Trilogy 4 (alpha) - Escalation

[Sigismund229]

The Sack of Port Sarens

While Mortax was the first of the Dominion’s major worlds to fall it was to be far from the last. The next major world upon which the insurrectionists set their sights was not a world at all. It was the vast space port of Port Sarens. Instead of being a planet, Port Sarens was a vast orbital station fixed into orbit around its sun and capable of housing many thousands of vessels of all classes, from escort vessels to enormous gloriana class battleships and the naval linchpin of the entire Eastern March. Because of this, it was among the most heavily garrisoned points in Eastern March and its defences had only been increased since the beginning of the Insurrection. While it is difficult to obtain accurate information on the full number of troops defending Port Sarens, most estimates place the number of Leonic Auxilia garrisoning it at 6 million troops and the Crimson Lions at 12,000.

 

Because of its position and the vast naval docking capabilities of Port Sarens, the insurrectionists decided that it was Port Sarens that they would use as their forward base as they advanced into the Dominion. It would house all the supplies required to keep two legions, two titan legions, hundreds of knights and millions of auxiliary troops in the field for any length of time and coordinate with subsidiary fleets before relaying the information to the primarchs so that they could coordinate every aspect of the Blood Crusade. However, in order for it to serve such a role, first it needed to be taken.

 

So it was that the main body of the insurrectionists made all haste for Port Sarens, leaving the systems surrounding Mortax to be attacked by smaller splinter fleets. Jumping straight into the warp, they made good time as the tides of the warp seemed to speed them along their path rather than impeding them as was more common for fleets to encounter. With the seeming aid of the warp, what Alexos claimed was aid from the gods who he said inhabited the warp, the insurrectionists arrived in Port Sarens barely three days after they had laid waste to Mortax, before the ships that Curadhos Nechtan to warn Port Sarens.

 

Unlike over Mortax where the insurrectionist fleet had assembled on the outskirts of the system before attacking, in their assault on Port Sarens the vessels of the insurrectionist armada simply steamed into attack straight after emerging from the warp, at their head the Hooded Guillotine, Raktra Akarro’s flagship. Unlike over Mortax, the fleet that defended Port Sarens were not in orbit. Instead they were at anchor and while they began to stir when the insurrectionist fleet tore into real space, it would not be enough. While some ships would fight, they were hideously outnumbered by the armada that descended on them and the majority would be destroyed while still at anchor, their places taken by insurrectionist vessels who began to disgorge entire companies of Berserkers of Uran and Eagle Warriors into Port Sarens.

 

All across Port Sarens as the Berserkers of Uran and Eagle Warriors began to head towards the heart of the massive space station, they began to encounter units of Leonic Auxilia armsmen. However, unlike the cohorts of Leonic Auxilia who the insurrectionists had encountered upon the surface of Mortax, those who they encountered in Port Sarens had not been equipped with las weaponry. Instead, they had been equipped with the brutal hell of boarding actions or a defensive action in Port Sarens’ admantium corridors in mind and so volkite chargers, plasma weaponry and shotguns.

 

Being as well equipped as they were, the Leonic Auxilia on Port Sarens did not allow the Berserkers of Uran or Eagle Warriors to engage them in close combat. Instead, whenever the insurrectionist legionaries drew close the Leonic Auxilia simply abandoned their positions and fought a fighting retreat, for while the Leonic Auxilia suffered heavy losses from bolter shots at range they also inflicted heavy losses on the insurrectionist boarding parties, something they could not do in close quarters. Meanwhile on the routes that led to the core functions of Port Sarens or control of the defensive weapons of Port Sarens(which were still unleashing volleys of fire at the insurrectionist armada) the Berserkers of Uran and Eagle Warriors were opposed by shield walls of Crimson Lions who engaged them in bloody close quarters combat.

 

However, the Crimson Lions and Leonic Auxilia were gradually pushed back, forced to withdraw ever further into the heart of Port Sarens. On the 2^nd hour of the 3^rd day of the assault, the Berserkers of Uran Blood Boilers took the 1^st Dock Workers residentia district of Port Sarens and just an hour later they took the 2^nd Dock Workers residentia disctrict, although here their advance was slowed by a Leonic Auxilia demolitions company burying an entire street in rubble to provide an obstacle.

 

At the beginning of the 4^th day of the battle for Port Sarens, more than 60% of it was in insurrectionist hands. On the 4^th day, the Eagle Warriors took Districtas Centrum, an area of Port Sarens known for the liveliness of its night life and where the majority of off duty naval crewmen spent their time and the Berserkers of Uran, denied the 1^st Districtas Militarum by the remnants of four Leonic Auxilia Cohorts and Brotherhood Domnal of the Crimson Lions simply flattened the district with atomic mining charges instead.

 

The insurrectionist advance was briefly held at the crossroads between the 2^nd and 3^rd Districas Militaria and the 5^th and 7^th Districtas Residentia but the loyalist resistance at this crossroads was broken by a charge of 16 Berserkers of Uran dreadnoughts and resistance in the remains of the western districts was ended by a mass deployment of phosphex weapons.

 

Eventually, the last of the Crimson Lions and Leonic Auxilia were butchered by Raktra and his Milewalkers near the control centre of the life support systems that kept the entirety of Port Sarens habitable. In total, during its conquest by the insurrectionists, 21% of Port Sarens’ districts had been reduced to nothing but flaming rubble or phosphex poisoned wasteland. However, the Port’s vast docks and supply depots remained intact, as did the Port’s defences. 

[Sigismund229]

Not entirely happy with this section. I'll probably go back and rewrite it at some point in the future, making the basic ideas in it more eloquently expressed and such. But anyway, here it is so that I can start moving Escalation forward again. 

 

The Advance on Gidion Rift

The Gidion Rift was a natural choke point that connected the Eastern March with the rest of the Dominion of Mycenae. Along most of the border of the Eastern March with the Dominion of Mycenae, warp storms were common and violent, making travel between the Dominion and the Eastern March difficult and dangerous. The only place where the warp was stable more often than it was consumed by storms was the Gidion Rift and so any force wanting to travel between the Eastern March and the main heart worlds of the Dominion needed to pass through the Gidion Rift or risk their entire fleet being destroyed by a warp storm.

 

However, while the insurrectionists had few other options other than to pass through the Gidion Rift, it was also a point where the Crimson Lions could be certain the insurrectionists would pass through. However, at the time the Crimson Lions received word of the insurrectionist advance into their territory, they were far to the south, mustering their forces to lend their aid to those of their brothers already fighting the forces of the Stormlord on the border of the Segmentum Solar. While they had immediately begun to race towards the Gidion Rift, it was entirely possible they would be unable to beat the insurrectionist armada to the Gidion Rift.

 

Knowing that they were closer to the Gidion Rift, Raktra Akarro and Alexos Travier judged that they ought to be able to pass through the Gidion Rift before the Crimson Lions arrived in sufficient force to resist them. With this aim in mind, they began to butcher their way across the Eastern March towards the Gidion Rift. Any world they encountered during this advance towards the Gidion Rift were either assaulted and their populations either massacred or taken as slaves to replace the losses in the deck menials on insurrectionist ships or among the Berserkers of Uran or Eagle Warriors auxiliary troopsor virus bombed from orbit. On those worlds that were assaulted, the finest youths of the population who survived the massacres of their family and neighbours or, better yet, resisted, were pitted against one another in mortal combat. The victors were then taken as aspirants by the Berserkers of Uran or Eagle Warriors.

 

While many of the acts committed by the Berserkers of Uran and Eagle Warriors during their advance on the Gidion Rift may appear to be unguided, unprovoked acts of horrendous violence, the actions of bloodthirsty berserkers with no objectives except to deal death, such a thing could not be further from the truth. All of these attacks or bombardments against worlds of the Dominion were part of an overarching strategy devised by Alexos Travier. The objective of this strategy was to anger the Crimson Lions and Hectarion Mycenor to the point where they would cease to consider their actions and would simply stand and fight every step of the way to Mycenae out of a desire to wreak vengeance on the insurrectionists and to protect their worlds. While this may appear noble, it would allow the insurrectionists to destroy the Crimson Lions in small pockets and gradually chip away at their numbers until finally, only a few thousand would remain to defend Mycenae.

 

One typical case of the insurrectionists pursuing this strategy was over the agri world of Ilea. Rather than assault it, they simply bombarded it from orbit with incendiary weapons, burning its forests, fields of crops and people and leaving it a world of ashes. When the Crimson Lions of Clan Karakal, whose Myrvallen was Tiarnos of the Eastern March and to whom the duty of defending Ilea would have fallen, discovered the brutal destruction wrought on the Eastern March, they swore never again to fail in the defence of a world and to never retreat in the face of the insurrectionists until they had seen the death of every last Berserker of Uran and Eagle Warrior who had taken part in the invasion of those worlds Clan Karakal had been sworn to defend.

 

These assaults also served a secondary purpose than to enrage the Crimson Lions. They also served to infuriate and anger Hectarion Mycenor, wearing down his self-control and bringing forth the bloodthirster shard left inside him by Ma’annan all those decades ago on Mycenae. Even as he guided Raktra down his path to becoming one of the chosen servants of the gods of Chaos, Alexos Travier also schemed against Hectarion, attempting to start him along a path that would lead to him being turned into a servant of the dark gods Travier served, willing or not, further strengthening Icarion’s cause.

 

Finally, the insurrectionists’ long path to the Gidion Rift, a path marked by a dozen burning worlds left in its wake, ended and they tore into real space near Gidion Rift. However, instead of immediately launching themselves back into the warp as Raktra suggested, they launched an assault upon the world of Aran at the behest of Alexos Travier.

 

Of all the worlds in the Eastern March, Aran was in all likelihood the most important after Port Sarens. Standing guard over the Gidion Rift and acting as a resupply point for forces passing through the Gidion Rift, Aran possessed a fearsome armoury of surface to orbit defences and a garrison of nearly a dozen cohorts of Leonic Auxilia and even a squadron of Knights of the Tewtonik Order. Not only this but unlike the other worlds the insurrectionists had assaulted thus far, Aran had an enormous series of bunker complexes in which its garrison could take cover from an orbital bombardment and then emerge to fight any who sought to follow up on such a bombardment.

 

So it was that when the insurrectionist fleet virus bombed the surface of Aran, the knights of the Tewtonik Order simply sealed their machines and the Leonic Auxilia took cover in the bunker complexes beneath the surface of the world. When the Berserkers of Uran and their auxiliary penal troops landed to kill any survivors, they found themselves opposed by entire cohorts of Leonic Auxilia and a squadron of knights. Like on other worlds, the Leonic Auxilia were able to do little more than delay the insurrectionist legionaries. However, unlike on other worlds the Leonic Auxilia did not to defeat the insurrectionists on their own.

 

One typical case was that of the 901^st Cohort. Amid the rubble and ash of what was once the ground docks of Aran, they fought a running battle against the Berserkers of Uran 19^th and 23^rd companies and several regiments of penal troopers. Yet instead of trying to hold ground, the 901^st withdrew quickly, drawing the Berserkers of Uran and their penal troopers into an ambush where two knights, Sir Ulrik Von Jungingen and Sir Bayard Von Vorpommen, launched a devastating attack into the Berserkers of Uran’s rear, inflicting heavy casualties on them before they were relieved by a company of Eagle Warriors heavy armour.

 

While the defenders of Aran managed to inflict heavy casualties upon the insurrectionist ground forces throught tactics such as these amid the ashes of Aran, they also accomplished a more important task: they delayed the insurrectionists. Every day the insurrectionists were tied down on Aran was another day they gave Hectarion and his Crimson Lions to arrive at the Gidion Rift and make a stand. However, the insurrectionists were not blind to this reality. As the seventh day of battle on Aran came to a close, Alexos Travier and Raktra began to order all legion elements to withdraw from the world, leaving the penal troops and Eagle Warriors slave auxilia to pin the defenders in place so that they could then be bombarded again from orbit. However, seeing the legionaries begin to withdraw, the defenders of Aran launched an offensive that forced several companies and Raktra himself to turn and fight and as they did so a new fleet began to tear its way into real space.

 

The Crimson Lions had arrived. 

[Sigismund229]

The Lions Unleashed

Seeing this new fleet, the vast traitor armada, under the command of Alexos Travier, turned to face them and deny an orbital assault against the traitor elements already landed on Aran. However, the fleet that was heading towards them would be anything but easy to contain. While it was smaller than their own armada, it held within it 75,000 Crimson Lions, all eager for battle and hungry for vengeance against those who had slain their brothers and murdered their worlds. And it wasn't just the Crimson Lions fleet. There were also many vessels of the Leonic Auxilia carrying bionic enhanced armsmen cohorts.

 

When the two fleets came together, it was the beginning of the largest orbital engagement of the Insurrection so far. While the traitors opened fire at maximum range and were answered by the Leonic Auxilia vessels, the Crimson Lions held fire, instead diverting all power to their front void shields. This was maintained until they were in amongst the traitor fleet, when they opened up with a salvo of boarding torpedoes and fire from their plasma batteries. Each of the boarding torpedoes slammed home into a traitor vessel and disgorged its payload of Crimson Lions who stormed onto the traitor vessels and began to fight their way towards the bridge or enginarium, bringing with them the vengeance of the Lions. In an arrowhead formation, the Crimson Lions ships carved a path into the traitor fleet, with those at the tip heading straight for the Godess of Tears and Red Comet, the twin flagships of the Eagle Warriors.

 

The first ship to reach the two Eagle Warriors flagships was the Crimson Lions flagship, the Lupa Sanguis. However, the boarding pods it loosed did not contain ordinary legionaries. They contained Hectarion Mycenor, primarch of the Crimson Lions, as well as the Improdoi terminators and elite legionaries of Clan Mycenor. Hand-picked from the finest warriors of the Clans, the legionaries of Clan Mycenor were the most skilled fighters their legion had to offer while the Improdoi were terminator specialists, chosen for their skill at using terminator armour and led by Gathos, one of the most brutal warriors Mycenae had to give. The larger boarding party, that led by Hectarion in person, slammed into the Goddess of Tears, Travier’s favoured command ship, while another boarding party led by Gathos of the Improdoi fought their way through the Red Comet.

 

All around them, a similar scene was repeated as boarding parties of Crimson Lions charged into traitor vessels even as their own ships opened up with volley after volley from their plasma batteries. Once on board, the Crimson Lions hacked their way through any resistance they found, letting their swords and axes taste the blood of traitors as they broke bones by punching their shields into the enemy.

 

As his sons wrought their vengeance on the insurrectionist fleet, Hectarion and his Myramodons fought their way through the winding passages of the Goddess of Tears. The Eagle Warriors that they fought in those metal passages were not ordinary warriors, instead they were fanatical zealots of the gods and the cyborgs of the Corpora Ferro. The zealots fought like suicidal madmen, happy and eager to die for their gods, while the Corpora Ferro fought with mechanical precision. However, against the wrath of a primarch and his chosen warriors they stood no chance of victory and gradually Hectarion and his Myramodons fought their way through to the bridge of the Goddess of Tears.

 

However, when they reached the bridge, Hectarion and the Myramodons did not find Alexos Travier and the usual bustling bridge of a starship. Instead, they found a charnel house. There were few recognizable human bodies, just limbs scattered across the bridge. However, at the centre of this charnel house was the command throne upon which the captain of a vessel would normally be seated. On there was placed the head of Curadhos Nechtan, commander of the garrison of Mortax. However, the desecration of his body did not end here. His head had had its eyes removed and tongue pulled out. To the Crimson Lions, among whom such a high premium is placed on the respect of a dead warrior, this desecration of a fallen warrior’s body was an insult for which Travier must pay with his blood. However, as Hectarion and his Myramodons took in the scale of the butchery that had been wrought on the bridge and the disrespect that had been heaped on Curadhos Nechtan, a psychic ghost of Travier appeared on the bridge. With the cold smile of a murderer, he uttered a single sentence: “Time’s up”, before vanishing like smoke on the wind.

 

Once Travier had spoken those words, the bridge around Hectarion and his Myramodons exploded as explosives hidden within the metal of the bridge’s walls detonated. Hectarion was badly wounded by the blasts but the true damage was done to his Myramodons, of whom many were killed or so badly injured that they had to be given the Emperor’s peace.

 

As the bridge of the Goddess of Tears exploded around Hectarion,  the void of the Gidion Rift exploded with traitor vessels, as small traitor ships burst out from their positions at the flanks of the armada and tore into the Crimson Lion and Leonic Auxilia ships. Travier had exploited the Crimson Lion's desire for vengeance and drawn them into the centre of his armada where he had placed all of his large vessels. Seeing this as the heart of the enemy fleet, the Crimson Lions had charged into it as was their wont, launching themselves into the fiercest fighting. However, in doing so they had allowed themselves to become strung out, the need for vengeance that burned in their hearts overshadowing their strategic sense. Now, the insurrectionist’s light ships were able to attack single vessels rather than a united fleet and so the Crimson Lions ships began to die, bleeding to death from a thousand cuts and those who didn't found themselves fighting for their lives.

 

Seeing that he and his sons had been led into a trap, Hectarion was forced to growl an order to retreat to all his forces. The Crimson Lions across the fleet began to fight their way off of the ships they had boarded, fueled by a bitter anger at how Travier had tricked them where before they had been driven by a desire for revenge. Those who were too deep into enemy ships to fight their way off locked shields and prepared to sell their lives dearly or continued fighting their way towards the enginarium of the vessels they were on, wishing to inflict as much pain upon the traitors with their dying breath as they could.

 

With the traitors holding the upper hand, they now went on the offensive and many Eagle Warriors and Berserkers of Uran boarded vessels of the Crimson Lions. This led to many acts of heroism and madness such as Alauros Fereis of the Leighai on board the Void Queen. Rallying a force of wounded Crimson Lions from the apothacerion and unleashing those of the Cursed who remained onboard the Void Queen in stassis, he launched a desperate counter offensive against the Eagle Warriors who had boarded his ship and he and his ad hoc assault force fought long and fiercely enough to annihilate the boarding party, even at the cost of their own lives.

 

In another instance, when traitors boarded the Lupa Sanguis, the defences were led by Ancient Ærrion and the other dreadnoughts on board the vessel. Ærrion himself led a unit of Leonic Auxilia armsmen and they protected his flanks as he tore through traitors and they would eventually drive all the traitors off of their flagship, but not before four of the ersa laoch had fallen.

 

Regrouping and fighting with bitter anger, the Crimson Lions began to retreat, the Lupa Sanguis and the flagships of Clan Darran and Garda providing the rearguard as the Crimson Lions began to fight their way free of the trap. Even as their brothers retreated, many units of Crimson Lions reached the enginariums of traitor vessels and set melta bombs in key points on the engines meaning that when the melta bombs exploded, they took the ship with them.. However, such victories could not change the overall outcome of the battle. When the last of the Crimson Lion vessels translated into the warp, they left behind them the shattered husks of many of their ships.

 

Floating through the void above the Gidion Rift were the rapidly freezing bodies of 48,000 Crimson Lions, nearly half the entire force present at the Gidion Rift and the hulks of as much as 46% of the fleet that was present. However, while a great victory for the traitors, it was not costless. Many vessels had been destroyed by the Crimson Lions, among them the Goddess of Tears, one of Travier’s command vessels, destroyed by the Lupa Sanguis to avenge the loss of so many of of Hectarion’s Myramodons on its bridge. Alongside the Lions drifted 29,000 Eagle Warriors and Berserkers of Uran and more had died in the fires of their ships engines exploding, bringing total traitor losses to 34,000 astartes and countless millions of Cultists and Penal troopers.

 

However, when the largest orbital engagement of the Insurrection so far was concluded, it was the Crimson Lions who had been forced to retreat. The way into the heart of the Dominion lay open. 

Edited September 9, 2016 by Sigismund229

[Sigismund229]

Stalemate

It was like this that the grand game of regicide ended: a bitter stalemate. The Stormlord was unable to break through the Imperial defences but the forces of the Emperor were unable to retake ground that they had lost. However, with the breathing room that the cessation of the Stormborn's assault had bought them, the Imperial forces could count the cost, not just in men but territory. The Imperium had almost been split in two, with only a small corridor in the galactic south remaining to connect Terra to those Imperial holdings that held on in the east. While much of the western Imperium remained in the hands of those loyal to the Imperium, the regions around the Maelstrom and in the north west, bordering the Ghoul Stars, had been lost and could not be recovered any time soon with the forces at the Imperium's disposal. Along the border with Icarion's domain, hundreds of worlds burned, rendering them useless to the Imperium, ravaged by war. In addition to the number of planets ravaged by war or capture by the Stormlord, the Imperium had also lost vast numbers of Imperial Army troopers and legionaries to the Stormlord’s armies. These were not fresh recruits who could be easily replaced, but veterans of the Great Crusade and legionaries of decades experience.  Yes, the Stormborn's forces had been stopped but it had been a small victory bought at incalculable cost.

 

Yet just as the Imperium had been almost bled white, the Stormlord had suffered a reversal, the first in his campaign to oust the Emperor. Many worlds had joined him out of desire for survival as the Imperium had been unable to defend them and they did not wish to be destroyed by the Stormborn's armies. Now those worlds would be reconsidering their position and wondering whether they were on the right side while even world's whose loyalty to Icarion was unquestionable were beginning to become uneasy with the length and cost of the war that, despite all his efforts, Icarion was seemingly unable to win through martial might alone. Even among the legions who had followed Icarion since the Day of Revelation, there was beginning to be dissention. With their initial goals within reach, Icarion's brothers who had chosen to follow him were beginning to fall to dispute. They had been united in their desire to overthrow the Emperor by a myriad of reasons. Now, those reasons came to the fore and the primarchs who followed Icarion began to argue over what to do with the empire they had. Icarion needed a victory, a victory with tangible benefits, to reunite his followers behind him for a final push on Terra.

 

However, with the deadlock between the two empires such a victory was proving elusive. As with so many emperors before him, Icarion's needs exceeded his means. It was then, as he sought to gather a force capable of punching through the Warmaster's defences and taking Terra without exposing himself on another front that Icarion was approached by Alexos Travier.

 

Travier told Icarion of the Aztekis gods, gods of the Warp, and how they were willing to grant him their aid in his battle against the Emperor. While Icarion humoured his brother, he was cautious as he had seen many men's wills overcome by the Warp and was determined not to make the same mistake and so while he listened was reluctant to accept any aid from the Warp. However, Alexos Travier told Icarion that the gods were willing to grant one of Icarion's subordinates and his legion a fragment of the power they would grant Icarion if he accepted their aid, as a gesture of good faith. All that needed to happen was that this subordinate pass into the Eye of Terror after wreaking incalculable bloodshed on the forces of the Emperor as a blood sacrifice to the gods.

 

Seeing the advantage that he would gain through such support, Icarion saw that it may just be enough to tip the scales in his favour in his battle to reach Terra. Yet he also saw that the gods’ needs and his coincided. They required blood sacrifice, he needed a great victory. Both could be provided if the Eagle Warriors and Berserkers of Uran were to destroy the Crimson Lions legion as a sacrifice. Such an enormous victory would provide the blood sacrifice, cement Icarion’s loosening grasp on his empire and destabilize the Imperium’s northern flank. It was an opportunity and one the Stormlord intended to seize with both hands.

[MikhalLeNoir]

 

Seeing that he and his sons had been led into a trap, Hectarion was forced to growl an order to retreat to all forces, leaving Alexos Travier bleeding and laughing on the bridge. The Crimson Lions across the fleet began to fight their way off of the ships they had boarded, fuelled by a bitter anger at how Travier had tricked them where before they had been driven by a desire for revenge. Those who were too deep into enemy ships to fight their way off locked shields and prepared to sell their lives dearly or continued fighting their way towards the enginarium of the vessels they were on, wishing to inflict as much pain upon the traitors with their dying breath as they could.

Huh? First sentence must be a relict of old

[Sigismund229]

Oh yeah. It shall be deleted.

 

Is the rest of it ok from a narrative point of view?

[MikhalLeNoir]

Yup

I think so. But. You repeat yourself a few times. The biggest orbital battle in the insurrection appears twice. And the growing frustration in hec is missing as he was hurt by the explosions and then? Maybe add a sentence

By zhe way. Could you maybe semd me the warden stories yoi wrote. Have an idea to connect them all. Can i add a few sentences?( i want to have a table of wardens judge over kailans misbehavior and habe them argue amd then let Gwal appear for the first time in years)

[Sigismund229]

When I'm next on my computer I'll send them to you

[MikhalLeNoir]

Yay. Thx a lot

[Sigismund229]

Framework for Part 4 of Escalation.

 

Part 4: On Bloody Tides

Chapter 1- The Eagle Warriors and Berserkers of Uran split up. The 'Serkers are heading towards Mycenae, the Eagle Warriors to Kanossia.

Chapter 2- Fall of the Carolis Sector

The Eagle Warriors attack a sector. Instead of launching a ground assault they simply bombard the system's star until it goes supernova. They then go down to the worlds and pick up any survivors as slaves.

Chapter 3- The Bloody Trail

Raktra and the 'Serkers rampage through a system using chainaxes , brutality and a lot of phosphex.

Chapter 4- name needed

The 'Serkers and Cognis attack a world they think has ancient tech in its catacombs.

Chapter 5-name needed

The 'Serkers attack a knight world of the Tewtonik Order.

Chapter 6- Siege of Askusia Tertius

The EW and Cognis attack a world of the Blood Stars Mechanicum, Askusia Tertius. Focuses a lot of mechanicum vs dark mechanicum with CL vs EW in the background.

[Sigismund229]

Introduction to Part 4

 

Following the Insurrectionist defeat of the Crimson Lions at the battle of Gidion Rift, the way into the core systems of the Dominion lay open to the Insurrectionists. However, rather than continuing to launch their attacks as one massive armada as they had done in the Eastern March, Alexos Travier and Raktra Akarro split their fleet into many smaller splinter fleets. These fleets would disperse themselves across the Dominion and inflict as much destruction and suffering as possible while the two fleets that were led by Raktra Akarro and Alexos Travier would carve their own bloody paths towards Mycenae and Kanossia respectively, slaughtering and burning their way through any systems they came across as they did so.

 

While this could be looked upon as a concerted military effort to weaken the Dominion and force the Crimson Lions to spread their forces over every world they ruled over, there is little evidence that this was the case. Instead, the goal seems to have been to inflict as much suffering as possible in order to both goad the Crimson Lions and send the howls of the dying reverberating through the Warp, sacrificing entire worlds and systems to the Dark Gods that reside there. If one can imagine the Warp as a song, the suffering of every man, woman or child who was butchered by the Berserkers of Uran and Eagle Warrior was to serve as a note with the song gradually rising towards the final crescendo, which was to be Raktra’s entry into the Eye of Terror after Mycenae and Kanossia were destroyed.

 

However, just as the Berserkers of Uran and Eagle Warriors had made their plans, the Crimson Lions were beginning to make theirs. They had been defeated at Gidion Rift but defeat had only served to harden their resolve, they would either triumph and have vengeance for the dead or be destroyed amidst the flaming ruins of their realm. However, even as they began to make their preparations for the coming attack, they had sent word to the Warmaster and Hectarion’s brother primarchs of the Insurrectionist attack on the Dominion. The Warmaster had immediately order that the Imperial legions were to attempt to disengage from their present campaigns and add their strength to that of the Crimson Lions in defending the Dominion and the Imperium’s northern flank.  

 

However, the Imperial legions remained mired in blood as they fought the legions the Stormlord had sent against them. The Crimson Lions would need to either weather the storm on their own or be destroyed by it. Led by Raktra Akarro and Alexos Travier, the Berserkers of Uran and Eagle Warriors would set dozens of worlds ablaze with the fires of war and drown the Dominion in blood. 

Edited September 9, 2016 by Sigismund229

[Raktra]

I feel like an absolute jackass for not realising this thread had been started. I'll get myself caught up.

[Nomus Sardauk]

Pfft, typical Raktra, late to his own Ascension. ;) :p

[Raktra]

I WAS POOPIN'.

[Sigismund229]

First chapter of Part 4. Probably going to replace the Introduction or get combined with it as it does a better job of it and outlines the insurrectionist strategy better. 

 

The Bloody Trail

With the fall of the Eastern March, the Berserkers of Uran were able to begin hacking and carving their way into the Dominion, free of the constraints that had been imposed upon them by operating alongside another legion. Their ultimate objective was the Crimson Lions home world of Mycenae, which they had been given orders by the Stormlord to raze to the ground before venturing into the Eye of Terror, just as the Eagle Warriors had been ordered to raze Kanossia.  If both legions succeeded in these objectives, then they would have crippled both the Crimson Lions and the Dominion. Even if Alexos Travier did not succeed in turning Hectarion to the Stormlord’s cause (willingly or not), then the Crimson Lions would be left a legion that was doomed to a slow death of attrition without the steady supply of recruits from its home world if they didn’t perish in its defence.

 

Unlike the Eagle Warriors, who operated under the divine guidance of the gods, whose will was expressed through their priests within the Eagle Warriors legion, the Berserkers of Uran were practical in their approach to war. Find the fastest way to defeat or disable your enemy, exploit his weakness and then move on. These differences in the two legions methods of war were reflected in the rate and method of their advance. Where the Eagle Warriors advanced relatively slowly, leaving behind a series of world’s that had been ritually butchered and the survivors enslaved. By contrast, the Berserkers of Uran advanced as quickly as possible, leaving behind ruined worlds whose earth burned with the fire of phosphex grenades and whose population had been massacred with armoured fists and knees. Such methods were brutally practical. With their increasing distance from steady supply lines, the Berserkers of Uran began to conserve ammunition by killing with their fists or combat knives rather than their bolters, saving their bolter ammunition for combat with the Crimson Lions.

 

Advancing at speed, the Berserkers of Uran soon overran half a dozen of the systems that lay between them and Mycenae. Rather than using complex stratagems, they simply bulldozed their way through resistance that they found between them and their objective, barely having smashed through one system before moving on to the next. However, while their advance left the Crimson Lions and the Leonic Auxilia reeling and gave them little time to prepare defences or respond, the ruthless pace that Raktra and his legion were setting was beginning to cost them in blood. After they had powered through four systems, the strength of their main force had dropped from 70,000 Berserkers of Uran to 57,000, not to mention the millions upon millions of unaugmented troops they had lost.

 

Because of this, while the Berserkers of Uran’s main objective was still to raze Mycenae, they also began to launch assaults upon hive and feral worlds in preference of worlds that were more strategically important to the Dominion’s survival. They did so in order to boost their own numbers, assaulting the world not for its strategic value but for the humans on it. Once they had defeated the world’s defenders, they would take every youth they could find who was even remotely capable of being made one of the Berserkers of Uran. They then forced these youths to duel each other in fights to the death that were watched by crowds of Berserkers of Uran who jeered at the weakness of the loser as they gauged the quality of the aspirants. Those who triumphed in their duels were transformed into Berserkers of Uran to replace the losses incurred by the Berserkers as they pushed further into the Dominion. It is rumoured that the Berserkers of Uran, through the use of forbidden technology, managed to cut the time taken to transform these unwilling aspirants into legionaries to just a few months although the speed of their ascension often seems to have caused mental instability.

 

In addition to the Berserkers of Uran and Eagle Warriors offensives towards the heart of the Dominion, there were also elements of the Stygian Jackals operating within the Dominion. Unlike the main body of the Blood Crusade, the Stygian Jackals did not attack any worlds. Instead, their activities were confined to raiding supply ships that were coming into and refugee ships that were coming out of the Dominion. As the Berserkers of Uran and Eagle Warriors went to cut off the Domminion’s head, the Stygian Jackals slowly closed their jaws around its throat, attempting to strangle it of supplies from outside its borders. 

[Grifftofer]

Ok. So I'd like to discuss the Contents of this book. Specifically how do you see the Chapters/sections breaking down? I'm thinking of trying to get started on the file for this and would like to see how the whole fits together before I start to piece the written bits together.

[Sigismund229]

Ok. So I'd like to discuss the Contents of this book. Specifically how do you see the Chapters/sections breaking down? I'm thinking of trying to get started on the file for this and would like to see how the whole fits together before I start to piece the written bits together.

It breaks down into 9 Parts. The length of each Part depends on the Part but the basic "frame" is 6 per Part of 1000 words(give or take) each

[Grifftofer]

Do we have titles for these parts yet? Are the 9 Parts all covering the fluff or are some of them for the rules sections too?

[Sigismund229]

Do we have titles for these parts yet? Are the 9 Parts all covering the fluff or are some of them for the rules sections too?

Not for most of them. All the titles we have are on page 1. 

 

They only cover fluff, not factored rules in yet

[Grifftofer]

Ok. I'll start thinking about it and post a Contents page once I have one for people to critique.

[Sigismund229]

The Flames of War

As the Insurrectionists drew ever further away from their forward supply base at Port Sarens, they rapidly began to encounter supply difficulties of the kind that the legions had become used to during the long years of fratricidal war of the Inurrection. In the largest invasion fleets, the Insurrectionists began to run low on supplies of ammunition and even chainblade teeth and while their supplies ought to have been adequate for months more, the ferocious pace being set by Raktra Akarro and Alexos Travier meant that the Insurrectionists were burning through their supplies incredibly quickly. While these supplies could be made up through scavenging to some degree, this was just a temporary solution and the Insurrectionist forces were ever teetering on the brink of running out of these supplies.

 

Seeing that these difficulties could stall their campaign, Travier and Raktra decided that while Raktra's fleet would continue its rapid advance towards th Crimson Lions homeworld of Mycenae, the Eagle Warriors would make an alteration to their advance. Instead of simply carving a path straight for Kanossia as they had originally intended, the Eagle Warriors would alter their course and instead invade the Blood Stars before resuming their advance on Kanossia.

 

The Blood Stars were a collection of Forge and Hive worlds within the Dominion. They were also an Adeptus Mechanicus fief which was subserviant both to the Crimson Lions and to Mars(an arrangement brokered by Alexandros Darshan von Salim in the days before his appointment as Warmaster). As the most heavily industrialised section of the Dominion, almost all of the equipment used by the Crimson Lions and Leonic Auxilia was manufactured in the Blood Stars, with four of the Blood Star's seven forge worlds given over entirely to the production of Legion equipment.

 

It was this that drew the Insurrectionists to the Blood Stars. However, the enormous amount of legion equipment produced on these words was not the only reason for the Insurrectionist invasion. In addition to legion equipment, it was whispered among the tech priests of the Cognis that in the bowels of the Eternal Fortress on Askusia Tertius, capital of the Blood Stars, there lay relics from the dark age of technology, possibly even STC fragments that the tech priests of the Blood Stars had greedily kept for themselves. Where the Eagle Warriors were drawn by the lure of the massive industrial output of the Blood Stars, the Cognis were drawn to the rumours of technological relics like moths to a flame.

 

So it was that as the Eagle Warriors struck the Blood Stars, they would be accompanied by the largest concentration of Cognis war machines and troops so far in the Blood Crusade.

 

However, while this massive force of Insurrectionist might struck at the Blood Stars, led by Travier, the Berserkers of Uran led by Raktra continued their assault towards Mycenae, the relentless meat grinder offensive which had consumed so many of them and their accompanying auxiliary troops as Raktra drove them on at almost impossible speeds. One example of the kind of speed Raktra drove his troops to was the attack on the Carolis Sector.

 

Consisting of 7 fully fledged worlds, the Carolis sector was an important supplier of foodstuffs to the Leonic Auxilia. Almost all of its population worked on farms or synth farms to produce the food needed to feed the vast armies and fleets of the Dominion. However, it lay in the path of the Berserkers of Uran as they battled towards Mycenae and so it was doomed to destruction. It had only one Crimson Lion garrison of any size and most of its Leonic Auxilia garrissons were small, although still large compared to the size they had been prior to the Blood Crusade. The Berserkers of Uran fell on the system with a ferocity that these green worlds had never seen before or expected to see.

 

Led by Raktra Akarro, the Berserkers of Uran smashed their way out of the warp and immediately launched assaults against every world in the sector. While the assault forces were often no stronger than a few thousand legionaries, prior to the Insurrection such forces had been deemed capable of wiping out entire civilizations. Now, that kind of might was being unleashed upon worlds. The sector's defences fell in short order, the various battles for control of entire worlds being concluded within 37 hours and with two thousand VII^th legion casualties. After a week, the Berserkers of Uran retranslated into the warp, leaving behind a series of worlds that were desolate and burning, wrecked.

 

While the fall of Carolis sector is an extreme example, many of the Berserker's assaults were conducted with incredible speed and ferocity. However, as the Eagle Warriors invaded the Blood Stars, the Berserkers of Uran reached the outer core worlds of the Dominion, a series of worlds and sectors known as the Iron Rim. Here the Crimson Lions and Leonic Auxilia would turn and make a stand.

[Grifftofer]

Ok. So this took a fair bit longer than I intended. Sorry for that.

http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn171/Grifftofer/Book4-Contents_zpsfe6ofiep.png

 

I hadn't noticed that you'd come up with a title for what I called "The Fire Rages". It has been updated to "On Bloody Tides" in the file. How do you think the breakdown looks? Any alterations you'd like to see?

[Kelborn]

Oh...seems like I have to work on Harkon again. ^^

 

Will do so after I've done some brainstorm / bits for my Watch Fortress within my Dominion project. Currently got a DW / Genestealer kick. ;)

[MikhalLeNoir]

@kel: focus focus focus^^

[Kelborn]

My star sign is twin. New and cool stuff attracts my attention, ;)