The fighting to reclaim the Forge-World of Urdesh had began with a monumental Imperial victory. The massed ranks of the Astra Militarum had landed upon the hallowed soil to turn back the traitor, the mutant and the heretic. They were filled with the rightous blessing of the Emperor and his light now extended back onto the Forge-World, bringing the fallen planet back into Imperial Fold.
Guardsmen Imani didn't feel the Emperor's Blessing like the Commissar's were saying Guardswoman Safaa mused. Well, not since his head had been ventilated by a traitor sniper.
Her unit, the 3rd Thawanan Light, had landed in the second wave and followed into the cityscapes to root out any remaining pockets of the enemy.
Unfortunately, the enemy had bedded down and allowed the first wave of Militarum troops to pass and then simply came out of hiding to retake the ground lost. Killing with more efficiancy then high command expected.
Since then they had been fighting a slow slogging urban war.
Block by block.
Street by street.
Building by building.
They had bled, lost friends in some cases family. The Commissars were everywhere maintaining "morale" and the latest news was even worse.
The Adeptus Mechanicus were taking charge of the warzone personally, the Militarum were causing unacceptable amounts of damage to the infrastructure and were endangering the precious forges.
Now their positions were being passed by ranks of Skitarii, the mechanically enhanced soldiers marching in lockstep, stange buzzing commincations filling the air.
They didn't stop or either acknowledge the guardsmen as they approached the building Safaa and her unit were sheltering in.
Her unit sergeant caught sight of what he thought was the Mechanicus commander and sent a comminucation request.
"Skitarii-Alpha Mars/874, state your unit and rank designations" the terse mechanical voice came through the vox speakers.
"3rd Thawanan Light, Sergeant Arikaan, you are marching your troops into a known sniper nest, advise you take cover" the sergeant sent. Safaa noted that the Skitarii voice sounded like a swarm of bees buzzing in the summer back home.
"Negative, Forge-World Mars will see to this, Skitarii out" and they cut the line. Further attempts to cummincate were met with static bursts.
"Charming sort aren't they?" Sergeant Arikaan mused to his unit.
-----
In the street the maniple of Skitarii continued to advance.
Alpha Mars/874 overlaid the schemata of the city and buildings over his enhanced optic units, allowing his vision to process varying information such as the structural integrity and importance to the forge.
At the front of his column of troops, gunfire rang out as the snipers opened fire again. Bullets sparked from the leading Skitarii and one went down into the rubble, sparks flying from his head.
Alpha Mars/874 took to the Adeptus Mechanicus Binaric comms-net to order his troops and contact the Tech-Priest masters.
+++All Skitarii open fire, target upper window, third unit, right, Onager support requested, reading sixty enemy heat signitures inside buildings+++
As one the Skitrarii troops moved forward to advantagous firing positions, their own augmetics giving them enhanced range and firing data to make their shots with.
A deluge of firepower greeted them in turn. It seemd the readings were off and the maniple was facing worse almost a company of enemy troopers.
Of the fourty Skitarii Alpha Mars/874 had started with, almost a quarter were down, expired or wounded in some way, the alpha took to the Binaric comms-net again.
+++Onager support as priority, progress halted due to enemy numbers, 25% forces unnavailbe+++
+Nature of buildings in location+
+++Hab Dormitories, non-essential+++
+Onager support inbound, arrive in six seconds, fire for effect+
++Affirmative++
Four seconds later the front of the building exploded. Massed fire from three Neutron Lasers which burned holes through entire floors of the building.
Ash and rubble cascaded down into the street, the dust billowing and covering the Skitarii maniple sheltering there.
They rythmic drumming of the walking tanks legs and the whine of the charging lasers were the only sounds as the Dunecrawler Onager tanks rounded the corner of the intersection and opened fire again.
There would be no heretic bodies or remains in the ruins as the lasers burnt all organic material to ash and scattered it with the shockwaves of further explosions.
Another three seconds of continued fire brought the building down and destroyed the enemy within.
-----
"Well, if that dosen't beat everything" Sergeant Arikaan began, "We get censured for damaging the city and they casually tear down a hab block"
"They're not even gathering their wounded or dead, look!" Guardswoman Safaa said pointing.
The gathered guardsmen watched as the maniple of Skitarii stood up and marched off in lockstep as if they hadn't just been ambushed. The tanks turning on the spot and following the infantry.
"I don't know what's worse, the enemy or out allies, give me the creeps" Safaa said.
"Don't let the Commissars hear you say that" Sergeant Arikaan warned her.
*****
In my last post about the chainrasps I mentioned that I had a project which mainly needed basing to complete.
This is the start of that project being finished and being posted on here properly.
Fraser, one of my friends from the other side of the Pennines (some would say the wrong side), gave me this Adeptus Mechanicus army to paint up for him before the plague-times happened.
And I made good progress on it too, I really did. It's just the world kind of had a way of stamping down on things and whilst many hobbyists out there might have managed to get swathes of hobby completed throughout the various lockdowns, being a "Key-Worker" I've been at work throughout the entire pandemic.
So for me it's pretty much been shiftwork as usual.
As a last ditch effort to grab some points for our local painting challenge here, I dragged these three Dunecrawler Onager tanks out to get finished.
He wanted the army to be from Forge World Mars, and originally wanted them based like they were on the red planet.
I obejcted to this by pointing out that our cityfight terrain would be the perfect basing for them, the red of their armour would really look great on urban rubble bases.
He agreed and this is the final result.
All the weapons are magnetised to give all the options from the codex. Each has a Cognis-Stubber, even though only two commanders are firing them.
They are painted using the Warhammer TV battle Ready Skitarii tutorial, which gives a nice, quick scheme to paint without too much hard work.
I took a chance to try the scheme on these vehicles, as usually I find that vehicles don't follow the same techniques as infantry when painting, but these turn out great following it with the same few steps.
I took the time to add some paint chipping effect with part of a torn sponge and Leadbelcher paint.
(I don't think it shows up well in these photo's however).
I just wish that we could add banners like in this animated gif I found:
Here are some closer photo's of the finished tanks:
I went with a quick, paintable scheme from Warhammer TV which I think looks great.
The only addition I have made was to add some paint chipping using a torn sponge and some Leadbelcher paint.
I am going to go back and just add some dust around the vehicles feet to tie them into the bases a little.
Speaking of the bases:
This was the original idea for the bases. I used some modelling compound to sculpt some rough hill shapes which I was going to cover with rubble, like the buildings I started to make.
I changed my mind to make the flat bases after one of the tanks fell off it's perch on those bases
I think they look more acceptable now and are less likely to break off their bases mid-game.
Now onto the hobby upkeep.
For Hobby Bingo these three together fill a "Behemoth/Lord of War box, being three tanks which are equivalent in size to a Leman Russ.
Finally for our local Challenge (and this will be my last entry for this) these tanks give me an additional 24 points.
As the local challenge has now finished, I'll post up a run-down in the next couple of days.
Until next time...
- Lewii
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