IL XVI - The Drowned

[simison]

Exemplary Battles

 

Long have the Drowned toiled unseen and unhonoured across hundreds of battlefields where only transhumans dare to tread. This lack of recognition combined with the brutal nature of their warzones bred a Legion that was willing to use any tool or tactic, regardless of others' sensibilities. Many a foe would come to rue the day the Drowned took to the field as they became subjected to disorienting flanking maneuvers to cruel chem-munitions. Yet, it never mattered how many victories the Drowned acheived, for they were always shadowed by other Legions. 

 

[intro done, need three battles. The Nox battle can be the first and show the Drowned acting as a tendril fleet with a mix of traditional and Drowned tactics under Hennasohn. Second battle can be Blunt's Phemu IV. The third battle should be post-Warmaster and see them becoming corrupted.]

 

First Contact at Nox

 

The first Imperial ship to communicate with the Mechanicum Abyssii would be the Daw-wama, a cruiser escorted by two frigates. Upon entering the system, the Daw-wama sent out its discovery to the both the Drowned and Wardens of Light fleets before cautiously advancing toward the Nox system. Responding to the unknown ships, Mechanicum fleet elements in the form of two light cruisers with several light escorts moved to intercept. The two small fleets met above the outermost planet of the system, Semotus.

 

Although the communication codes were centuries old, it took only half an hour before a working dialogue was established, giving time for the rest of the 11^th fleet to be alerted to the Daw-wama's discovery. The situation deteriorated as the Abyssii demanded that the Drowned warship stand down and prepare to be boarded. At the time of this exchange, Hennasohn remained absent, a mere thirty minutes away as his ship sped to the Nox system. Command laid in the hands of the Monarch Bloodravager Vaisso, who refused to recognize the Abyssii's authority. With this simple rejection, the Abyssii, in their binary thinking, labeled the unknown ships as enemy forces and opened fire.

 

While the Drowned warships were technically outnumbered, they possessed the heavier warships and were at complete combat readiness when hostilities broke out. 

Edited May 25, 2017 by simison

[bluntblade]

Given what Hesh has said, I'm going to remove the Revenant Engines from the Phemus battle.

 

Now, with such a sparse supply of Dreadnoughts (unless they can compensate with automata, which depends on their Cybernetica links) do the Drowned have an unusually high number of heavy weapns detachments? I recall reading something about them not adapting vehicles for underwater work.

[simison]

I doubt it. The Drowned have an entire RoW that focuses on vehicle usage. Then remember that they field a Hades breaching drill, and the Drowned appear to have a robust vehicle fleet.

[bluntblade]

Maybe I'm remembering really early fluff, then.

 

Servitor-driven vehicles were OK'd, now I come to think about it, at least for Zone Mortalis duties. No danger then of cabin fever, boredom etc.

[simison]

[That said, I doubt they have the best vehicles available. They probably have plenty, but they are older marks or more run down to represent the Drowned never getting proper recognition.]

 

While the Drowned warships were technically outnumbered, they possessed the heavier warships and were at complete combat readiness when hostilities broke out. With the Abyssii warships carrying superior ranged weapons, Vaisso ordered his fleet to close the distance and to prepare boarding torpedoes. At full speed, the Drowned warships were upon the Abyssii vessels after enduring only a single volley. Launching a wave of boarding actions, the Drowned assault teams soon ran rampant through the Abyssii ships' complements of Skitarii and combat servitors. 

 

Even as the Mechanicum ships suffered internally, they obeyed their pre-set programming and continued firing with machine precision. It would be the Abyssii who would score the first kill as the Abyssii overwhelmed the Drowned frigate, Orphnaeus. The victory was short-lived as the one Drowned assault team successfully conquered the bridge of the Sufficient Gravitas. With an entire light cruiser incapacitated, the battle swung in favor of the Drowned. For a moment it appeared as though the Drowned would secure the outer regions of the system. 

Edited May 26, 2017 by simison

[Talonair]

I suppose the descriptions of the Abyssii's more advanced weapons would be saved for the version of the battle happening in the Abyssii fluff?

[simison]

I suppose the descriptions of the Abyssii's more advanced weapons would be saved for the version of the battle happening in the Abyssii fluff?

 

It would be since the Drowned are more focused on their casualties and successes.

 

You mentioned you had a list of ship names?

[Talonair]

Yes. Interdiction fleet Omega-6 would get there first:

 

Battleship Armageddon's Blade: Archmagos Ariana Furia's Flagship

 

Battleship Last Unto Dawn

 

Battlecruiser Amber Citadel

 

Cruiser Mother of Invention: Highly advanced

 

Cruiser Sufficient Gravitas

 

Frigate Hand of Charon

 

Frigate Fate's Warm Embrace

 

Destroyer Path of Most Resistance

 

Destroyer Two for Flinching

[simison]

That optimism was shattered when auspex readings informed Shoalmaster Vaisso additional Abyssii warships were approaching. Later identified as the Amber Citadel, a battle cruiser approached, leading another cruiser with four more escorts. Now outnumbered and outclassed, Vaisso was on the verge of ordering a retreat when more ships appeared, this time at the system's Mandeville Point. Another Drowned cruiser, the Daemon of the Deep, approached with two escorts on her flanks. Far less than what he hoped, Vaisso still prepared to make a withdrawal. Then, a mere moment later, the rest of the Drowned pathfinder fleet warped in, Hennasohn's personal battleship at their head. 

Edited May 26, 2017 by simison

[Talonair]

The Amber Citadel is a battle cruiser :P

[simison]

Whoops! Fixed. 

[simison]

Would it be realistic for Hennasohn to attempt one last time for a diplomatic solution or is my thinking showing a Warden bias?

[bluntblade]

I think Hennasohn would - just emphasise the importance of Forge Worlds to the Crusade, and add that conquering one risked angering the Mechanicus

[simison]

Assuming command of the Imperium forces, the revered Old Man attempted to end the war through diplomacy, eager to avoid breaking an entire Forge World. The reply he received came from the battleship, Armageddon's Blade. The Abyssii answer was the same as before, stand down and be boarded. Unwilling to comply, Hennasohn committed the rest of the Drowned tendril fleet to battle. Casualties grew as ships perished in flame, both Drowned and Abyssii. While possessing more ships, the Abyssii now fielded two battleships to the Drowned's one. 

 

To shift the battle back in the Drowned's favor, Hennasohn ordered three strike cruisers to dive and board the second battleship, the Last Unto Dawn, from below. Although one strike cruiser perished in the defensive volleys, the other two reached their objective, rotating to present their broadsides to the Last Unto Dawn's underbelly. Although there is no true 'up' or 'down' in the void, a ship's gravity makes it difficult to assault a warship from beneath due to disorientation. The Drowned, masters of three-dimensional warfare, paid little mind to this issue as boarding pods struck. Easily shifting from one centre of gravity to another, the Space Marines quickly threatened the Last Unto Dawn's lower levels, especially the engine room. 

 

Despite the costly fight, Hennasohn could see victory favoring him. Until a new contact emerged from the Nox system. Abyssii had deployed a Mechanicum Ark, which now slowly made its way to Semotus. Easily several times larger than Hennasohn's flagship, the Glory of Summer threatened to completely undo the Drowned's gains the moment it would enter into weapon ranges. It is unknown what would have happened next for as the Ark sailed towards the conflict, that is when Gwalchavad appeared with the entire 11^th Fleet. Unaware that they faced a Primarch, the Abyssii prepared to make war on the new intruders when Gwalchavad offered to cease hostilities, surrendering himself to enforce them.

 

The brief battle with the Abyssii would be a bitter affair for the Drowned. Despite displaying superior tactics, half of Hennasohn's tendril fleet was either destroyed or crippled. Hundreds of Drowned were dead in the few hours of battle, most mangled to the point where gene-seeds were unrecoverable when their ships detonated. Finally, it would be this incident that would lead to Morro's disfigurement and self-exile. To this day, the Drowned carry a grudge against the Mechanicum Abyssii.

Edited May 31, 2017 by simison

[Talonair]

The Glory of Summer is a little bit bigger than that. This is from the Lords of Mars book, regarding the Speranza

 

 

Roboute had heard of the vessels known as Ark Mechanicus, but had dismissed tales of their continent-sized cityscapes and planetoid bulk as exaggerations, embellished legends or outright lies.

Now he knew better.

 

A passing battleship that Roboute recognised as a Dominator-class vessel sailed below the Speranza, and its length was more than eclipsed by the beam of the Ark Mechanicus.

Where the Navy’s ships tended towards wedge-shaped prows and giant cathedrals of stone carved into the craggy structure of their hulls, the Mechanicus favoured a less ostentatious approach to the design of their ships. Function, not form or glorification, was the guiding light of the ancient Mechanicus shipwrights. The colossal vessel had little symmetry, no gilded arches of lofty architecture, no processional cloisters of statuary, no vaulted, geodesic domes and no great eagle-wings or sweeping crenellations.

The Speranza was all infrastructure and industry, a hive’s worth of manufactories, refineries, crackling power plants and kilometre upon kilometre of laboratories, testing ranges, chemical vats and gene-bays arranged in as efficient a way as the ancient plans for its construction had allowed. Its engines were larger than most starships’ full mass, its individual void generators and Geller arrays large enough to shroud a frigate by themselves.

//

Roboute was about to answer when the hull shook and a groaning rumble travelled the length of Renard’s structure as they passed into the graviton envelope of the Ark Mechanicus. So colossal was the Speranza’s mass and density that it created a distorted gravity field equivalent to that of an unstable moon. To fly through such volatile space without an electromagnetic tether would be highly dangerous, though that hadn’t stopped Emil from wanting to try.

Going off the Speranza as an example, the Glory of Summer would be considerably larger than double the mass of a battleship

[simison]

Fixed.

[bluntblade]

Brainstoming.

 

- so the Forlorn... what's their combat purpose? Can they handle enemy pykers better than their muggle brethren?

- if so, psyker-heavy enemy

- the Drowned are observed to have divested their own vessels of any Army personnel, with sparsely observed but peculiar culture among their serfs. Army/Auxilia force first on scene are basically ordered out of the way

- Remembrancers kept aboard Army ships?

- if face-to-face is necessary, the Drowned come to your ship, never the other way around

[MikhalLeNoir]

Kinda strange to dedicate a unit of the drowned to psyker hunting if there are 4(3,5) legions dedicated to that task.

[bluntblade]

Well, the Galaxy is a big place. Also I'm just trying to gauge the circumstances for deploying the Forlorn

[simison]

Brainstoming.

 

- so the Forlorn... what's their combat purpose? Can they handle enemy pykers better than their muggle brethren?

- if so, psyker-heavy enemy

- the Drowned are observed to have divested their own vessels of any Army personnel, with sparsely observed but peculiar culture among their serfs. Army/Auxilia force first on scene are basically ordered out of the way

- Remembrancers kept aboard Army ships?

- if face-to-face is necessary, the Drowned come to your ship, never the other way around

 

Reading through the thread, the Forlorn appear to be the Drowned future elite, created from a base of marines 'enhanced' by Dark Eldar drugs and tech before ultimately becoming possessed by Slaaneshi daemons. 

 

As such, the canon Gal Vorbak would give you an idea of what their combat purpose is. If I had to venture a guess, a not-so-glass glass cannon. 

 

Since my thoughts are merely that this is a hint about the Forlorn, at this stage they would be purely marines attacking with DE tech. The clues about their existence would come from the 'evidence' (body parts, destruction) left behind, which would offer a clear contrast between the Drowned's typical pragmatic fighting style vs. (I would guess) the cruel barbarity that would be exhibited by the Forlorn. Maybe end the battle with an auxilia's personal log that mentioned glance at 'something horrifying'. 

 

Regarding the remembrancers, I see one of two routes. One, Morro keeps them far from his fleets. Or, two, he allows them and then feeds them to Rakarth for his experiments. 

[bluntblade]

If DE weapons are geared towards spreading suffering to others, might their large-scale use produce an echo in the Warp?

 

Thinking an SA commander petitions the Warmaster to investigate, but the Drowned prove too difficult to get hold of.

[simison]

Theoretically, but I don't think there are enough Forlorn to trigger that on a large-scale. Maybe something smaller. 

[bluntblade]

Maybe small-scale ripples.

[simison]

That works

[bluntblade]

Had some ideas about Icarion trying to dig up the archeotech beneath Madrigal, and given the masively inhospitable environs down there, how about the Drowned play a part there?