Trilogy 4 (alpha) - Escalation

[MikhalLeNoir]

Like my son.....oh dear^^

[Grifftofer]

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

But Alpharius and Omegon don't exist in the BotL universe ;)

[Kelborn]

But I got a AL, NL, WS influenced Legion AND a Primarch and an adopted close big brother. Does that count as well? ;)

[Sigismund229]

In the forces of the Blood Crusade there should be the Leonic Auxilia and Tewtonik Order as well. 

[Grifftofer]

Cool. Adding them now. Would you like to split down the Worlds of the Dominion in a different way? I figured that roughly geographically was a reasonable starting point, but I can see splitting them by type (Forge, recruitment, agricultural...) or something similar.

[MikhalLeNoir]

Is this now book 3 or 4? Cuz in the other world thread ( heresy board) sim said the blood crusade is in book 4

[Grifftofer]

I believe its now book 4. Expansion got split into two: Expansion and Emancipation, which pushed this book down the order a little.

[MikhalLeNoir]

Ahh okay. So on how many books are we now totally? 8?9?2001?

[Grifftofer]

X. Where X = X + 1 ;)

[Kelborn]

Good total number of you'd ask me.

The ten books of the BotL

[Raktra]

Ten BotLs of beer on the waaall...

[Kelborn]

More like Ten BotLs of Nerith on the wall...

[Nomus Sardauk]

More like Ten BotLs of Nerith on the wall...

Yep, and the wall was built and the bottles placed there by Niklaas to keep Daer'dd sober during tactical briefings. :D

[bluntblade]

Don't you mean Hec?

[MikhalLeNoir]

The secret nobody talks about is: BOTH

[Nomus Sardauk]

Don't you mean Hec?

Isn't Nerith a Huronian product?

[MikhalLeNoir]

 

Don't you mean Hec?

Isn't Nerith a Huronian product?

Blasphemy!!! Heresy!!! Insurrection!!!

 

This wonderful drink comes from the garbagewastes of mycenor brewed under the most terrible circumstances this alcoholic beverage burns not in the throat because of the alcohol. No it burns because the toxic ingrediants react with eacj other so that the drink is actually burning. No metaphor!!! It burns with purple fire, emmits red smoke and needs special glasses to contain it.

 

 

Tzt....huronian heritage....they serve oil!!!

Edited September 30, 2016 by MikhalLeNoir

[~Drakzilla~]

Pretty sure Grifft was making a computer science joke...

[bluntblade]

Pretty sure Grifft was making a computer science joke...

I thought he was doing algebra

[Sigismund229]

So, I have attempted to write some more of Book 3. However, what my tired brain came up with was...meh in terms of quality. To me at least it feels repetative and similar to what the early years of the Insurrection would be described like. So ideas would be welcome, unless you lot think it's fine. 

 

A wall of Iron

Following the offensive of the Eagle Warriors and the Cognis into the hinterlands of the Blood Stars within the Dominion, the Berserkers of Uran prepared to launch themselves at the Dominion’s defences once more, beginning their final offensive upon the Crimson Lion’s homeworld of Mycenae. However, where before they had faced the defenders of isolated worlds who had fallen relatively easily before the iron fist of the Blood Crusade, they now faced the Wall of Iron.

 

Following their defeat at the battle of the Gidion Rift, the Crimson Lions had been forced further and further back into the Dominion. Seeing that despite his and his legions best efforts, the Insurrectionists armada was too powerful to be halted while it was still united, Hectarion had concentrated the majority of his and his legion’s efforts upon creating a new fortified ring of worlds around Mycenae and Kanossia. The Crimson Lions had launched dozens of savage hit and run attacks since the Gidion Rift, a strategy forced upon them by their relative lack of numbers when compared to the Insurrectionists following the battle of Gidion Rift. In each of these, Crimson Lions vessels darted in among Insurrectionist formations and loosed dozens, in some cases hundreds, of boarding pods into the Insurrectionist fleet before retreating. In each of these pods was contained a squad of Crimson Lions who would burst forth as soon as their pod hit the Insurrectionist vessels and set about themselves, killing any Insurrectionist crew they encountered for as long as they were able and exacting a bloody revenge for the burning of the East March and countless other systems since as well as their defeat at the Gidion Rift.

 

However, during each of these attacks, distasteful though many of them found it, the Crimson Lions would then retreat once they had done damage and held the Insurrectionist vessels. Then they would strike again a few hours later. While the damage accomplished by these attacks was minimal (hardly any ships were destroyed and most of the losses they caused were among easily replaceable ship menials), this was not the aim of the attacks. Instead, the aim had been to delay the Insurrectionists, an aim which these attacks accomplished admirably.

 

By delaying the Insurrectionist armada whenever they could with these attacks, the Crimson Lions and Leonic Auxia bought time for the worlds in the path of the traitor advance to be evacuated of men and materiel. Many hundreds of thousands of Leonic Auxilia troops were withdrawn from worlds in this manner. While this left many worlds only lightly or, in the most extreme cases, ungarrisoned, it allowed the Crimson Lions to withdraw the trained troops from those worlds whose defence was hopeless.

 

Using these troops as well as newly raised regiments and by scraping together every man capable of fighting not already thrown into the meat grinder of the Insurrection, Hectarion garrisoned a circle of worlds surrounding Mycenae and Kanossia and then put these freshly arrived troops to work building fortifications upon the worlds on which they were stationed. Many have noted that this strategy is reminiscent of that used by the Warmaster in the opening years of the Insurrection. However, one crucial difference is that the “Iron Wall” that Hectarion created around his empire’s core systems wasn’t designed to stop the Insurrectionists. Instead it was only meant to hold them until reinforcements could be sent by the Warmaster to relieve the Dominion.

 

After several months of being left in the dark and blindly sending out messages into the aether and hoping that they would reach Terra, the defenders of the Dominion received hope in the form of a message from the IV^th legion’s primarch, Yucahu. Short and simple, it read: “Request for reinforcements received and acknowledged”. With this message to hold on to, the Crimson Lions and Leonic Auxilia awaited the Insurrectionist assault with grim determination and a burning desire for revenge. They would either hold or soak their weapons in the blood of traitors. All that they waited for was for the storm to break. 

[Generalripphook]

"Following the offensive of the Eagle Warriors and the Cognis into the hinterlands of the Blood Stars within the Dominion, the Berserkers of Uran prepared to launch themselves at the Dominion’s defences once more, beginning their final offensive upon the Crimson Lion’s homeworld of Mycenae. However, where before they had faced the defenders of isolated worlds who had fallen relatively easily before the iron fist of the Blood Crusade, they now faced the Wall of Iron."

 

Following the offensive of the Eagle Warriors and the Cognis into the hinterlands of the Dominions Blood Stars, the Bezerkers of Uran prepared to launch themselves at the Dominion’s defenses once again. Beginning with the Crimson Lion’s home world, Mycenae. The Bezerkers would break the Wall of Iron, or die trying.

 

"Following their defeat at the battle of the Gidion Rift, the Crimson Lions had been forced further and further back into the Dominion. Seeing that despite his and his legions best efforts, the Insurrectionists armada was too powerful to be halted while it was still united, Hectarion had concentrated the majority of his and his legion’s efforts upon creating a new fortified ring of worlds around Mycenae and Kanossia. The Crimson Lions had launched dozens of savage hit and run attacks since the Gidion Rift, a strategy forced upon them by their relative lack of numbers when compared to the Insurrectionists following the battle of Gidion Rift. In each of these, Crimson Lions vessels darted in among Insurrectionist formations and loosed dozens, in some cases hundreds, of boarding pods into the Insurrectionist fleet before retreating. In each of these pods was contained a squad of Crimson Lions who would burst forth as soon as their pod hit the Insurrectionist vessels and set about themselves, killing any Insurrectionist crew they encountered for as long as they were able and exacting a bloody revenge for the burning of the East March and countless other systems since as well as their defeat at the Gidion Rift."

 

In the wake of their defeat at Gidion Rift, the Crimson Lions had orchestrated a fighting withdrawal leaving planet after planet to burn in the fire of the Insurrectionist’s offensive. Recognizing that his fleet would be unable to stop the full might of the Insurrectionist’s armada   Hectarion concentrated his efforts in creating a fortified ring of worlds centered on Mycenae and Kanossia. Mobilizing the Imperial Army he set the people of the Dominion upon their own world, turning the planetscape into hard walls of rockcrete, jagged twisting lines of trenches and waiting planetary defense guns. Yet the Crimson Lions would not sit idle and wait for their fate to come to them.

 

"However, during each of these attacks, distasteful though many of them found it, the Crimson Lions would then retreat once they had done damage and held the Insurrectionist vessels. Then they would strike again a few hours later. While the damage accomplished by these attacks was minimal (hardly any ships were destroyed and most of the losses they caused were among easily replaceable ship menials), this was not the aim of the attacks. Instead, the aim had been to delay the Insurrectionists, an aim which these attacks accomplished admirably."

 

Recognizing the need to delay the Insurrectionist fleet so the Dominion could fortify and respond in kind, Hectarion set his sons upon the advancing fleets. Swallowing their noble pride the Crimson Lions loaded themselves into skeleton crewed ships and drove themselves into the heart of isolated armadas. As their ships were torn apart, the marines waited inside hundreds of boarding torpedoes for their ship to close the enormous distances. Upon their release the Crimson Lions would unleash their rage upon the hapless crews as they slaughtered their way to the bridge to wrestle away control of the bridge. With their captured ships in tow, the Crimson Lions would fade away from the site of the ambush, only to reappear hours later to strike another fleet.

[Sigismund229]

A WIP section about non CL loyalists in the Blood Crusade

 

The Blood Crusade being, in effect, an invasion of the Dominion, as can be expected it was the Crimson Lions and Leonic Auxilia along with troops from the Dominion’s vassals who bore the brunt of the fighting. However, fierce in battle though they were, the Crimson Lions were facing much of the might of two legions and lacked the numbers to mount a capable defence on every world of the Dominion. Especially in the early days of the Blood Crusade, when the Crimson Lions were still blind to what was occurring, many worlds were left undefended. Into this gap in the defence stepped the elements of other loyalist legions who had found themselves in the Dominion when the Blood Crusade began.

Most famous of these are, without a doubt, the Halycon Wardens. In many cases, they were not simply dregs of shattered forces who had found themselves washed up in the Dominion. Instead, the thousands of Halycon Wardens stationed in the Dominion had been deployed their as garrisons in the years leading up to the Insurrection by their primarch, the Warmaster. It is estimated that at the start of the Insurrection, almost 11,000 Halycon Wardens were deployed in garrisons across the Dominion and while this number had doubtless dwindled due to withdrawals to Terra, most believe it to have halved, by the time of the Blood Crusade, there was still a not insignificant Vth legion presence throughout the Blood Crusade. To these can be added Halycon Wardens who had been rerouted to the Dominion by the warp storms at the beginning of the Insurrection or had fled there as refugees from shattered garrisons of captured worlds or from fleets protecting trade convoys that had been fallen upon by the traitor legions and even veterans of the battle of the Forge. While most legion numbers provided during the Insurrection are little more than estimates, often vague estimates, formal records having been unable to keep up with the relentless flow of casualties and recruits the legions were sustaining, all together perhaps 9000 Halycon Wardens fought in the Blood Crusade.

 

 

On the forest world of Gaia in the south east of the Dominion, a force of some 700 Halycon Wardens, cobbled together from the remnants of companies shattered in the battle of the Forge, fought alongside four knights of the Tewtonik Order in a guerrilla campaign for nearly a year and half. They would stay in the forests of Graia for weeks on end, hunting the traitors who hunted them in turn beneath the forest canopy. Often, the traitors would be putting the torch to a Graian village when all of sudden a purple wave exploded from the forests, either killing them or putting them to flight. As was their custom, the Graians gave their saviours a gift of a green woollen cloak. In absence of camo cloaks, the Halycon Wardens accepted these gladly and used them as ad hoc camouflage beneath the forest canopy. However, in the melee the dense forest frequently forced them into, the Halycon Wardens lacked the savagery of the Berserkers of Uran and so paid a high price for their nobility. By the time a brotherhood of Clan Balda arrived to retake Graia, the Halycon Wardens had been reduced to just 278 brothers, the rest having given their lives for the Emperor’s people.

 

This is just one example of the Halycon Wardens’ heroism. Far more famous is, of course, their participation in the battle of Cadia. However, there are many more unsung stories of the bravery of the sons of the Warmaster, of which record is more difficult to find but were no less costly nor courageous. Indeed, by the end of the Blood Crusade, it is estimate that little over 3000 of the Halycon Wardens in the Dominion at its start remained alive.

 

 

Far less numerous were the Sheperds of Eden. To read their name on the list of those who fought in the Blood Crusade may be a surprise to those who know of the massacre of the Iron Citadel where many of the VIIth legion loyalists made their final stand. Indeed, very few Sheperds of Eden escaped the bloody revenge of their primarch on Aureus. However, none or at most very few of those Sheperds who fought in the Blood Crusade had been present on Aureus. Instead, they had been campaigning to purge the Ixiad gas cluster of the troublesome remnants of the Nephilim. A small force, numbering just 1,936 legionnaires under Captain Kalus Ekkadon at the beginning of the Insurrection, they had not been significant enough a force to merit any special attention from their erstwhile brothers of the Berserkers.

 

 

When they heard of the annihilation of their fellow Sheperds, they decided not to embark on a quest for vengeance. Instead they pledged to die in defence of the Dominion’s people, honouring their fallen brothers’ memories to the last. They kept their word and even before the Blood Crusade protected the Imperium’s people wherever they could, whether from traitor Dune Serpent raiders on Harnoth Prime or against the Warbringers supply foragers in the Iyacrax system. However, this was not without a cost and by the time of the Blood Crusade they were reduced to around 1,100 battle brothers. Yet reduced numbers or no, they continued to live by their word and not once did they abandon a world before all its inhabitants were evacuated. This heroism was to come back to haunt them however, for when Raktra heard that there were Sheperds of Uran in the Dominion he assigned three companies and a demi company of the Blood boilers to hunt them down and destroy them.

 

 

The matter finally came to a head on Iggin. A world of eternal storms and rain, it was in Iggin’s mud that the blood of the Sheperds of Eden and Berserkers of Uran would mingle for the last time. The Sheperds were defending the world’s space port, pouring fire into the onrushing Berserkers of Uran auxiliaries when finally, marching through the churned mud, came the Berserkers themselves. According to refugees who saw the confrontation as they either waited to or boarded transports to ships bound of Caerbannog, all was still for a moment as both sides paused, the silence expressing the hatred that passed between them better than any words. Then the Berserkers charged.

 

 

Sprinting through the ankle high mud faster than any would have believed possible, the Berserkers reached the hurriedly built space port battlements in mere tens of seconds yet already in that time, dozens from the front rank had been mown down by the Sheperds disciplined bolter fire. Punching into the rusted steel with their adamantium gauntlets to create handholds, the Berserkers of Uran began clambering up the battlements, the Blood boilers hurling phosphex bombs onto the battlements, burning Sheperds of Eden alive in their armour. While dozens more were gunned down, they soon began to reach the top, leaping over in vast numbers and hacking apart anything that moved with any weapon they had to hand.

 

 

With the rain pattering off their armour like so many ineffectual bullets, Sheperd and Berserkers fought tooth and claw atop the battlements. Bolters, chainblades, plasma and melta guns, combat knives, phosphex bombs, even gauntlets and sections of metal gantry, torn off to serve as a weapon, even teeth. All were used as weapons. However, no matter their skill, the Sheperds of Eden were outnumbered, badly, and outgunned and eventually were forced further and further back towards the orbital landing platforms.

During this confused and desperate fighting, first on the battlements and then in the heart of the space port, Captain Ekkadon received the dubious honour of a dedicated death squad, twenty of Riktus Innorvak’s most brutal apprentices, all rising stars within the Blood boilers. They finally cornered Captain Ekkadon when he was commanding a force of Sheperds of Eden holding off the Berserkers of Uran on landing pad 23. Charging forwards, one of them was felled by a shot from his plasma pistol and when they finally closed into close quarters, they soon isolated Ekkadon from his men. Surrounded and outnumbered he kept fighting, pulverising two’s skulls with his power fist and felling another with a heart shot from his plasma pistol before he was killed, falling to the deck of the landing pad as his life fled from him. The remaining Sheperds of Eden on landing pad 23 were wiped out to a man.

 

 

Like their brothers on Aureus before them, the Sheperds on Iggin suffered irrecoverable losses. Once the last of the refugees had fled to orbit, the remaining Sheperds of Eden formed up on their last surviving officer, Veteran Sergeant Grael Noctua. Under his command, the Sheperds effected an orderly retreat back to their remaining ships. Only 56 of the original 1,100 or so Sheperds made it to their transports and escaped and of these 8 would later die of their wounds. 

[bluntblade]

"the skulls of two", but I can get on board with this. I need to work out the trajectory of Vyrn's, these will probably be recruited by Khârn and co.

[simison]

Yeah, not sure about the Shepherds, but I appreciate the shout out to the Halcyon Wardens stationed in the Dominion.

[bluntblade]

Given that I'd suggested we have different "authors" for each blurb, here's one for Escalation:

 

Preface

Bloodshed begets bloodshed. This axiom persists through every human culture in myriad variations of phrase, its truth impossible to doubt. Yet for so long, we never understood the depth and malice of the forces to urge us to bloodshed, until finally the veil was torn away.

Through alliances once unthinkable for the Imperium and the valour of his allies, Alexandros forced the Traitors to a grinding stalemate after years of conflict. Alien weapons spilled Space Marine blood in the name of the Emperor. Perhaps it was the depth of our desperation that led us to take this as a sign for hope, or perhaps we had not yet lost enough that we couldn't see a way back from the precipice. Doubts had been sown among our enemies, and as the Imperium rearmed it was with a grim determination to strike harder and bring Icarion to heel.

What we never considered was that some among the Traitors saw an opportunity, a weakness for which Icarion must compensate with new powers. Powers that, by his own order, had hitherto been verboten. Others among his ranks strove to break free, but the puppeteers who make such sport of humanity would not be denied, and now the chance came for their malevolence to spill forth into our realm.

For this was ever at the root of Zbruch’s death-agony and the Blood Crusade visited upon Mycenae. Men who had held themselves akin to gods found themselves beholden to what passes for divinity in this cruel universe. I will tell of the enormities they committed, and the acts of desperate heroism by loyal warriors, drawing on their wisdom and cunning, or trusting to blind luck. I will describe battles born of fate and chance, immutable victories and ruinous defeats.

A Primarch once charged me to record all I saw in the footsteps of his warriors, and I follow those instructions even now. I felt the Warp-fury claw at our hulls, and saw worlds drowned in gore to unimaginable ends. I saw the dead walk on Cadia, wreathed in steel and flame. I heard the first howl of the blood-mad wolf.

I stand witness.

 

E. T.

Edited November 3, 2019 by bluntblade