IL X - The Fire Keepers

[Demus Ragnok]

As far as Pionus a primarch is a primarch so Anath would defer to him so long as he saw no hints of treachery.

 

Anath would treat Odyssales as a guest. Giving him the respect a fellow legionary deserves but being suspicious of him as well.

Ever watching for weakness chaplains are.

 

A child could easily fall through the cracks. Someone is most likely keeping an eye on her from a distance though.

Edited February 23, 2017 by Demus Ragnok

[bluntblade]

I think Thirgen could start to befriend Odyssalas quite quickly, but I agree on Anath.

 

Odyssalas' impulse is to basically hand her over to the Daughters of Daer'dd, touched by her spirit (and oddly melancholic with the thought of however many thousands of people came, went and ultimately died with the Scions' ships with him taking little interest in them) reasoning that if she is going to fight, she might as well learn from the best.

[bluntblade]

Finally making a start on that exemplary battle, and I need the name of Niklaas' ship.

[Demus Ragnok]

Treads Upon the Night

[bluntblade]

More poetic than I expected. Now, is Jehu's waveblade a sword, axe or something else?

 

Niklaas' strategy here, because he's basically up against an army of Lootas, is essentially "hey Orks, want this shiny thing with lots of guns? Well, all you've got to do is run through this wall of bolter rounds, lance and las-fire, torpedoes..."

[Demus Ragnok]

Jehu's blade is a sword.

[bluntblade]

Fandabidozi. And now:

The Breaking of the Bodgespire

In 952 M30, Niklaas’ aid was requested by Captain Galen of the Scions Hospitalier. Galen, at the head of a 10,000-strong detachment of Scions, had been investigating signs of an Ork Waagh! moving ahead of the Great Crusade’s advance and swiftly summoned that it would require many more Astartes to wipe it out. Moreover, they appeared to be in possession of something akin to a star fort, but far larger. Galen’s later reports likened it to the vast, derelict structure found in the Inwit system several decades earlier.

Upon linking up with the Scions, Niklaas mounted a series of reconnaissance missions and raids. He swiftly identified the greeskins as an offshoot of the Deathskullz Klan, notorious even among their own kind as rapacious looters. Where these differed, it seemed, was that where Deathskullz typically stockpiled items for “lata”, these Orks worked any weapons they took into the mobile fortress, which they called the Bodgespire.

The combined fleet descended upon the Orks in the Lothindren System, where the Orks had overrun an Eldar Craftworld and, with an industriousness uncommon among their species, were appropriating anything that looked as though it could be salvaged. After the initial charge, Niklaas deployed several ships around the Craftworld, keeping the Ork ships between them and the Bodgespire and banking on the Orks’ unwillingness to risk their assets and potential loot by using their long-range weaponry. This proved entirely correct, and many of the Orkish vessels were destroyed even as they rushed to engage the Imperials at close quarters. As the battle unfolded, Niklaas realised that he had actually underestimated the enemy’s compulsion. The Treads Upon the Night represented a prize beyond anything the Orks had imagined, and soon their every ship was racing to launch boarding torpedoes, gunships or even Orks with rudimentary breathing gear and jetpacks.

Niklaas exploited this by ordering the ships that stood between his and the Orks to get clear. Ostensibly placing the Treads Upon the Night in the open, he directed the fleet to create a corridor of space that the Orks would have to enter in their efforts to reach the flagship. They then loosed interceptor wings and frightful quantities of las-fire and torpedoes at the oncomers. Of the estimated hundreds of thousands, perhaps two thousand successfully ran the gauntlet and managed to get aboard the flagship, only to be met by the Fire Keepers aboard, their numbers bolstered by warriors teleported aboard from other vessels.

Eventually, some sort of sense prevailed among the Orks as they numbers dwindled, but by then their under-manned and overexposed fleet was ripe for the taking, and led by the XIXth Legion ships the Imperials went on the offensive, enveloping and destroying the enemy ships before beginning an artillery duel with the Bodgespire itself. The Orks had armed their fortress with a truly bewildering array of technology, later traced to six species and eight human cultures. None, however, had been conceived by a mind with Niklaas’ genius for design and destruction. The Fire Keepers’ guns gouged vast wounds in the metal skin of the Bodgespire, and the Astartes sallied forth into the breaches.

No officer had any illusions as to the dangers of this offensive. Screened by Xiphon squadrons and accompanied by Fire Raptors, Thunderhawks were used to rapidly deploy squads and then companies of Fire Keepers. Alongside the veterans and Terminator squads were Cybernetica detachments and Rapier turrets, which were used to establish beachheads before the main forces arrived. Niklaas deployed personally to the largest, taking with him the two elite companies of the Legion. The lethality of the Triakonta Terminators in the melee was complimented by the talents and weapons of their brothers in the Maveshalak.

While heavy support or “Devastator” marines were an integral part of every Legion, none served as prominently as those in the Xth Legion. Within a few years of taking command, a specialised elite formation had been created by the Primarch, tasked with breaking enemy defences with peerless firepower. Niklaas had carefully optimised their weaponry and training for siege warfare, and the result was a company adept both at sweeping away infantry with heavy flamers and bolters, and wrecking fortifications and armour with meltas and volkite culverins. As in the void, Ork boyz were funnelled into the path of the Triakota’s blades, and the Deff Dreads that barred their way were broken by heavy weapons fire, often before Niklaas and his guards had to land a blow.

The Warboss, however, was not waiting for the Primarch to breach his sanctum. With a great deal of what passes for thought among greenskins, he reasoned that the Treads Upon the Night was plainly a better piece of loot than his own fortress. Now, with the Astartes attacking, he concluded that it was vulnerable and ripe for the taking. So he gathered his most loyal fighters and, without telling the rest, swiftly made his way along a hidden passageway to the nearest hangar. It was the kind of aggressively counter-intuitive Orkish move that had inflicted quite unamusing damage on many Imperial forces over the years, but this one was foiled when Chief Jehu, fighting alongside Galen, detected a lessening of the Orkish defence.

Swiftly, the two pursued the Warboss to the hangar, and there Jehu duelled and slew the loathsome creature, putting out its eyes and throttling it when his sword snapped in the beast’s chest. For this he was honoured both by his Primarch and by Galen, who deemed it one of the finest feats of arms he had ever seen and ordered the forging of a waveblade on Iona, to replace Jehu’s broken weapon.

Edited August 25, 2017 by bluntblade

[Demus Ragnok]

One little detail the triakonta are armed with pole axes, save for one who has great sword.

[bluntblade]

Damn, I thought they had hammers when I did Martian Soil. Oh well.

[bluntblade]

Fixed

[Sigismund229]

How many Fire Keepers would show up to take part in the Martian Civil War during the opening years of the Insurrection?

 

In the current Section I'm writing for Book 2 I've written that in the region of 68,000 show up at Terra led by Niklaas. Would this fit?

 

Incidentaly, just had an idea for a piece of art of Niklaas. Standing holding his hammer at waist height with his legs braced looking down at you, with sparks blowing in front of him like they do in front of Mortarion in Conquest

[Demus Ragnok]

68000 can work.

 

Love the art idea.

[~Drakzilla~]

Yeah, I think it's about time I got cracking on Niklaas, and that sounds like a good a way to tackle him.

[bluntblade]

Given the Legio Tonarum's frequent emphasis on fast movement, maybe their secutarii units should include dunestrider units

[Demus Ragnok]

After a bit of research I discovered that, at least from a rules perspective, secutarrii are an elite unit within the skitarrii.

 

So it seems perfecticly logical that Dunestriders and secutarrii would fight side by side.

[bluntblade]

A need to contrast the Void Eagles with their cousins led me to thinking about what Niklaas might do for a fortress-monastery. So I'm tentatively dubbing it the Ebensagab, and I suggest it be carved from three mountains. It's not the Aett, and therefore the most fortified levels would be deep down at the roots of the mountains, although Niklaas might keep a chamber at one peak. Thoughts?

[Demus Ragnok]

A need to contrast the Void Eagles with their cousins led me to thinking about what Niklaas might do for a fortress-monastery. So I'm tentatively dubbing it the Ebensagab, and I suggest it be carved from three mountains. It's not the Aett, and therefore the most fortified levels would be deep down at the roots of the mountains, although Niklaas might keep a chamber at one peak. Thoughts?

What's the etemology of that name ?

 

I like it. Just curious.

[Demus Ragnok]

Also anyone have any ideas as to what the Ember Host ( traitor Fire Keepers) get up to?

 

I had this idea of them starting out with noble ideas but end up a bit to "by any means necessary" and get bitten by chaos.

[bluntblade]

Stone and stronghold. Hopefully I'll more imaginative name for it soon.

[MikhalLeNoir]

Burning entire populations alive to satisfy some unknown aspect of chaos.

[bluntblade]

Would Icarion try and bolster their numbers as well? With the unhappy cooperation of Jade, as masses of the Fire Keepers' gene-seed will be there for the taking after the ambush

[Demus Ragnok]

The vision I had of the ambush has jade making a tactical retreat with a scorched earth action, so there won't be much of anything left.

[MikhalLeNoir]

Or have some kind of braveheart situation where they sinply leave while the keepers fight against a far too big orc army.....

 

Or xenos psyker army and the pariahs of the wop where vital to the firekeepers battleplans.

Edited March 24, 2017 by MikhalLeNoir

[Skalpynock]

Morning drawing, without taking reference and based mostly on vaguely-remembered stuff about silver arms. I'm having way too much fun with that tablet/laptop.

 

[bluntblade]

I might write up something about the building of the Ebensagab for Book 2. Does Jehu need a banner, and has Demus designated another character for the third slot?