "How disappointing. The great Tádor, slain by such an obvious trap." "I would very much like to know how I was slain," Tádor replied impatiently. Dyus pointed to the interior wall of the corridor, "inside this wall is an armoured elevator that feeds the dorsal turrets from the ship's magazine. Prior to your attack I had charges set behind the wall panels and raised a shell to deck height. The tech-priests assured me that the resulting explosion would have killed everyone in the passage, and several in the adjacent passage." "And what inspired such a suicidal tactic?" Tádor asked, equally amused and impressed by the unorthodox solution. "Master Ximo," Dyus replied. "If you recall, you once suggested we partake in a similar training game many years ago. Ximo divised this as one possible method of defeating you, although I believe his plan involved a plasma feed." Tádor gave the Chapter Master a respectful nod, "then I commend your former Chapter Master's strategy, and your implementation of it." "I'm sure he would have welcomed your praise," Dyus answered. "I thank you for the diversion, Captain. I look forward to seeing you defeat the Fate's Angels in the next one."

First of all, the disclaimer needs to be made that these gorgeously-painted minis are not my work - a dear friend commissioned them for me from a fantastically more talented painter. Where other chapters deploy their First Company as hallowed Terminators, the Bright Lords have barely more than a dozen such suits of armor to their name. Instead, much of the First Company is comprised of Torchbearers - elite boarding specialists and line breakers who fulfill many of the same missions as conventional Terminators using heavy boarding shields, stormbolters, scavenged refractor-field generators, and raw grit. It is the Torchbearers who are first to bring the Chapter's light into the darkest and deadliest places such as Space Hulks or enemy warships, and though their duty has one of the highest attrition rates in the Chapter due to the lack of proper Terminator armor, their determination - and firepower - are legendary. Closeups of the seriously impressively done Chapter iconography - all of which was freehanded.