[DW:30K] The Serpent's Cowl (IC)

[Mazer Rackham]

+ A DEATHWATCH 30,000 ROLEPLAYING CAMPAIGN +

+ THE HORUS HERESY +

 

++] THE SERPENT'S COWL [++

 

"War is the crucible in which we burn. In the fires of battle is the past consumed and the future born on tongues of flame.

No greater fire has there been in our times than the three bloody hours of the Drop Site Massacre."

 

— Malcador the Sigillite, Regent of Terra

 

 

LOCSIT: 235014-336629

DROPZONE: URGALL DEPRESSION

STATUS: ....

 

The confusion did not last long. Legion communications plied the frequencies for medical assistance, covering fire, safe harbour to re-arm and regroup, but there was only silence, the terrible disquiet of open channels with no-one speaking through them. It was not until the Bolters spat and Lascannons blazed that anyone knew the treachery had poisoned not only those at the front, but they who dwelled behind, reinforcements not for the Emperor, but to close the jaws of the trap the Warmaster laid.

 

Horus Lupercal, the best and brightest, now with the might of several Space Marine Legions, seeks to crush the remaining resistance, to reign supreme over a battlefield of betrayal and bloodshed, with eyes lifted to the darkness, spearing the blanket, black veil which hid Terra, the seat of his father's, his enemy's power. Dark dreams of conquest begin to knit in his breast, a labyrinth of hatred and resentment, the High Prince of the Legiones Astartes, the Warmaster, the Champion now, not of humanity, but Chaos, whether he feels the bridle of thorns or not. Irrelevant.

 

All that he must do is to destroy the hounds the Emperor has sent - all of them, here, now.

 

He must command the greatest fratricide the human galaxy has ever seen, plunging in back into an age of darkness.

 

The Southern Foothills, IMPERIAL OPERATION +2 HRS:

 

With battle all around, a small Imperial Army unit are embedded in hasty defensive positions. At the centre of their pocket, which is slowly being encircled, a Legio Cybernetica Inducted Maniple of the XVIII Legion fights. Their firepower harries the traitors, massacring the deluded and debauched that are hurled at them, yet their position is not only desperate, but is also a draw to friend and foe alike. It is a rallying point for anyone who is trying to stay alive in the utter chaos.

 

To the left of this 'centre' is Legio Atarus. Warhorns and weapons of annihilation blaring, they duel with the traitor War Engines in a dance of death, pulverising boulders, broken tanks and any infantry stupid or unlucky enough to tear at each other in their shadow. To the right, the Word Bearers press into wounds cut by pockets of Worldeaters. Salamanders Astartes fight from cover, and cleanse the area around them with flame, plasma and melta wash, but although it thins the tide, it fails to stem it.

 

Isolated, cut-off from your respective Legions, the open ground lies between you and the Imperial Army, and the best chance of regrouping with any Loyalists at all. As you look on, anti-material weapons cut the Maniple to pieces, and sorely damage the last unit standing. It stands there, in defiance alone, as the Legio-controller is turned into chunks of smouldering meat.

 

When the thread opens, please use your first post to describe your immediate situation, any observations your character may make, and their general intentions. Obviously, this is a one-shot loosely on rails, so use the Imperial Army post as the focus to bring your 'squad' together. Feel free to add any narratively interesting fighting, obviously bear in mind the types of opposition you must face (no God Mode running through World Eaters etc), but go ahead and add any action you want.

 

+ Players may post at will +

 

Edited December 13, 2023 by Mazer Rackham

[Trokair]

Tyr-Ix-375

 

Tyr-Ix-375 was kneeling in the aggregate of sand and oil and blood, the mud of warfare. A hardened servitor serf of the Uncles was scrambling up its side to reload the ammunition hopper of the primary armament. Even without shells to fire the Mauler Cannon swung left and right, the targeting mechanism scanning the battlefield and feeding the information to the siblings and the Kind Uncle.

 

At first it had thought that there was a malfunction in the FoF routines, but the Kind Uncle had assured it and its siblings that it was functional. The reinforcements that the battle script indicated  was now overdue, in its place more foes had arrived and encircled the Uncles and other elements of this host.

 

This did not change the primary mission of the battle script. Though it and Tyr-Orobo-42 privately discoursed and wondered if the mission was untenable. They did not raise it with the other siblings, they would not understand, their minds still to adherent to the core script.

 

 Nor did they message the Kind Uncle; they had both seen his demeanour, and that of the other Uncles. The emotion context module script indicated that the Uncles knew that the battle script was wrong, and yet they continued to fight, and so would it and the siblings.

 

The maniple targeting relay was tagging foes for its attention once the reload was complete when the maniple net broke. It takes it many seconds to react. Core script tries to cut in at the loss of the Kind Uncle, to drive it on to continue with the last order. It fought the core into somnolence again.

The battle script was now not functional, with its siblings gone, their husks on the ground without thoughts. Adhering to the script would leave it open.

 

It forged a new script, short, crude, simple. The essence of the previous one, hold this hill. It would not be as efficient in eliminating foes, but it could now let the targeting script take a full 360 read before allocating targets, trading reaction time for coverage.

 

Tyr-Ix-375 stood, primary armament aligning as required.  Much computation was needed now to run FoF routines and tag foes for attention. Others of the Host were flocking to the hill; it had to take care not to damage them by mistake.

 

 

Tyr-Ix-375 stands, this Hill all that mattered. It will Hold.

[Necronaut]

Toren Ekara:

 

Toren was the last of the Mor Deythan from the 66th Company, of that he was certain. The accursed Night Lords had bombarded their position with phosphex ordinance, dropped by one of their screaming attack craft, and it was only by some miracle that he had emerged unscathed save for the loss of his sidearm and cameleoline cloak, whereas his subordinates, his brothers, had all perished horribly: burning to death in a matter of minutes, suffocating on the fumes from their own burning flesh as it boiled and charred within their melting armour. As he fled, shrapnel from a high explosive shell fired from an Iron Warriors emplacement had compromised the telescopic sights on his long rifle. He tore it free from the Whisper's upper rail and cast it aside in disgust, the cracked lenses reflecting his retreating form in triplicate amongst the wreckage and ruin. 

 

The call to flee, to retreat had come from high command: an order from the Primarch himself, but still he persisted, still he moved amongst the screed and detritus and mounds of corpses on the black sands of the Urgall Depression, searching in vain either for other survivors or traitorous filth upon whom he could vent the burning, seething hatred that now gripped him. To think that the Warmaster had masterminded such a perfidious trap, unleashing a further four legions upon the loyalist forces who had come to bring the deranged Lord Lupercal to justice. Four legions who had been loyalist reserve forces!  He had never known a hatred so pure and focused in all of his long decades serving the Emperor and his Primarch. He had never truly detested the xenos species he had been ordered to exterminate, nor the wayward human populations he had brought into Imperial Compliance – it had merely been his duty, a matter of course that they should be obliterated or subjugated to the Emperor's Will.

 

This, however, was different. This betrayal was beyond madness. It served no purpose save to elevate Horus, that bastard, above the Emperor in his own twisted vision and that of his recidivist co-conspirators. He would see to it that these traitorous dogs suffered for their crimes. How he hated them! His hands clenched and opened in wordless fury as he traversed the sands of a wasteland as black as his sable mantle.

 

Toren was a shadow, a vengeful spirit on the killing fields, striking in the most dishonorable and opportunistic fashion possible whenever opportunities presented themselves, for there was no honor, no glory to be found in this wanton butchery and carnage. If they wanted to play at cold-blooded murder then he would gladly indulge them. Those traitor legionaries he slew from afar, he took special care to obliterate and defile their gene-seed with a well-placed shot from Whisper before disappearing again, while those he encountered alone and isolated in the depths of their depravity, he slit their throats, gouged out their eyes and genetic legacy with his quick-razor and feasted upon their diseased grey-matter, learning what he could about their positions, strengths and operations before moving on in search of other prey. In time he had scratched seven grim tally marks into the side of Whisper's jet casing.

 

As the day progressed and he continued to ignore the incessant orders from the remaining XIX command echelon to withdraw, he spied a fortified XVIII legion position doing battle with traitor elements. He saw his cousins in emerald-and-black incinerating their foes with implacable fury, but slowly being fed into the meat-grinder presented by the combined World Eaters and Word Bearers advance. If he could get closer and link up with the surviving Imperial Army elements below his vantage point, he might be able to help stem the tide, to buy his cousins time to make an organized withdrawal to a more defensible position…

 

Edited December 13, 2023 by Necronaut
Formatting & typos

[Xin Ceithan]

Sharrak Scorn

Praevian, Clan Ungarvarr, Xth Legiones Astartes
 

 

Sparks flew as the chain axe  narrowly missed his head by a fraction. It was still  close enough for the teeth edges  to grind along the curve of MK III helmet’s surface.
Yet the  weapon’s  angry roar barely registered  over the  rolling maelstrom  around them. The  blurred shape of mottled white and blue of the attacker  tore  through the deluge in its wake like some marine predator breaking  from the surf. The rain was all around them, unrelenting, deep black and oily. Fist sized hail punched through rolling cloud banks made from black sand and pulverised armor, streaked with strands of  alchemical residue. It  was already beginning to  eat its way through the   osmotic filters . 

The noise about them was total, constant, unrelenting. total.  
Vox and data tethers had been flooded  with screams and  and scratching gibberish the enemy. 

Autosenses were almost useless. Even his superior bionic senses struggled.

An unprotected human would have been dead in seconds without the need for any enemy intervention.

 

Tox and Rad warning runes angrily blinked at the edge of his vision. Sharrak  met their anger in kind,  furiously blinking  them away His war plate was operating on the very edge of its  tolerance levels. But tolerance had never been a strong point among the Xth. 

 

But now…

 

Since…

 

Sharrak  grunted, then shunted the thought away.

 

He did not allow the  world  to exist  further out than the reach of his bionic ally enhanced limbs, the swing of  his axe, maybe the reach of his boltgun at most. It was better to focus his entire existence into this embodiment of the Motive Force, using it’s  furious manifestation to supplement where his warplate began to deplete the onboard reserves of combat stimms.

 

Aim. Shoot. Attack. Parry. Thrust. Kill! 

 

Better to focus on the next target,   the next ridge, the next swing, the next ste.

The next kill. 

 

Don’t think about… IT.. 

 

THEN

 

….before... 

 

WHEN… 

 

…when the world had gone mad…

 

When he’d lost contact with his maniple. 

 

They’d always been a pugnacious lot for all he knew even before they’d been been recognised and inducted into the Legion, after the Battle of Rust, long before he’d been given the honour of leading these physical manifestations of the Will of the Omnissiah and the Emperor -beloved by all- into battle. 

 

The “Gorgon’s Hands”, they’d been once called by one of those pesky remembrancers. 

 

Once.

 

 Then. 

 

Before IT happened…

 

After which, they’d simply gone berserk. 

 

In a way, they all had. 

 

Sharrak had been forced to cut the cut the link with clade when their data   had suddenly spiked, exceeded beyond anything he’d ever experienced, had ever thought possible..  

 

Overwhelmed, the battle automatia had thrown themselves into the fray, blind to the Calculus, heedless, headless to  any tactical or strategic objective-patterns. 

 

Headless…. 
… just like…

 

Don’t think about it. 
 

FOCUS! 

 

The World Eater shrieked something as he swung the chain axe around for a backhanded blow.

 

Sharrak dove  under it,  adding  the momentum to the lunge, driving his armoured  shoulder into the charging mass of the World Eater.  

The whirr of the  Servoarm was lostover the crashing ceramite, as the  mechadentric appendage  shot out, catching the World Eaters blade arm  as it overshot, momentarily halting it, before forcing it up, away, with the  uncaring mechanical motion of a cargo lifter, 

 

With a snap, the limb was  sheared  off at the elbow,  still clutching the whirring chain axe. Sharrak felt, rather then heard the howl of the other warrior echoing through their warplate over the sound of cracked ceramide and snapping, servo bundles. 

His left arm came up, grabbing the remains of the world eaters blade arm. On his right, he shot the head of his own axe upwards like some oversized punch dagger, trying to force  it between  his opponents gorget and under the chin of the traitors helmet.

 

The Worl Eater gurgled something and hammered the bulk of a bolt pistol into Sharrak’s flank. They grappled, grunted, toppled.

 

Explosions blossomed around them and Sharrak’s warplate dutifully noted where  shards of  shrapnel and burst ceramite further degraded its protection.

The World Eater suddenly sagged, armor torn open in multiple places on his back, the power pack ruptured.

 

Sharrak  punched him aside with a whirrof the  Servo Arm.

He looked up. 

 

Across him, at the end of the wrecked line of the armoured column which the Iron Hand  had been  using for cover, the hulking form of a XII Legion Contemptor levelled the twin muzzles of a heavy autocannon at him. The huge cannon arm  twitched.

 

Nothing happened.

 

Targeting  reticules ran over the bulk  of the Dreadnaught and more warning runes blinked into existence, Sharrak felt his bionic eyes  zoom in on this new  threat. In the murk that surrounded them, his enhanced vision could just make out the telltale rattling motion that told of the unsuccessful attempts of the dreadnaught’s autoloaders to draw fresh shells from a drained ammunition supply.

 

More runes blinked. Sharrak felt his lips forming something like a grin.

 

The Iron Hand slowly  rose to his full height. 

In a gesture as old as time,  Sharrak’s  right arm raised the Martian axe high over his head while his  gleaming bionic left hand reached out, beckoning  the Contemptor forward.

 

In the brief false dawn of a near-by engine death, Sharrak reckoned he might look like one of the champions of Old Earth from the ancient Sagas so cherished by the Terran veterans of the Xth….

 

The impression was slightly dimished as the mangled mass of the maimed World Eater once more lunged into him from the side and they both toppled into the black sand. 

 

Sharrak cursed. They rolled in the dust, a flurry of punches, kicks and blows until, finally, he managed to smash the shears of the Servo-Arm through the World Eaters already mangled faceplate. Panting, still on one knee,  he punched the bladed  butt of his axe into the ruined pulp of the World Eaters head for good  measure. The dirty blue  and white wreck before him still twitched but refused to rise again.

 

With a groan of protesting servos, the Iron Hand  sluggishly got back on his feet.

 

The Contemptor was almost upon him. Sharrak looked up just in time to see the Dreadnaught clawed left indiscriminately shove aside two other World Eaters rushing at him in its maddened rush to answer the Iron Hand’s fool hardy challenge. 

 

Sharrak gripped his axe with hands, planted his feet wide. He tried to take a deep breath, which turned into a series of ragging  coughs. The osmotic filters were giving out. He sagged, feeling his guard go down as he was forced to  hold  onto  the hilft of his axe for support.  Still coughing, he watched  the Contemptor closing through the broken line of tank wrecks, it’s rampaging form almost upon him.  Cascading runes frantically ran through his lower vision feed. 

 

Contact.

 

From somewhere between the wreckage, something very large, very black and very solid mass suddenly smashed into the side of the Contemptor with a gravimetric crack that briefly eclipsed every other form of Thunder.  The metallic black of the Thanator towering over the white and blue Contemptor before the two shapes  plunged sideways and disappeared between the line of wrecks. The group of  World Eaters trailing their Dreadnaught slowed, apparently suddenly unsure if they should pursue this new threat of continue to face their initial target.

 

Sharrak grinned. He rose, suddenly unburdened by the malady that had seemed to hamper him just moments before. The World Eaters were all about rage, all about fury. Sharrak almost felt some sort of savage kinship there since his  own world now was made from little but rage and fury. But no  blade could be used  hot from the forges. It would needed to be bend by the cold hammer of reason and tempered  in the deep  basins of pain 

Sharrak gripped the Martian Blade once more with both hands and started to run.

The forges called.

 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

>You know, I am not sure, how long we can keep this up<

 

Sharrak canted as he tried to get the armoured access panel to shut a third time. The panel  was  badly bent and refused to close properly. It took the strength of his servo arm to finally close. The Thanatar gave the binharic equivalent of a shrug. It rose unsteadily, swaying from side to side. Their  last encounter with the World Eater Contemptor had cost it most of its left arm and the hip actuator was increasingly unstable. 

 

It took an insane amount of firepower to put down a Calix class Thanatar battle automata. But this was clearly the beginning of an Age of Insanity.  

 

The Automata blurred a line of code.

 

>”Attack is the only engagement  engram worth remembering..?” Seriously?!< 

 

The Iron Hand laughed despite himself.

 

>You are actually quoting bloody Angron to me over THIS?!<

 

 

The broken shell of the World Eater Dreadnaught lay nearby. They had taken the  brief respite that given them to hunch down between the tank wrecks once more to allow Scorn to  patch up the last of his cybernetica brethren after their last ambush. They’d have to move again soon. Other World Eaters  were already  closing in on their position. They hunted in loose packs now, which the pair of Iron Hands  had been using to their advantage. But their numbers were increasing and in  their wake came massed ranks of Astartes and Vehicles the XVIIth. These were much more organized than the impulsive XII and it was becoming  increasingly difficult to implement  a favourable prognostic pattern to their engagement protocols.  They’d be able to use the storm and the maze of wrecked super- heavy vehicles to hide the bulk of the Thanatar as much as possible and strike at targets of opportunity that had presented themselves. But if they were forced out into the open, they would be identified and destroyed in an instant There was denying that the Calculus was rapidly turning against them. This wasn’t just a defeat.It was a slaughter.

So perhaps implementing the insights of  one who excelled at it was indeed the logical conclusion? 

 

Sharrak gritted what still passed for  his teeth.  Quite obviously his own gene-sire had failed just proven  spectacularly that he had fail to adapt to this new age of war. And by his own teachings as well as the nature of his adopted home, such weakness could be neither forgiven nor allowed to persist. So, whatever remained if the Xth Legion would either have to evolve beyond the limitations of their gene-sire or follow  him into oblivion. 
 

An explosion rained more dust and shrapnel over their position. They were running out of  time. 

 

The Thanatar was already moving, but swayed dangerously as it sought to get into another ambush position. It veered left suddenly and crashed sideways onto the wreckage of a Kratos pattern tank like some oversized mechanical drunkard. Sharrak started forward to aid hus stricken companion. 

 

The battle automata managed to stabilize itself on the remains of its left arm and canted a denial at the Techmarine. Sharrak ignored it and closed the distance, his servo arm reaching up to steady his  cybernetic battle brother. He banged a fist against an armoured knee. 

 

>Don’t think you are getting out of this so easy, you lazy Martian. There’s still some killing to do!<

 

The Iron Hand snaked a data tether up into a haptic socket. Diagnostic engrams filled his vision. This wasn’t good. The hip actuator was indeed giving out, slowing the massive automata further. It somberly canted a projection of its rapidly decreasing combat effectiveness. Sharrak blew a dismissive snort out through his clogged helmet grille. 

 

>Maybe we can just get them to queue up, so you can crunch them one at a time?< 

the  Medusan canted absentmindedly, trying to scrape away the black melange that had already coagulated over the  access panel. He cursed again. 

> They’re bloody World Eaters, you know? You know how they are. You’ve  seen them in the pits…”

 

The Thanatar dutifully informed him of the extremely low probability of this tactical set up. 

 

>Bah! With an attitude like that, they should have joined you to the Avernii.  Maybe if we…<

 

The disabled battle automata blurbed an interjection. Then it presented another option. 

 

They’d been aware of another pocket of resistance further west for some time. Glimpsed Auspex readings and fragments of vox suggested  elements of the XVIII, apparently mostly Imperial army, though a few blurbs of cant suggested the presence of some Mechanicus support, maybe even a clade of battle automata. That might explain why they still were still in existence.  Of course, it might just be an attempt to draw out any remaining survivors. Sharrak had already changed the locator runes from allied “green” to the orange of  “ potential hostile”. If today had taught them anything, it would be to be wary of the status of so called “allies”…

 

It had been a moot point up until now anyway. Reaching that location would mean leaving the sea of wrecks that had offered some refuge for the time being and transversing a considerable amount of hostile territory. That would have not been a sensible option when the Thanatar had been fully mobile. Now, it was downright suicidal. They would never reach it. There was no way the enemy would miss the limping hulk of the combat automata or that they would not put a considerable effort into  the opportunity to destroy it before it could link up with other loyalists.

They..

 

Sharrak looked up. The Thanatar’s augury array ceaselessly swept their surroundings. 

 

They’d never make it together. But a lone Astartes just might, especially while the enemy was busy putting down a  giant raging robot…

 

>> You bloody Martian…<<

 

Sharrak grunted. The Calculus was clean, the Solution obvious. The Thanatar was right.

 

>> We’ll make a true Son of Medusa of you yet. <

 

Abandoning his attempts to open the hip assembly, the Techmarine withdrew the data tendril. Then he helped the Thanatar to get up, steadying it against the wreck of the tank with a groan of shifting metal. Neither spoke. There was nothing to say. 

 

Sharrak made his way to broken Contemptor. He reached into the rapidly cooling wreckage with his bionic left, shifting through amniotic and hydraulic fluids until he found something suitably organic.

 

He made his way back to the Thanatar, who was slightly swaying, backed up against the remains of the assault tank. 

 

Without a further word, Sharrak reached up and pushed  his bionic  left hand on the  mottled white shin armor plate. For a moment, he looked at the dark organic smear of his hand print, before the black rain of Istvaan began to scourge it away. 

 

He looked up again. The Thanatar was already tracking targets. A single line of code.

Sharrak nodded. 

 

“Die well, Champion of Ferrus” 

 

The words in the harsh tongue of the clans of Medusa were barely a  whisper inside the anonymity of his helmet. No sense in getting emotional now. 

 

Without another glance, Sharrak Scorn turned and walked into the storm.

[Machine God]

He!

 

He..

 

 

No he refused to dwell on the mind assault! Refuse to yield to weakness, you are Iron.

 

He'd been concentrating on getting to the RV co-ordinates, when...

 

 

 

He came to, he was clutching at a key bunch that he'd kept in his belt pouch. He was in the midst of a crater of charred IV \Legion bodies.

 

He remembered losing his combat blade and bolt pistol in the application of effective percussive violence.

 

He was free of the accursed Edict restrictions. What did they matter now, after the great betrayal?

 

 

Still it was lunacy not to even predict that the Astartes Legions would fight each other. He was Vurgaan! Ferrus

 

 

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"

 

 

The pain was still too raw. But He, He had let the Legion stay true to the old ways, to stay strong. Each Clan fought the other Clans for food and resources. They even fought within the Legion!

 

A legion at war with itself held together by a Council of the Strongest. No room for weakness!

 

 

He had unleashed the power of the warp! It was his to utilise, his winds. Holding to the old ways and teachings, he dialled back on his recklessness, champed down on the blessed fire. He surmised that perhaps his psyche like a wild animal had been chained too long.

 

Perhaps. But whatever, freedom... ...so long an unremembered dream, was his.

 

Still he could feel the thinness of the walls about the battlefield. Hear the screams and cries of other things, that he had unwillingly attracted.

 

He dialled back his power some more and set off onwards.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 18, 2023 by Machine God
Tidy up

[Mazer Rackham]

The Redoubt:

 

As you all crash, crawl or tumble into the knotwork of shell-scrapes and trenches, you can tell that at some point in Isstvan V's past this used to be a wadi, a place where the myriad tributaries from the Urgall mountains deposited their meltwater. The defenders have cut into it quickly, the sands shifting even as this battle does.

 

A terrific impact shudders your bones, jarring even through the genhenced flesh and mars-wrought metal of your armour, temperature gauges spiking red in less than a blink-click can counter. A furrow of brilliant crimson light nearly overloads even your hardened battlegear, and the blister of heated caress passes. Looking up, a Reaver battle titan pivots from the shot it just took with it's mammoth, tri-barrelled laser blaster. The terminal focussing lenses are buried deep with the cowling, but even so, the barrels glow with the odd blue-burned adamantium and magsteel.

 

The warhorn blares triumph, even as void shields cascade in actinic blue lightning from another attack, roiling plasma absorbed by the blast. The god-machine pivots and unleashed a barrage of missiles from the carapace weapon, engaging a smaller Warhound, pounding it, punishing it.

 

A shape forged in the fires of war, hammered on the anvil of battle drops into a pit. Moving fast, his green-hued armour paints a fire-breathing drake across his shoulder, and the armour is sculpted with many exquisite reliefs of the forge, the smith, fire and scale. He is equipped with a salvaged nuncio-vox unit, but it is jury-rigged into his harness through audio relay and vox ports.

 

+Welcome! We are in short supply of friends here!+ his voice is a deep, warm, bass rumble, to accompany his powerful frame.

 

He crawls closer to your relative positions on the edge of the defensive pits, surrounded by rocks, which are in effect pulverised boulders, scrapped automata, smashed armoured bodies and vehicles all hastened into a fortress. Even as he speaks, it begins to rain glass globules from the terrific heat of the titan weapon, some of it still half-blown baubles which gum to your armour, others fully hardened which ping and spark off you in shimmering, black crystalline bullets.

 

+I am Sergeant K'Veth, of the Eighteenth, Thirty-Fourth Company, Seventh Tactical. Do you bring orders?+

Edited December 18, 2023 by Mazer Rackham

[Machine God]

Ashmon regarded the newcomer. This Salamander, K'Veth!

 

+Orders? Pah, too much rad and scrap vox to get much more than this RV data! Still+ Ashmon paused. +No doubt the Snakes of Ungavarr can parse more data from the skeins. That right Mars-sworn, you up to it?+

 

+Codicier Ashmon Stormwalker, Clan Vurgaan!+ Shmon introduced himself, reinventing himself with the old Legion Name.

 

 

 

Edited February 22 by Machine God
Ashmon even though he has never said his name

[Xin Ceithan]

+ I am Sergeant K’Veth, of the Eighteenth, Thirty-First Company, Seventh Tactical. Do you bring Orders + 
 

Optics whirred, focussing. Pale blue light shone from his augmented lenses. 
  >> Potential hostile.<< 

 

Orange targeting matrixes over the Salamander’s ravaged warplate, assessing damage, extrapolating potential weak spots. 

>> Potential hostile.<<

The Praevian remained hunched down, axe in his right. The Servo-Arm twitched over his shoulder, ready to strike. He’d caked his warplate with layers of the  ubiquitous black mould in attempt to break up its silhouette, hoping it might mask his signature as he made his way to the wadi, giving him an insect Ike,  almost organic look.

 

>> Potential hostile.<< 

 

The Reaver’s warhorn vibrated through the black. Blue shards rained.
The world had gone mad. Still, the works of the Omnissiah prevailed.

For now. 
 

He inclined his head ever so slightly towards the Salamander.

 

+Sharrak Scorn. Clan Ungarvarr, Xth Legion+

 

Short bursts of directed vox feed. 
 

+Primary objective failed. Situation evolving. Fluid denial and retribution pattern suggested+ 

 

He carefully scanted out a short binharic probe.. No reply came. More plasma rained.

 

Sharrak exhaled a grunt through bubbling filters.

 

+We lost Sergeant. Now we survive as long as we can and we take as many of the bastards with us  as we can+ 

 

He drew in another laboured breath. He hadn’t spoken so many actual words in a very long time.

 

+Unless you have a way of this Omnissiah forsaken rock that is. So,  what is  the disposition of your forces here?+ 

[Necronaut]

Toren Ekara

 

The night-clad sergeant regarded the other two new-comers, also clad in black, but with an open silver gauntlet impressed upon the left pauldron, with some mistrust, wondering how in the name of the Emperor they had managed to evade capture or execution out amongst the dunes. Both were similarly enhanced with the blessings of the Machine-Cult in the habit of their legion, but the techmarine clearly had an edge in that arena. The other however…  

 

Psyker! Witch! It is forbidden! 

 

To be so brazen, and to flaunt the Emperor’s edict merely because the Traitors had cast aside all reason…  

 

It mattered little now. If these were all that remained of the Iron Tenth in the region, the only others besides him who had come to the aid of the beleaguered Eighteenth, then so be it. It was the dawning of a new Age of Darkness, born on the heels of another he and these gene-cousins of his had recently helped put to an end, and allies, it seemed, were in short supply. Allies and those committed to the cause of bloody-handed vengeance.  

 

+Hail,+ Toren rasped over the shared vox channel. +Toren Ekara. Sergeant. Nineteenth Legion, Sixty-Sixth Assault Company.+  

 

He paused, but then remembered such a terse response might be regarded as rude by other, less reserved legions.  

 

+I bring no orders, cousin, only retribution.+  

 

He patted the silenced, long-barreled boltgun strapped across his chest for effect. His ebon gauntlets were still caked with the gore of the Sons of Horus he had ambushed and slain, whose minds and memories he had devoured. Their blood was merely a preamble, the opening salvo in his personal crusade. He would not clean his vambraces until the Traitors had paid the wages of their sins. His own black armour was smeared with ash and mud and grime in a crude facsimile of camouflage. The only defining feature to denote his rank was the partially obscured stripe of crimson running down the center of his Mark III helm; the picter mounted upon its right side recorded all in his sight, unblinking and unceasing.  

 

He surveyed the scene beyond the Salamander, the roiling chaos of a pitched battle whose lines were in constant flux. In the distance, god-machines the size of hab-blocks tore at one another with weapons of frightening power, each capable of visiting armageddon upon their foes a dozen times over. Closer, the screams of the dying, the howls of the insane and the near-constant bark of bolter fire was deafening. The stench of blood and oil and fyceline and offal was overpowering.  

 

+I am at your disposal, Sergeant K’Veth.+

Edited December 19, 2023 by Necronaut

[Mazer Rackham]

The Redoubt:

 

K'Veth taps his breastplate in a general salute and acknowledgement of you all. Given the circumstances, it is a balance of respect and necessary brevity.

 

+Our situation, cousins is that we are being compressed. I have only local vox with the units I command. To move forward is - +

 

He is interrupted as an autocannon, manned by the Imperial Army, chunters wrathfully to sling a payload of heavy incendiaries up to maul a platoon of traitor soldiery. The enemy infantry is cut apart by the volley, removing their immediate threat. Support fire from a few lasrifles in shell-scrape some two-hundred metres away finishes them off.

 

+We have one automata,+ he casts a quick hand over his shoulder, +but it is maligned. If anyone could attend it,+ he looks at Scorn, +we would be greatly amplified.+

 

Tactical networks integrate and a wirework hololithic updates your operational manifolds.

 

+We have Twelfth Legion to centre and right flank, harrying fire and probes from the Eighth to far right. On the left flank Legio Mortis footsoldiers.

 

He is again interrupted, but this time by incoming fire. A mortar bomb screams in and hits the autocannon team, blasting the weapon into components, which scatter liberally all over the local battlefield. Of the men, only one is in evidence, his torso a ragged ruin. The others are just gone.

 

+Our ammuntion is low, many of our heavy guns silenced. Our Imperial Army cohort fights with the fury of a Nocturne Caldera, but our Legionaries are few. Plus myself, we have three of the Eighteenth.+

 

A Salamander pops his head up, gestures with his weapon, a bulky launcher of some description, which has seen much better days. +Sergeant! They come again!+

 

Blue and white shapes, stark red slashes against the pale erupt from a fold in the ground. Stark against the black, their direction of attack would have been covered by the autocannon, the cheap trap sprung.

 

Eight of the Twelfth, all wielding chainaxes and bolt pistols, make their assault, covering the two-hundred metre distance rapidly, and in their wake the screams of men possessed with only slaughter.

 

Behind them, a ragged charge of mortals, human throats sore with coarse oaths and hours of bloodletting.

 

Gentlemen.

 

Initiatives.

[Necronaut]

Toren Ekara

 

Toren sneered at the charging berserkers and raised Whisper, making minor adjustments to the boltgun's iron sights.

 

+I believe our prior orders stand, cousins: eliminate the traitors with extreme prejudice.+

 

 

Initiative: 5 (D10) + 4 (Ag bonus) = 9

[Machine God]

+I believe our prior orders stand, cousins: eliminate the traitors with extreme prejudice.+

 

Came over the Vox from the XIX sniper.

 

Cousin? More like the red-headed step child!

 

 

Ashmon laughed, as he espied the War Hounds' reckless advance.

 

+Dinner!+

 

 

 

Initiative: 9 (D10) + 5 (AGL Bonus) = 14

 

 

 

 

Edited December 19, 2023 by Machine God
Typo

[Xin Ceithan]

Spoiler

Initiative: 5 (D10) + 4 (Ag bonus)

 

A wave  of red target brackets broke through the black.

 

+I believe our orders still stand, cousins+

The Vox was full of static and echoes as Sharrak adjusted the feed. 

+ Eliminate the traitors with extreme prejudice+ 
 

 The Techmarine rose from his hunch,  hands  tightening on the grip of his axe. 
 

+Execute+ 
 

 

 

[Trokair]

Tyr-Ix-375

 

The auto-cant for assistance pulls Tyr-Ix-375 back to the forefront, for a while the core scripted had run on its own accord, so overwhelmed and mired in tactical processing had Tyr-Ix-375 become that consciousness was diminished to increase cogitator throughput at the heart of it.

 

Shrapnel had wedged itself in the left knee servos, making its movement sluggish and putting all of it of balance. Had the core script and combat doctrine run blindly on they would have forced the servos on and on until something gave and shattered, or until the imbalance created caused unrecoverable centre of gravity shift, and with it a disadvantageous position, either way would lead to immobility.

 

Instead Tyr-Ix-375 acts to work around the limitation, enacting strange manuveres with the remaing joints and points of articulation to balance out and compensate, a arm swung widely out in the turn for balance, shots into empty air to harness the recoil, all things the Mars script would not even think to think.

 

With self more prominent again Tyr-Ix-375 notices that more Uncles have come, a few in colours that confused the Friend of Foe routine, but taking the lead from the Uncles Tyr-Ix-375 self nominated them as friendly.

 

What’s this? A Kind Uncle, not its Kind Uncle, its shape and colour all wrong, a different Kind Uncle. Second Kind Uncle!

 

Tyr-Ix-375 canted a handshake protocol at the SKU.   

 

Spoiler

Initiative: d10: 4 + 3Ag = 7

 

[Mazer Rackham]

The Enemy will have two Initiative Steps. The first will be the World Eaters, acting as a Squad. Note they are not a Horde, and will require individual targeting. The Second Initiative Step will be for the Army Traitors, who are Hordes of indeterminate Magnitude. These Hordes will confer +20 to hit. This is to reflect the undulating terrain, the fact some are stooping or kneeling to fire, some are behind the others, weather conditions, angle-of-fire (they are attacking in oblique) etc.

 

There are Three Hordes. (A, B and C)

 

The World Eaters will be Numbered 1 - 8, with 1 being to the left of the group from your POV, to 8 on the right).

 

I don't want to do maps, as this is low-commitment, so please use Theatre-Of-Mind to describe your actions. The enemy has begun charging and on Turn 1 is 170 metres away from the Redoubt.

 

The Redoubt is a network of trenches and makeshift barricades providing AP 6 Cover to the Body and Legs, providing full cover to anyone kneeling/lying down to anything other than indirect fire weapons. However, the enemy will receive +10 BS to Hit anyone with inside with direct/normal fire, due to the 'small' area.

 

The Redoubt is made by and for Astartes, so there is no movement penalty whilst within it. You may describe any repositioning as you see fit. Note that going Prone will still require the requisite Stand action to be made if you go to a different stance.

 

Note that due to the situation, any Psychic Tests other than Psyniscience are Hard (-20)

 

All targets are currently Running, thereby incurring -20 BS to Hit.

 

Questions in the OOC.

Edited December 19, 2023 by Mazer Rackham

[Machine God]

Ashmon

 

 

Targets needed to be closer, though still within bolter range. Ashmon fired his bolter at the left-most World Eater.

 

 

 

 

BS 54 +10 (SAB) -20(Running Target) = 44. Result: 18, Pass 2DoS

18 = 81: Right Leg. Bolter 1D10+9, Pen 4, Tearing

#1, Right Leg: (10, 2) 10 (RF: 81, Fail) +9 = 19 Damage.

#2, Left Leg:: (2, 9) 9 +9 = 18 Damage.

 

Bolt Rounds: 47

 

 

 

 

Edited January 22 by Machine God
Typo

[Mazer Rackham]

Turn 1:

 

+ Initiative Order +

Spoiler

Ashmon = 14 [x]

World Eaters = 11

Torken Ekara = 9 

Sharrak Skorn = 9

Hordes = 8

Tyr-Ix-375 = 7

 

Worldeater 1: Dodge

D100: Fail

Legs cut from under him as he runs, the War Hound, World Eater - Traitor - is buckled by bolt rounds, and faceplants the sands not to rise.

 

World Eaters: Actions

Full Actions: Run

 

Ekara [ ]

[Necronaut]

Toren

 

Toren had seen the World Eaters in combat before, and had decided they were little more than savage beasts wearing the skin of Astartes, a mockery of the Emperor's labours. He despised them, but reasoned that he was doing little more than putting down a rabid dog. Sighting the gore-drenched World Eater down Whisper’s iron sights, he watched the deranged maniac run across the killing field with a disgusted scowl.   

 

 

Full Action: Aim

 

Edited January 23 by Necronaut

[Xin Ceithan]

Sharrak

 

He  ran, ignoring the few las bolts that screeched past him.

A half- blind Medusan Elder who missed a target the size of a Legionnaire at twice the range under current  conditions would have walked out  into the storm in shame but Sharrak doubted that even the XIIth with their notorious addiction to settle things at close combat would have tolerated anyone this lousy a shot among their numbers or even their mortal auxiliaries if they had truly been dedicated to taking out the XVIIIth Redoubt at range. The assaults  main threat lay partly in their numbers, and then in part in the crazed Astartes among their numbers but the real threat, the main threat, Sharrak figured, would be something nasty to follow in their wake. Heavy Ordnance, if they were reasonable. Which they weren’t. So, Assault Squads. Terminators.

 

That meant the Redoubt was indeed in dire need of focused,  heavy firepower. The kind carried by something like a Castellax…

 

Through the downpour, Sharrak tensed as shape of the Battle Automata grew more solid with every step, both reassuring with its familiar bulk even if its strange markings were everything but familiar. 

 

The Praevian tensed. Marker runes glowed. 

 

>> Potential hostile… <<

 

This might still turn out to be a setup.  An excessive, expensive set up.  But if today had proven  anything, than that the enemy was well prepared and willing to to use any advantage at their disposal, at any cost… 

 

The Medusan in him couldn’t help but grudgingly admire that. 

 

Which didn’t mean that he would not go to similar lengths to kill every one of them if he’d get half a chance… 

 

He forced his mind back to refocus on the approaching Castellax.

 

A wave of binharic code flowed from it like a licking tongue of flame. 

 

,Almost instinctively, Sharrak shunted most of it into the umbrella banks of noosoheric glacial interference drift surrounding him before realizing that it was apparently mostly meant to convey some sort of greeting…

 

It wasn’t just that the fact that those turncoats in league with the Warmaster were literally flooding the local data sphere with noxious code capsidea and Sharrak was loath to inload anything potentially malicious, even by accident that the battle automata might have been already been exposed to.

There were also some sub-strata of lingua that, while not evidently noxious, Sharrak found  difficult to interpret. They implied  concepts that  his cogitation relay did not  not easily translate into his native Medusan , so it buffered and offered interpretation  from low gothic analogies instead along the lines of terms like “warm” and “welcoming”….

 

Sharrak sighed. 

If they survived this, the Castellax was obviously in need of some extended rituals of biocortical sanitation and re-focusing.…

 

Still running, the Iron Hand  clipped the binharic chatter short and returned a curt, formal rote of greeting. 

 

+++Praise be to the Omnissiah. Praise be to the Motive Force.  Ruination and Dissolution upon HIS enemies+++

 

Spoiler

Full action:Run

 

Edited January 23 by Xin Ceithan

[Mazer Rackham]

The Redoubt:

 

The Blood-soaked tide is loosed, and pelts down the sand, bayonets slotted onto lasrifles. Among them you can no see special weapons, and each mob is accompanied by a heavy-weapons team.

 

Horde A: Stop, Go Prone, Brace Heavy/Ready Weapons.

Horde B: Run

Horde C: Run

 

The moving enemy has now closed to 130 Metres (this is an abstraction to account for different movement rates and save on headaches) note that like the WE, the Hordes go left to right, A > B > C, behind the WE.

 

Tyr [ ]

 

 

[Trokair]

Tyr-Ix-375

 

The Second Kind Uncle canted something back, but it was not the counterpart to the handshake protocol. This confused Tyr-Ix-375, it was an Kind Uncle, he could see the tools, and the insignia of Mars that shared the Uncles armour with that of his tribe.

 

It could not remember if different Cohorts used different protocol, it and its siblings had been on secondment to the tribe of Drakes for longer than its personal memory. Delving into strategic and tactical inloaded memory Tyr-Ix-375 sought data that might help. Alas it could only devote a small amount of thought to this, foes were closing.

 

Some of the new Uncles were moving to engage the first grouping, Tyr-Ix-375 therefore focused on the second. One group of which were setting up heavier weaponry.

 

Spoiler

Full Action: Aim at Horde A

 

[Mazer Rackham]

Turn 2:

 

Initiative Order:

Spoiler

Ashmon = 14 [x]

World Eaters = 11 [x]

Torken Ekara = 9 

Sharrak Skorn = 9

Hordes = 8

Tyr-Ix-375 = 7

 

Ashmon [ ]

Edited December 26, 2023 by Mazer Rackham

[Machine God]

Ashmon:

 

The Traitor Guard were beneath his contempt, yet still posed a threat. 

 

Pulling his force sword free of its scabbard he stood to face the higher threat, the World Eaters. 

 

He pointed his force sword with his arm straight and sighted down the blade at the foe. 

 

 

Full Action: Aim at the World Eaters

 

 

 

 

[Mazer Rackham]

The Redoubt:

 

World Eaters: Full Action, Run

The XII Legion run on, inexorable, indefatigable, into the teeth of your guns, ignorant of your preparations or contempt. Their warcries can now be heard, a monotonous scream at the top of the puissant Astartes lungs:

 

+Kill! Maim! Burn!+

 

The very phrase speaks to something ancient, the inflection a conjuration of foaming-mouthed bedlamites sawing at leather straps with bloodied teeth, of a rampaging tide of murder which cannot be quenched other than with stronger violence...

 

Ekara [ ]

Skorn [ ]

 

[Necronaut]

Toren

 

Toren squeezed Whisper’s trigger and muttered an oath under his breath as the shot sailed over the berserker's helm, its trajectory altered by some prevailing cross-wind. He continued to track the crazed, blood-drenched World Eater as he bore down upon their position with a deepening scowl. 

 

 

Half Action: Standard Attack (Stalker Boltgun)

BS49 + 20 (Full Aim) - 20 (Running) + 10 (Short Range) + 10 (Bolter Mastery) = 69

D100: 92; miss

Half Action: Aim

 

23/24 Bolt Rounds remaining in magazine

Edited January 19 by Necronaut
Sorry for my absence