The Reclamation Of Kievan's Reach

[Lupercalian]

"He walked amongst them once, long before the Arch-Traitor struck him down. In His wake sprung the bloody roses of summer, until their children turned their faces from His guiding light.

 

Then He didst rage from his seat upon the Golden Throne, and roared towards the stars, where his breath turned to Long Winter...

 

The Reclamation of Kievan's Reach

http://ninjacrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/p6/30.jpg

 

M41 - Kievan's Reach was a planet located in the southeast corner of the Tempestus Segmentum. First colonized during the closing years of the Horus Heresy, shortly before the Isstvan Massacres, Kievan's Reach prospered under the guiding hands of Imperial administrators and diplomats. In the millenia that followed, the planet slipped from the attention of the galaxy. Relatively untouched by the widespread taint of Chaos, and out of the way of the various Hive Fleets that besieged the Segmentums, Kievan's Reach faced little in the way of threats.

Only occasionally would it fall under attack, and even then it was only from paltry foes without the armament to seriously threaten the planet. For the next ten thousand years, it survived numerous assaults from Hive Fleet Splinters, Ork attack fleets, and Genestealer infestations, all of which were easily crushed beneath the heel of its well-trained PDF. Kievan's Reach also maintained active supply lines and trade routes with neighbouring planets in the star system, building a thriving, prosperous economy. It was, by and large, the model of a perfect Imperial city.

 

Or, at least, it should have been.

 

Shortly before the onset of the 41st Millenium, it seceded from Imperial authority, establishing itself as an independent world free from the yoke of the Emperor's High Council. Smartly, the leaders of the planet left their secession unannounced. It was their intent to continue surviving under the radar of the Imperium of Man, though with their own sovereign right.

 

This facade was easily maintained. The decision to pull Kievan's Reach away from the Imperium had not been made under the influence of Xenos or Chaos; it had been a perfectly sound - although rebellious - choice. Kievan's Reach continued to trade with other planets, though it stopped sending annual tithes back to Terra. This was easily overlooked in the cantankerous machine of the Imperium's bureaucracy.

 

Its rebellion was only made known when, through a stroke of terrible luck, passing Astartes vessels hailed the planet, wishing to berth nearby for resupply. The government of Kievan's Reach knew that the Astartes would discover its secession, and rather than let their inevitable retribution occur on the surface of its planet, they chose to take pre-emptive measures.

 

This was a grave mistake.

 

Kievan's Reach returned the Astartes' hail, and as soon as the cruiser carrying the Space Marines' envoys departed from the primary battle-barge, planetary defenses shot it down.

The Astartes in orbit reacted with terrifying speed. Before the missiles had even struck the cruiser, the battle-barge retaliated in full, bringing to bear the full array of its brutal weaponry. Weapon batteries tore into the defense systems of Kievan's Reach, savaging them beyond repair. With the planet defenseless, the Astartes fleet began a systematic orbital bombardment of the planet, reducing its proud spires to pathetic rubble.

 

Most of the planet's denizens were incinerated within the first minutes of the initial bombardment. Those that survived hunkered down in shelters that, either by virtue of luck or hardened ceramite, withstood the following rains of fire from the sky.

 

Its grim work done, the fleet moved onwards.

 

*

 

The fleet in particular that had decimated Kievan's Reach was none other than that of Ingvar Haukal Haukalsson, known also as Ingvar the Far-Travelled, Jarl of Fyf, Wolf Lord of the Rout. The battle-barge, named the Eiforr, had been on its way to the Ruina Mors system to combat simultaneous incursions from Orks and Traitor Astartes into that star sector.

The loss of two senior Grey Hunters who had been upon the stricken cruiser, as well as the nature of their death, greatly pained all members of the Fifth Company on board on the Eiforr. Yet little time could be spent mourning the dead, and the Eiforr lingered in the vicinity of Kievan's Reach only long enough to deploy a strike force to that dead husk of a world.

 

The platoon was to mop up any remaining resistance that persisted on Kievan's Reach, securing the planet for later reclamation and rebuilding by Imperial forces. Even as the Wolves' report on the treachery of Kievan's Reach travelled across the currents of warp and wyrd, the strike force made planetfall.

 

The sheer force of the bombardment had thrown the atmosphere into the midst of a post-apocalyptic winter, yet pockets of resistance were already forming. By the time the platoon descended and set up a forward operating base, some five weeks after confirmed planetkill, a militia of sorts had been coordinated, consisting of ragged splinters of survivors from the Wolves' fury.

The assignment rankled the pride of most members within the strike force. They had expected glory untold and battle beyond compare in the maelstrom of the Ruina Mors system, yet they had been waylaid to this poor excuse for a planet - a veritable crucible of pathetic obscurity that the Allfather pissed upon. There would be no honor in the fights that followed, only mindless repetition. This would not be a battle - it was to be a culling, a pest extermination.

 

Yet despite their early analysis of the situation, the rebels continued, inexplicably, to defy the efforts of the Vlka Fenryka. Scout Squads, Grey Hunters, Blood Claws and Dreadnoughts crushed the broken bodies of men beneath their heels from dull morning to dying dusk, but for every insurgent they slaughtered, it seemed that two more sprung from the city’s splintered depths to take their place. This carried on for weeks, and months, until the Wolves were spread thin across the face of the planet.

Though vastly superior to the rebels, the battlegroup of Guardsmen attached to the Astartes platoon invariably suffered casualties. With supplies running low, and with compliance still unachieved, the frustration of guardsmen and Marine alike boiled to an all-time high.

 

And then the unthinkable happened.

 

A Wolf fell. The life-sign of Wolf Guard Varufors Gjallandi, out on solo patrol, winked out of existence upon the radar of every one of Fenris’ sons in the vicinity. Inspection of his last known location later revealed his body, which was largely intact save for his head. A close-range shotgun blast had mashed it into pulp, and the red remains spattered across the snow all but confirmed the ignoble nature of his death.

 

The strike team’s morale plummeted. Somehow, rebels had gotten close enough to put down and kill a shield-brother of Fenris’ finest. Valiant Gjallandi, veteran of the Nekthyst Incursion, saviour of Gjunmor’s Hive, lay sprawled across the floor of a world that should already be dead. His saga had ended poorly, and the ignoble nature of his death tasted bile-bitter on the tongues of the strikeforce. This was disgustingly bad wyrd.

 

Even less mercy was shown to rebels encountered in the following days. The Wolves unleashed the extent of their hate and bitterness upon weak mortal flesh, tearing and biting and crushing with unrelenting force. As if to rub salt into raw wounds, propaganda began to spread amongst the splinters of enemy militia, an arrogant statement from the alleged killer of Varufors Gjallandi – a certain Lieutenant Byzan Tmutarakan.

 

As the days passed, the Wolves began to find provocative statements and messages left for them, scrawled across walls and floors with hastily-sprayed paint. All of these messages ended with a quote from Tmutarakan himself:

 

 

“To kill a Wolf? It isn’t that hard. All you have to do is get close.”

 

*

 

Hello guys, it’s Lupercalian again. It’s with some degree of embarrassment that I begin this new plog – doing so effectively means I’m going to end the one I began with, which can be found here. The reason I’m beginning anew with my Wolves is that my old style of painting just wasn’t doing it for me.

 

It took too much time, for one – I wasted valuable hours on the line highlighting and feathering, plus the chipping as well. It felt too formulaic at times, in that I was following a certain set of rules and codes which was overly restrictive. John Blanche’s article last month, however, struck a chord in me. I agreed perfectly with the message that he was trying to convey – though I don’t presume to match up to his painting standards, like him, I spent too long attempting to emulate the style of ‘Eavy Metal painters when it wasn’t really my style at all.

 

It was liberating, to say the least, to read that article. My interest in the Wolves – which had died down, in no small part due to my lack of energy to paint them – was reinvigorated, and I tried out a new way of painting which felt more natural. This seemed to have done the trick. I’m painting a lot faster now, completing my models in a day, and I’m eschewing line-highlighting in favour of zenithal highlighting by drybrushing lighter colours onto the armor. This frees up time and allows me to really go to down on the details that pull the model together, the stuff I love – weathering, basing, etc. etc. As an aspiring writer, I want to tell stories with my project logs and my miniatures, and this seems like a pretty good way to do so.

 

Although the quality of the minis won't be the same, I don't think it's realistic for me to paint an entire army to that standard, given that it takes so much time :tu:

 

Well, enough explanation, time for some fluff and pics! Hopefully, this plog will have more success this time, yeah?

 

*

 

http://www.majhost.com/gallery/aspect/wolves/vidscanwolvesredux.jpg

Intercepted insurgent pict-steal of Grey Hunter Valsgarde Hardrada

 

 

A Wolf breathed in the dark.

 

Half-running, half-stumbling, Josef charged through the dirty slush. Niko cradled his heavy shotgun in his arms as he forged ahead in front of him, panting with the strained exertions of a man about to soil himself in terror. Behind them both, as it had been doing for the last thirty minutes, a Wolf breathed in the dark.

 

The patrol was supposed to have gone smoothly. The uninhabited sector hadn’t been touched by the Imperials for over six months now, and Josef had thanked the gods above for drawing this routine duty. He’d counted himself lucky that he wasn’t picked for harassment runs that day, because he knew – as everyone else knew – that no one came back from harassing the Wolves. Not with their anatomy properly intact, that was.

 

And yet, as Yonatan had pulled open the doors to the reactor complex just a half hour ago, it was a Wolf they’d found. Waiting. Breathing in the dark.

 

They’d bolted. He hadn’t stuck around to see Yonatan punched apart, though he’d felt the shockwave of the blow and tasted someone else’s hot blood splattered against his mouth. He and Niko ran, and ran, and ran, as they heard the rest of the patrol methodically slaughtered in the snow.

All the while, they’d heard the Wolf’s breaths in the dark - low, heavy, rasping breaths; an amused wet-growl. It had followed them for half an hour, stalking them through the snow as they ran, just toying with their pathetic attempts to flee. At every corner, every sharp turn, it was there, echoing down the blocks of the ghost town and dogging their steps with cruel hatred.

 

“Fug this,” Niko breathed explosively. He halted in his tracks, throwing up dirty slush, and pulled back the slide on his shotgun. He worked the trigger furiously and jammed it down again and again until a steady stream of shells vomited out from the ejector port.

 

Josef remembered what Tmutarakan had said. "To kill a Wolf? It’s easy. You just have to get close."

 

Maybe, just maybe, with Niko’s gun spitting out armour-piercing fragments at high velocity, they could make it out alive. Tmutarakan had used a shotgun when he killed the Alpha Wolf, too. He’d swung down from the rafters and shot the bastard’s head clean off. It had taken the lives of fifty-five militia and half of Tmutarakan’s command squad, but he’d killed the fugger. Maybe they could at least slow the Wolf down. Just maybe.

 

Niko’s head exploded. The bolt had come from nowhere, screaming from the darkness and entering his skull cavity, before detonating in a shower of viscera and bone. For a few moments, Niko’s body rocked comically, before pitching limply forwards to stain the snow red.

 

"You just have to get close."

 

Then the Wolf sprang.

 

Nothing that big should have moved that fast. It sprinted like dull grey thunder towards him, tonnes of ceramite and vengeful teeth bearing upon Josef’s tiny frame in the shadow of dead buildings. All the while, in the half-second that it took for the Wolf to cross the two hundred meters between them, it breathed its heavy growl.

 

The Wolf took him up in its massive fist. He felt the fingers tighten, and the pistons in the gauntlet whined with mechanical fury. Bones began to crack, flesh began to rupture, and the pain of his internal organs bursting shot through his veins like the lances he used to spear boars in the summer.

 

As a young boy, Josef had always displayed some form of latent psychic ability. It wasn’t something that manifested itself outright, but it would show up from time to time, when he least expected it. Sometimes, he’d be able to tell the result of a dice roll before the ivory cubes stopped spinning. Other times, he’d light the candles in his room with a casual flick of his wrist. It was an imperfect art though, and he had never been able to properly control it.

 

Until now.

 

As Josef spasmed in the ravaging grip, with his spine cracking and his flesh blistering, he screamed. Brilliant violet fire leapt forth from his body with virulent intensity, consuming the Wolf with a hungry embrace. It enveloped the Astartes in licking tongues of heat, and blazed like an angry, newborn sun. Josef smiled to himself. He would die here, in the grip of a sky-grey monster, but he would take it with him.

 

Through the cloak of flame, Josef watched the lips of the monster curl upwards. Inexplicably, it was smiling. It answered his scream with a savage howl, and the flames shrunk backwards, recoiling as if doused. The crude eye painted onto its pauldron glowed in the dark of a graveyard world, and the Wolf started to laugh.

 

The terrible sound followed Josef into death as the Wolf squeezed its fist.

 

http://www.majhost.com/gallery/aspect/wolves/wolvesredux2.jpg

Valsgarde Hardrada, Grey Hunter of Fyf, bears down upon the foe. Even amongst the mercilessly violent Wolves, Hardrada has a reputation for savagery and hate beyond compare. The old Wolf is especially bitter at having been left behind on Kievan’s Reach whilst the main bulk of the force ventures onwards toward the Ruina Mors system, and any insurgent with the misfortune to encounter him usually becomes the outlet of this frustration.

 

Though gruff, resentful, and brutal, Hardrada is a shield-brother of Fyf through and through. He would be the first to lay down his life for his brothers, and as the most senior of his squad, takes their safety to be his primary duty, especially after the death of Varufors Gjallandi.

 

The death of Gjallandi has weighed heavily upon his shoulders ever since the Wolf Guard’s body was discovered, as it was originally Hardrada who was slated for that patrol. Gjallandi offered to take over, allowing Hardrada a rest after five consecutive patrols, and he duly agreed. As a result, he holds himself personally responsible for the fall of the Wolf Guard, and has vowed to correct this mistake. Since then he has pursued the utter destruction of the insurgency tirelessly, with a cruelty born out of a desire for redemption.

 

Hardrada once came across a pair of rebels while on patrol with a group of guardsmen. The insurgents had tripped over loose rubble, and impaled themselves upon metal struts against a power wire. Though their faces were near melted off, the electric shock had also cauterized their wounds, and they moaned for aid through disfigured mouths.

 

The guardsmen were moved to pity by the plight of the enemy, but upon being asked by them if they should help the fallen foe, Hardrada famously replied by snarling, “let them bleed.”

 

http://www.majhost.com/gallery/aspect/wolves/wolvesredux3.jpg

An Eye of Aversion painted onto Hardrada’s pauldron. Though seemingly redundant for a mere mortal rebellion, Hardrada’s decision to include one upon his armour has proven useful after encountering more than a number of psykers amongst the militia. The uncanny number of psykers existing within the insurgency reported seems to suggest the presence of a warp taint upon Kievan’s Reach, although the attached Rune Priest has detected no widespread corruption of maleficarum on the planet.

 

As can be seen, Hardrada wears a cannibalised mix of armour marks. Although this is a common practice during protracted conflicts such as the insurgency upon Kievan’s Reach, where stretched battle-lines have little to no time to repair damaged armour pieces, it is more likely that Hardrada chose this unique mix of variants prior to planetfall. Mark IV greaves and leg-armour provide an excellent deal of mobility, giving Hardrada the speed and dexterity required to engage the enemy in close combat.

 

The Mark III Cuirass offers superior protection at the cost of movement speed. Such armour was slowly phased out during the Heresy because they would hinder the martial styles of swordsmen, though they remained in production for the next millennia. However, as Hardrada’s preferred close-combat weapon is a power fist, such range of movement is unneeded, prompting his choice to use the bulky Mark III, which complements the primitive – and yet deadly – style of fighting employed by the users of power fists. Similarly, a Mark III pauldron is present upon the limb where the power fist is worn, giving better protection for an arm constantly in slow, furious action.

[Lupercalian]

Hmm, for some reason, the pics won't show up in the posts :/

Fixed!

[Bradimus Prime]

Brilliant mate absolutely brilliant! I really enjoyed reading that so please keep this blog up. Just out of interest could you please point me in the direction of the John Blanche article you refer to? I presume its a White Dwarf article.

 

Cheers

[Lupercalian]

Brilliant mate absolutely brilliant! I really enjoyed reading that so please keep this blog up. Just out of interest could you please point me in the direction of the John Blanche article you refer to? I presume its a White Dwarf article.

 

Cheers

Cheers!

 

Yep, it's in WD December 2011. Can't remember the page number and I don't have the mag with me right now, but it's part of his Blanchitsu series. Very inspiring.

[Llagos_Tyrant]

That was a pleasure to read.

 

I'm not a big fan of the Wolves, but keep it up! I'd love to see (and read) more of your work!