The Road to the Apocalypse, Part 8.

 

Vox-casters burbled in the command tent as officers relayed orders and deployment instructions. The Cadian Seventeen had been deployed to Infernus hive and moved towards the Stygies River in an attempt to prevent the Greenskins laying siege to the citadel.

Corporal Schon had been honoured when Commissar Yarrick hinself had selected the youngster for his personal command staff.

Now that he was here, Schon was deflated by the reality of the situation.

The Hero of Hades Hive was an old, hunched man, tired beyond his years. Wearing a battered old stormcoat, the empty sleeve seemed to make things worse as even heroes could be mortalled wounded.

Yarrick gestured with his hand, "Schon, why do the Greenskins not attack? Surely you would think that they're beastial nature would not hold them in check".

"Perhaps they are waiting for something Commissar?" Schon warily relied back 

"Excellent observation Corporal, if only we had a few more with your insight amongst the armour corps we might have a better chance of making it through this" Yarrick said, slumping slightly.

"Sir, the Cadian tankers are some of the finest in the Imperium, they will..." Schon began, until Yarrick held up a hand to quieten him.

"Yes they are, however they will have to rev their engines a little while longer, I will not commit out forces until I know for sure" Yarrick said as he turned from the viewing gantry and stalked back towards his quarters.

-----

Half an hour later Yarrick returned and grabbed a magnocular glass an aide passed him. A savage grin split his features as he recognised the glyphs of Ghazhkull Mag Uruk Thraka arriving atop his own Battlewagon.

"Schon, attend me" Yarrick ordered as at a signal from him, his aides began to move forwards with equipment boxes and began unloading.

A gilded Stormbolter was loaded and placed upon his desk, Yarrick stripped off his battered weather worn coat and allowed a fresh one to be buttoned around him, the pervading smell of new leather filled the room. Schon stepped up in time to help lift the revered Power Klaw into place and watched as the tech priest present connected all the power couplings, at the same time a red dot appeared on the wall of the command tent and flashed as Yarrick tested his bionic eye.

Turning as he slung his Stormbolter over his good shoulder and placed a shining Commissariat cap upon his head, Schon found himself stood agape. In seconds the stooped old man had been transformed into a vision of war, an Imperial Hero and he knew all the stories of his youth were true.

" Now we will take the fight to Ghazghkull, Schon, I'd like all the brave Cadians in the field with me. Get your vox-caster and we'll move towards the bridge, I'll have further orders to issue as we move so be ready boy, come on now" Yarrick curtly said as he swung round and marh 3d towards his waiting Chimera.

They had to stop the Orks here, if they let the Greenskins gain a foothold on this side of the bridge, the defence of Infernus hive would become a siege, something Yarrick wanted to avoid at all costs.

*****

Yesterday saw the sixty-odd mile trek down the motorway to Warhammer World in Nottingham, confounded by an exceptional load of building site prefab offices being moved which blocked the entire first half of my journey (sorry Dave).

As I'd previously mentioned I'd arranged a game with Dave and this took some effort to sort out. Seeing as we both have rather hectic busy jobs, families and responsibilities, playing with out toy soldiers is very far down on the list of priorities.

Nevertheless, the effort was made and a good day was had. We both commented that it had been quite a while since we had seen each other, about six years as we reckoned it against his youngest child's age, who had just been born when we last met up.

He started to deploy his Guard (beautifully painted and made me feel awful for having models in primer only as I was pushed for time to get then ready) and made the comment that they hadn't been on a tabletop for over a decade, they were even dusty from the boxes where he'd stored them.

I'm not going to do a turn by turn of the battle as it was nice just to meet a friend, throw dice and chat about life in general for the day, there are a few captions under the photos to go with them.

All packed and ready to go, I was pleased with how I'd managed to get everything easily packed to travel.

Dave's Imperial Guard about 2/3 through deployment, as he was still pulling guardsmen squads from boxes...

With deployment completed we were ready for battle, playing 5th edition Dave got to roll to "seize the initiative" and promptly rolled a 6 so went first, dammit...

That sodding Baneblade in the distance, removing several of my Killakanz and "Da Big Dread One" on turn one, leaving my Dreadmob (an Apocalypse formation) with no kustom forcefield save.

I liked everything forwards as fast as possible, it was at this point that we realised we may have started too far apart on the board edges of the bridge board, rather we should have started on the river banks instead...

Some turbo-boosting, and moving flat out with my red paint job toting transports got me into firings and potential lethal range to start dealing some damage after weathering the incoming fire for two turns, fortunately a lot scattered off into nowhere. In 5th edition a red paint job was an option for 5 points which let you move further then normal because "Red Wunz Go Fasta"...

This is the start of my turn three as the Orks are about to launch a massive assault on the far flank. The Trukkboyz are ready to go in up the riverbank into the guard infantry. Ghazhkull and his retinue are out and looming large on the bridge as Dave threw a couple of units forwards. Just off the photo on the closest flank, my Bikers led by Wazdakka Gutsmek and Deffkoptaz were piling into guard units on this side...

Wazdakka (a placeholder model), took out Dave's Exterminator (his tank of the match) in melee combat, even exploding the tank couldn't take his last wound. The bikers tore through the veterans and the Koptaz traded fire with the Hydra (just out of shot) but couldn't score a hit...

Imperial Guard Ogryns counter charged the Evil Sunz Warboss and retinue after they wiped out an autocannon squad in the ruins. This went as well as could have been expected, given that Orks are a very focused close combat army in this edition...

Finally the two big men meet on the bridge. Ghazhkull has mulches through the two Guard infantry squads which were placed Infront of him and given time for Yarrick to get to the front...

Oh dear...

An explosive display (I rolled sixes for ALL Ghazhkull's attacks) saw the entire command squad cut down, Yarrick almost dead even with his forcefield forcing me to reroll successful wound rolls, and then the old man got back up on one wound due to his Stubborn Indomitable Will rule. But poor Corporal Schon...

With time marching on, rush hour approaching and unlike Dave, myself having a sixty-odd mile trek home, we called the game at the end of turn five. As you can see there is a fair bit of Imperial Armour left, but most of the Guard infantry has been destroyed, several tanks and Chimera have been totalled, and I've got another wave of Orks hoofing it over the dry riverbed on their way to the battle, so it could have gone either way.

I just decided that since I'd taken a foothold on the far bank, my objective was essentially complete background wise from my perspective.

The giant plushie Nurgling which is in the lobby at Warhammer World, not sure why people have been drawing Ultramarines symbols on the material though. As they sell all the merchandise at Warhammer World, I did go looking to see if they had the plushies of Archibald the Gryph-Hound in the store, but no such luck...

Purchases are somewhat mandatory at Warhammer World I feel. I had been checking on the GW website only the night before to check wether they still produced the Ork Nob with Waaagh! Banner so was going to pick him up, the Catachan Devil novel was a roll of the dice as some Black Library novels are great, and some recently have been awful. I'll do a post about on which goes into my "Did Not Finish" pile at some point.

Another nice thing about the day was another of our friend, also named Dave just to keep things confusing, turned up for an hour or so in the afternoon to chat about stuff.

Years ago we all met through an online forum - The Ammobunker, and a core of us stayed in touch with each other over the years.

Second Dave greeted us, again said it had been a long time since we'd seen each other, then pointed to my head and said "yeah but you've got a little less hair now" to which I pointed at his stomach and replied "and you have a lot more belly mate".

It was nice to just have a day with toy soldiers and friends, but things were learnt (as usual):

• Start the armies closer together.
• Make sure to have a proper read of the rules, especially if like us you hadn't played them in years.
• Try to organise things so that models are painted and it's not such a rush to get things built and primed beforehand (this depends upon work schedules).

Well that was a great day, I'll post once I've gotten some more of the Orks painted up as I have a fair few vehicles in primer.

Until next time, have nice day.