Grenadier Iago Hassan peered over the parapet into the gloomy smoke three stories below, his company had been posted to this section of the defensive wall after the last traitor push, now after several hours of resting and inactivity, a dejected sigh escaped his lips as the call to man the defences echoed down the line.
The medicae and engineering corps were still working to remove the injured and dead troops of the last defensive troops, the sappers shoring up the defences with flakboard sheets and sandbagg. Amongst this activity the Grenadiers checked their weapons and turned to their scopes. Below then the sounds of grating metal and reverberating footsteps echoed up from the smoke.
"Be ready" their lieutenant voxed, "fire on my command".
Hassan tucked his lasrifle into his shoulder and stared down the scope ignoring the pain where his carapace armour pressed into his collar bone.
A flurry of movement drew his attention and around his lasrifles all swung towards the curling smoke.
A hunched, many limbed monstrosity crawled from the gloom, firelight and stablights reflecting from the bronze trim of the armour plates. Dirty metal chains enclosed what appeared to be a crew hatch, and the daemonic face seemed to stare straight through the guardsmen with red light hateful eyes. It moved erratically, in fits and starts which made tracking it's progress hard. Hassan could swear that the thing was growling, nevertheless he heard the order to fire over the vox and opened up.
Lasfire stabbed down at the thing, then split off as two, then three, then four and more of the things appeared and began to assault the walls.
Several had a harpoon on my weapon mount, these they fired up at the wall, gouging great chunks from the rockcrete.
Where they caught near the parapet, the creatures began to haul themselves up the retaining wall, winding in the chain as they climbed the wall, claws digging into the rockcrete as if it was paper.
One screeched a metallic shrill sound as it's chain was cut by a melta weapon and it fell back crushing itself beneath it's own weight. Another fired it's harpoon too high to hit the parapet, instead it speared a Grenadier and reeled him screaming over the wall towards its waiting cleaver blade. The others which didn't have a harpoon began a keening wail, throwing their heads up towards the sky, shrill metallic sounds echoing underneath the flat-crack of the Imperial lasfire.
A deeper booming throb came from the gloom and an outlying building collapsed as an even larger death machine threw itself forwards.
Legs stamped in the rubble, huge claws clicked in anticipation and the curved armoured segments ended in a massive multi-barreled gun which began spitting hard rounds at an impossible rate.
All around Hassan he heard the screams of men hit by the bullets and threw himself flat as the fire cut across his position. An unfortunate sapper was cut clean in two across the chest by the amount of bullets which hit him, a medicae was throw across the parapet through his support crew as he was hit several times as well.
Hauling himself upwards, Hassan looked out over the machine and began teaching foe his vox. He needed a melta or something to try to fight this thing, his lasrifle no more use then a child's toy. He paused as the machine reared back upon its legs, seeming to stare at his position with what he assumed was it's occulous array.
Seconds later the section of wall he was stood on was engulfed in smoke and dust as he realised it had been hit with some form of ordnance weapon. But these walls were strong, he grinned to himself, it will take more then that to get through them. As he thought that, an ominous cracking noise erupted and the entire section of wall, parapet and defences all began to slide outwards.
Hassan scrabbled but wasn't quick enough to avoid falling with it all, coughing as dust filled his lungs. Screaming as he broke one of his legs from the impact and his rifle skittered away from him. The huge machine loomed over him and he screamed again as it marched forwards towards the breach in the walls.
He looked up sobbing as it passed over him, disgusting cables and wires writhing as if they were alive and parts of the machines musculature. As it passed it stamped a clawed foot down upon Hassan, blood ejecting in an explosive spray to either side. The Brass Scorpion had opened the defences and the Dark Mechanicus Daemon Engines tore through it into the Imperials beyond...
*****
Duncan, has outdone himself once again with his Forgeworld collection.
You may remember his Reaver Titan and Warhound Titans, this time when I visited he'd gotten a selection of Khornate Daemon Engines finished.
First up is the biggest of this collection, the Greater Brass Scorpion of Khorne.
He's painted it in his scheme of black, drybrushed with Incubi Darkness and Thunderbawk Blue (where I stole the idea for my Deathwatch armour from).
All the cables are done in dark purple which matches his own Black Legion scheme. A scheme which he has been pottering about with for the past fifteen years whilst I've known him, and probably a few years previous to that, all we need him to actually do is to stop being distracted by Imperial/Ad-Mech/Chaos Knights and actually get some troops painted up in it to modern standards.
Next up are the Blood Slaughterers of Khorne.
Very friendly named, these kits are fiddly little bastards to build and to keep assembled, the splayed claw/legs certainly don't help.
Once again he's done the same scheme, this time the faces really add to the unsettling feel of the models.
The Harpoon wielding miniature is strangely enough the one out of production(not sure if they both are now), but the one with rules in the compendium for 9th edition, great planning there. Special mention must be made to the bases which are constructed out of textured plasticard, aluminium mesh and the top of a plastic juice bottle!
Lastly, and not painted in this batch, but featured here because I figured I'd photo all his Daemon Engines in one go, is the Decimator.
This kit is awesome and I remember him buying it first-hand. It's been completed a long time (something like nine or so years) but he went back and brought the armour up to snuff with the others so it matches.
This is also the last chaos model he painted where he used Ultramarines parts on the bases, the Dreadnaught power plant under the Decimator's foot there.
That used to be his go-to on bases as he "hates" the Ultramarines as they are everywhere in the artwork and background.
Keep in mind this was during the infamous Matt Ward era, where Guilliman was the "spiritual liege" of ALL the space marines and the Ultramarines were looked upon with envy that other chapters should try to emulate them...
Are we glad those times are passed?
Although if GW's current background writing is anything to go by, it's getting worse...
The "family" photo, he's got a Warpsmith, Lord Discordant and some form of Dark Mechanicus Tech-Dominus to complete the force as he wants it, complete with background ideas which I have to work up into a legible form at some point.
Until next time, have nice day!
