Revelation, a tale of Kharn.

 

 He had walked the endless shore for days?,Weeks? Centuries? 

Time had no hold there, it was less than a joke to the Neverborn and things that had once been human. He remembered a battle, and when his mind wandered he could see his killers avatar in the blood of the sea. Perhaps it was a reminder that he was bested, perhaps the reverberation of the loss had shifted something fundamentally in the eternal tides.

He would continue to walk, the foolish or the insane would challenge him and he would strike them down. They screamed as he tore them apart even as the sea of souls pushed what remained beyond the endless horizon. Perhaps he would have found it amusing at one point, now it had simply become a chore. They were flawed monsters, creatures born of murder and war but ultimately lacking some intrinsic quality that would make them a challenge. Those washed ashore however.....those he looked forward to seeing.

Some asked where they were, others had already been damned in their lives and understood where fate had deposited them. They knew no rest, death was a non-entity on the shoreline. Some he recognized, warriors that had fought along side him in the Crusade and the war for freedom from the Corpse God which followed. Some were warriors who had fought for the Imperium, confused at their ultimate destination they would lash out. All died in the end, and then the cycle would repeat itself.

He wondered why he was the only constant in a realm that resisted even the notion of order. It was not punishment, it was simply the way of existence. He had been here before, in his dreams and in the times when he had been bested, but never for this long. He felt it though, eternal eyes set upon his form, he knew their source but had never given a thought to looking up. 

On some instinctual level he knew that to gaze upon the Lord of Murder would be to end his reprieve from the pain. In this realm at this time he was still Kharn of the World Eaters, no nails singing in the back of his ruined skull, no loss of self, here he merely existed.

It was all a lie though, the best lies are those that the weak would tell to themselves, to seek comfort away from reality. Kharn had been many things in his existence but weak was never one of them. 

"I leave behind the sea of blood for an ocean of it among the stars...."he smiled as he spoke those words and looked into the shadow which towered over all. In an instant of searing pain he gazed upon the form of the Blood God......and the Blood God gazed back.

Eternals had no need to communicate with lesser creatures, their Daemons and worshippers fulfilled those tasks. The Master of the Skull throne smiled, in that instant Kharn saw reality shatter before him. He witnessed the first murder ever committed by a sentient creature, he saw war as an eternal cycle every conflict that ever was and ever would be. Only in bloodshed was true clarity granted. He saw himself battling creatures that had yet to evolve, things that would not even remember humanity as he knew it. He understood that the one truth of the universe was that there would always be war.

Kharn screamed as he awoke from the false death which had claimed him. A smile crossed his lips.

"There is no end to it, there is merely a different stage".

Until next time, have nice day...

The Siege of the Emperor's Palace - Inspiration from many years ago.

 

+ + + The Thirteenth of Secundus, 30,014, the bombardment began. From orbit the Warmaster's ships laid down an unrelenting barrage of missiles and deadly energy beams. The aim was to cripple the defence's around the Emperor's Palace and make possible a massive invasion of Earth. The Lunar bases had already fallen and the defending fleets scattered. On Mars, as across the entire Imperium, bitter civil war raged + + +

*****

In amongst the big pile of classic White Dwarf magazines I picked up for a donation over the summer, there was this gem of a two page spread...

One of the classic GW Mega-Display boards which they put on every year at Games Day (the far better precursor to the modern 'Warhammer Day').

There was a series of displays with a new one each year featuring hundreds of miniatures locked in combat across a highly detailed board.

There were classics such as The Assault on Magnir's Crag, which featured Hive Fleet Behemoth assaulting a Space Wolf fortress high up in the snowy mountain peaks.

Da Massacre at Big Roof River, where an Imperial Guard army was surrounded and wiped out by the Orks (WAAAGH!) and featured the first appearance of the Praetorian Guardsmen regiments.

This though, was the pinnacle of achievement back then, the climax of the Horus Heresy, The Siege of the Emperor's Palace.

From the blurb at the side of the article, the walls were near of six feet high, and had miniatures fighting on nearly all levels, culminating with Sanguinius and a Bloodthirster punching each other at the top of the Ultimate Gate there.

I believe this was the first time that Warlord Titan's had been properly created in 40k scale rather than Epic, and looked like the Lucius pattern which was the standard Epic model of the time (I'm not a fan of the Mars pattern which FW offer at the moment).

Alongside this there were hundreds of space marines duking it out beneath the Titanic warmachines'. Artillery pieces, siege towers, a scratch built drilling machine, converted Primarch's, you name it.

All inspiration to your 15 year old author back then...and 23 years later, still as much of an inspiration, and now an aspiration to recreate!

I'll let the photo's of the article, and some culled from the "way back machine" which I managed to find. Alongside these I'll add excerpts from the old version of the lore for the siege.

+ + + The Emperor himself oversaw the defences of his Fortress-Palace, personally commanding the Adeptus-Custodes, his elite guard. He was accompanied by Sanguinius, white pinioned Primarch of the Blood Angels and his legion of Space Marines. Beneath their Fortress-Monastery grim faced Royal Dorn led the Imperial Fists in their final prayers. In the rubble of burnt out Hab-Areas, Jaghatai Khan mustered the White Scars, the legion of Space Marines he had personally instructed in the art of lightning warfare. Outside the palace, three full Titan-Legions stood ready to defend their Emperor + + +

+ + + Within the Emperor's halls even the Space Marines shuddered, knowing that they would soon confront their lost and damned brethren. The terrifying prospect of facing those corrupt Primarch's who had sold their souls to Chaos filled every man's mind with indescribable horror and dread + + +

+ + + Pods touched the ground and from these did erupt the mightiest champions of Chaos, the renegade Space Marines of the lost legions. No longer were these the finest examples of human warriors from legend, but instead were twisted creatures. Bodies warped by the power of chaos, their minds corrupted by the devotion to dark powers. 

Mighty ships descended from orbit, hoping to overwhelm the defenders with sheer weight of numbers. Unlike the drop pods, these presented fine targets for the guns of the defender's. And this did the battle for Earth begin in earnest + + +

+ + + More and more intricately wrought dropships descended from orbit, they towered over the battlegrounds like nightmare skyscrapers. The dark runes on their sides glowed evilly in the gloom. Hundred meter tall doors opened in their kilometre long sides. From their red depths, Titan's ten times the size of a man emerged. They were warped giants, the armour of their carapace's fused and moulded into new shapes by the power of Chaos. Some of the Chaos Titans had strange and potent weapons, metal tentacles lashed, spiked tails whipped back and forth, engines roared like angry beast's. Banners fluttering, the Titan's of the Storm Lord's and Flaming Skulls legions marched forth + + +

+ + + Reinforced by this fresh wave of troops the hordes of Horus swept on, driving through the exhausted and demoralised Imperial defenders to the very walls of the Emperor's Palace.

Brave men on the walls knew there was no way out. Here they must stand and die, there would be no mercy from those below. The was a war where there could be no honourable peace. It was destroy or be destroyed + + +

+ + + Chaos Titan's blazed away at the walls, specially constructed missiles ripping great chunks from the masonry. The Titan's of the Fire Wasps answered with Volcano Cannon fire of their own + + +

+ + + Every loyal warrior knew that he was already dead. There was no way he could survive the onslaught of the Daemonic army + + +

+ + + Despite taking tremendous losses, the great Warlord Titan's broke through the wall, and the horde of the Warmaster flooded into the palace grounds + + +

+ + + The World Eaters built a pyramid of scorched skulls sixty feet high in Temple Square + + + 

+ + + Sanguinius was forced to retreat to within the palace wall itself. Personally holding the ultimate gate as the last of his wounded men were carried through. Just as the great Ceremite gate was about to close, a Bloodthirster of Khorne leapt upon him. The Daemon's huge talons closed around his throat, and Sanguinius took to the air. Angel and Daemon wrestled above the warring armies, both sides taking a moment to watch the Titanic duel. In a conflict rarely seen, two beings of tremendous power wrestled in a battle which mirrored the bloody struggle taking place across the entire Imperium + + +

+ + + Transmission Terminated + + +

Inspiration, Inspiration...

 So the Chaos Warriors I started painting in the last post are progressing nicely enough, I thought it might be an idea to post about what made me search through the boxes and cupboard until I dragged them out to work on.

I mentioned that this inspiration came from a really unlikely book for me to have been reading, well...

This is the Eighth edition rulebook for Warhammer Fantasy.

"But Lewis, you're a Wargamer, that's not an unlikely book for you to have been reading" I hear you saying.

Well, I think I only played ONE game of eighth edition fantasy ever (and it didn't end well for me) and hadn't really played fantasy at all since maybe the end of fifth edition (I think that was the one which came with Bretonnian and Lizardmen miniatures?).

Anyway, what with the size of the rulebook, the janky movement, wheeling, formation, charge reaction movement rules (I kid you not, and that's only scratching the surface about how complex this was at times). 

Not to mention how many miniatures they expected you to actually field:

(This is just a standard 2,000 point game!)*

Now I have no idea how I came to own a copy of this book, probably a trade somewhere down the way in a job-lot maybe, who knows?

Now do I actually know why I was flicking through the book whilst eating my dinner the other evening, but at the back of the rules section there is an interesting section about legendary battles...

Or basically it's Apocalypse for Fantasy! Which sounds awesome, until you look at the fantasy rules...

Anyway, they give a run down of a Legendary Battle at the back of the book, in this case 'The Slaughter at Volgonof'.

That's a full page of background text in the run-up to the battle and even give a handy map of the path of the Chaos invasion;

They just really wanted to go further then every other Chaos army which stopped in Kislev didn't they?

There are lots of very pretty pictures which pad the pages (kind of like White Dwarf battle reports, of how we lament you failings), each filled with hundreds, maybe thousands of miniatures the likes of which we mere mortals who do not work for Games Workshop could never hope to own in such quantities:

So big it had to go on a four page pullout!

Each of those big units of knights are 46 models strong...who the hell has that many knights?

That castle seems to fill what would be considered a normal sized gaming board...it is nice though.

Siege towers! Need I say more?

Now the main bit of inspiration comes from the unit guides which they wrote and illustrated (rather than photograph miniatures).

Chaos Invasion Forces, led by Lord Mortkin:

Bits of background info for the various units involed, and then they photographed the damn models:

That is the old Warhammer Fire Dragon which Forge World used to make, personally a much better dragon then the Current One.

That converted two-headed giant is cool as well, but the really awesome conversion is the chaos sorcerer;

Complete with floating chunk of earth!

So from reading this and looking at all the photo's it got me thinking about trying to recreate a battle like this but in a sane way.

Obviously I'm going to use the Age of Sigmar rules, but thinking of organising things more along the lines of the Apocalypse formations and allocating units to certain characters rather then just having them.

Also another point is to keep things on a sane level, I won't be having units of SEVENTY-FIVE Chaos Chosen or three units of fourty warriors. So I'm thinking of making a unit of twenty warriors and then a couple of smaller Chosen/Veteran Chaos Warrior units as the main warband.

I have a bunch of beastmen I can pull out of hiding and get painted up, I love Ul-Ruk the Red from the Volganof game:

I may even attempt the replicate the banner!

The only sticking point I have are mortal troops, for both chaos and order.

The games workshop offerings are very old sculpts and not inspirational, generic bare-chested barbarians with horned helmets and sixteenth century German Landsknect.

So I've been looking at the Oathmark, Fireforge Fantasy and Frostgrave plastic boxes:

Some of the available non-GW plastics available now. Decent quality, decent amount of miniatures per box and decent prices.

They are in scale (roughly) with GW mini's as well so should work. Obviously the Oathmark and Fireforge (not pictured) boxes will be more useful for the Cities of Sigmar soldiery as they have more cohesive looks, where as the Frostgrave boxes have a slightly more ruffian/ragtag look so would be more suited to mercenary and Chaos Marauder replacement models.

I'll post more thoughts about this idea as and when they come to me in the future. Suffice to say that this will be an ongoing project, obviously a long-term undertaking as well.

Briefly I considered Undead Vs Order as I have been collecting the Mortal Realms magazine as and when I can get my hands on it with the Stormcast and Nighthaunt collections contained within. But that leads to many, many conundrums concerning the ghost's.

If they're incorporeal as ghosts, why wouldn't they just float through the walls and attack the garrison?

Why should they be concerned with taking a city in the first place?

Etc, etc.

Also I am enjoying painting the chaos stuff right now, and I have all my Khornate Bloodbound which can be added straight away to boost the invading force's numbers.

And Chaos get some cool stuff, I know that Death armies are getting some new models previewed recently, but I do love a lot more of the chaos gear out of the two ranges.

Well, I think I've rambled enough for now.

Until next time...

 - Lewis

*A joke of course. That's actually a 1,500 point game!

Rolling with the Iron Gorgon's Renegades, creating a Chaos Warbands' Narrative

In a somewhat related note to some of my last postings, I received a good bit of favourable feedback about the Titan post. Obviously people likes the miniature...well, I say “miniature” but that thing is nearly two feet tall! 

The other thing people commented on was the written piece introducing the post, the story of Lord Kharakhos and the Iron Gorgon's Renegades.

Chris mentioned to me that he was eager to see both Kharakhos and his sorceress, Eliphim, in miniature form which I hadn't planned on, they were just throw away characters in the scenario to set the scene for the daemonic titan being summoned to the battlefield. 

His comment about wanting to see the characters stuck with me however, and I decided to flesh out the renegades a little more.

This is purely a written exercise for amusement at the moment, but who knows, maybe it could lead into a small force of chaos renegades in the future.

So, I googled Chaos Warband Generator (I love me some random generator tables to roll on) and was greeted with the page of the Chaos Warband Tables from Fantasy Flight Games 40k RPG "Black Crusade", these are meant to flesh out the background of who you are fighting for and why they turned against the Emperor, but they just as easily filter over to 40k.

1: What is the Warbands' Structure? Renegade Chapter. 

I chose this as I had already mentioned a few things in the previous background piece.

2: Why did the Warband fall to Chaos?
(D100, I rolled an 83).

They were stationed in an area of space with a powerful warp presence, which corrupted their minds over time. 

This could be an interesting thing to work with.

3: Who was your progenitor?
Iron Hands. 

Again I chose this, mainly because of the name and how Ferrus Manus was called 'The Gorgon', so I could easily make the jump to them being Iron Hands Successors.

4: What are the Warbands' beliefs?
(D10, I rolled a 4). 

Neutral, They believe that Chaos is a tool to be used rather then worshipped. They serve the Dark Gods when it benefits them. 

As much as I like the zealous nature of the Word Bearers, the cold pragmatism fits better with the Iron Hands theme building. This roll was a "happy accident".

5: How do these beliefs take form in the Warband?
(D100, I rolled an 83). 

Accept and and All. Thieves, Whores, Traitors and Scum alike are welcome to join the Warband's forces. Mutants, Xenos, Beastmen and even former foes can be found in their numbers. 

Interesting, this throws up a great many options which is a great thing for a Chaos Warband to be honest. I'd already included mention of them throwing cultist hordes at the enemy in the previous fiction, so this opens up the chance to include Beastmen (always some of my favourite models) and even some Xenos races...not sure how to go about that just yet.

6: What battlefield doctrines does the Warband believe in?
(I had to choose this one, you'll understand why). 
Drown them with Bodies. The Warband believes in the doctrine of overwhelming strength. Any campaigns are complemented by legions of mortal servants (or slaves) who throw themselves at the enemies.
With the above result about welcoming any and all into their forces, I had to choose this doctrine straight away. All those mortals who think they are gaining power are just really cannon fodder whilst the Astartes do the real work and gain power themselves.

7: What is the Warband's Demeanour?
(D10, I rolled a 2).
Scorched Earth. They destroy anything they do not need so that the enemy cannot use it. Even valuable items such as Fortresses and Ships are expendable.
Not what I was expecting to be honest. I like the pragmatic "Deny the Enemy" outlook, but resources for a renegade Warband would be hard to come by and held onto jealously in my opinion. But let's roll with the dice...

8: Common Mutations and Defects?
(D10, I rolled a 3).
No Rest For The Wicked. The Warband's Catalepsean nodes have been sent into overdrive by the Empyrean. They no longer need to sleep, but tend to hallucinate or go berserk at inopportune moments. They must meditate to keep the symptoms at bay.
This is a fun twist as everything so far has been pretty "straight and narrow". I love the idea of them being relentless as they don't need sleep, but hallucinating at times would be interesting. Perhaps they induce a state of berserker at times when battles begin?

9: Does the Warband utilise any Special Equipment?
(D100, I rolled something).
Unique Daemon Engines. The War band's Warp smiths have created unique, unseen abominations of flesh, metal and daemonic fury.
This was an unexpected result and it threw me for a short while, then I hit upon one of the lesser seen units in the Chaos space Marine codex...Mutilators!
Granted their models aren't great and I don't think that their rules are either, but its something different and not commonly seen, I also think they'd make a great conversion project our of the two plastic Obliterators which came with the Shadowspear box set.

10: What is the strength of the Warband?
(I chose for them to be slightly understrength).
I figure that they have maybe been renegade for a couple of decades, not very long. When they turned I imagine that the chapter would have had to fight a short and brutal civil war, with the survivors siding with Kharakhos and turning renegade. Perhaps there are a few loyalist Iron Gorgon's left, seeking revenge?

11a: Where is their homeworld?
(D100, I rolled a 92).
An Asteroid Belt.
11b: What terrain does their homeworld have?
(I chose Airless as this made sense).
So they are based in an asteroid belt, this throws up several questions such as Is it inhabited? Are there mining rigs present and they get resources that way? is it the remnants of a planet or a actual belt like in our own solar system?
They only bit which this contradicts is the Scorched Earth policy brought up earlier. Perhaps they have everything rigged to blow up if an enemy captures it?

12: Who are our Allies?
(D100, I rolled a 31).
A Rogue Psyker Cult.
Brilliant, that's a perfect jumping in point for Eliphim. She could have been the leader of the cult and joined the Iron Gorgon's, or she could have murdered her way into power and joined or been forced to join Kharakhos at some point. There are too many possibilities to go into here at the moment.

(Two possible ideas for Eliphim).

13: Who are our Enemies?
(D100, I rolled a 96).
Sisters of Battle.
Narratives write themselves for this one. Could the Iron Gorgon's have sacked an Imperial Cathedral at some point? Perhaps they preyed upon pilgrims on one of the many routes of Imperial Saints and massacred the Battle Sisters sent to stop them?
One nice point about this is that I have three friends who have various Sisters of Battle forces which could be drawn into the Iron Gorgon's narrative very easily.

Now onto a major character for the Warband:
1: Who is a Champion of Legend?
(I chose the Warband Leader).
It had to be Kharakhos didn't it. He's probably the single most important person in the Warband other than Eliphim at this point, simply because both of those have been mentioned a little so far.

2: What was his Deed of Legend?
(D100, I rolled a 41).
The Leader killed a renowned and mighty Imperial Hero.
When this roll came up, I had that classic "Lightbulb" moment as an idea popped. I have had a Chaos Hellbrute from the 6th edition Dark Vengeance set sitting unpainted for years. What if this was actually the former Chapter Master, whom Kharakhos defeated when he turned the chapter renegade. Instead of killing him, he had him installed in a Hellbrute with some sort of control mechanism and leaves him to be tortured until they are in battle where he is released upon the enemy as a cathartic release type of situation?


These were just rolled with a "lets see what happens" attitude. Nothing was planned even though it feels like some were coincidental in nature, the Dice Gods obviously favoured these renegades!

This first post is just the set up and showing how easy it can be to come up with some narrative and ideas for a Warband, especially in the days of Crusade campaigns ahead. This is meant to be a "you can do it too" kind of post.
In one of my next posts, I'll post some fiction based upon these choices and see what warp spawned rabbit holes that takes us down, I look forward to casting a small section of the Imperium down...or not, as the gods see fit.

Incidentally, I googled "Iron Gorgon's" and this popped up in the image search as part of a homebrew loyalist chapter:

Maybe make the cog a chaos star or leave it as is?

It's a good starting point though.

Until next time...

- Lewis

Throwback - Background Writing

Many, many years ago, before Facebook really took over Social Media, Forums were the king of the internet.

I was a member of a few such as The Ammobunker, The Waaagh! and Boot Camp.
This last one, Boot Camp, is what brings my post today, for I discovered some old background fluff I had typed up and posted on an old hard drive, in a different folder to the Chaos stuff I posted a bit back!

This was written around ten to twelve years ago, I was building up a different Imperial Guard army and posting my progress on the Boot Camp forum (all about Imperial Guard). We we're playing a fair bit of Cities of Death during 5th edition and with the Forge World Destroyer Tank Hunter and stuff being released around the time I decided I wanted one.

Then I looked at my finances at the time and decided that probably eating, paying rent and feeding my cat was more important. So I decided to create my own Destroyer, sadly the model is long lost to time, but I still have the background I wrote for the crews.

I also wrote a small piece about the build up of an assault which I have added at the bottom of this page.

Grab a drink, sit back and enjoy reading.

***

Sargeant Gerritz looked round, the clanking and squealing of approaching armour echoed around the small buildings. Second platoon was deeper into the township of St. Lyllease then any other unit, and now they faced a serious problem. He cursed under his breath, his squad had run out of missiles not ten minutes earlier, and now they had this to deal with.

"Everyone take cover, enemy armour inbound!" he shouted to his nearby squads. The men spread out along the cobbled road, but Gerritz knew that it wouldn't be enough, the street were just wide enough for their own armour, so one tank round would take all of them out.

Gerritz felt a chill run down his spine as the enemy tank, a Reaver AT-70, crept to view through the smoke. Its blackend, pock marked hull ground into view. It was covered in symbols which caused all the guardsmen around the curse, and pray. It clanked forwards threateningly, spiked treads digging up cobblestones and dirt.

Lasshots burst at them and he realised for the first time that enemy infantry were advancing with the tank. Two troopers near him died before his platoon could return sporadic fire. Their fusilade seemed puny and insignificant compared to the roar of the enemy tank's battle cannon as it fired. The shell sailed high over them,
and demolished a building somewhere else in the town.

The enemy lasfire grew more intense as they advanced, things were beginning to get desperate. Gerritz was thinking about calling for a retreat when he was forced to duck. Walls and rubble crashed down further down the street as another armour piece tore its way through a building! A long barreled, low slung monster of steel, it turned and fired, destroying the traversing tanks turret in a blossoming explosion, the AT-70 slung to a halt.

He looked closer and saw the Imperial Aquilla on the side armour of the new arrival. he watched dumbfounded a the tank reveresed back into the ruins and turned on the enemy infantry. The top hatch flung open, a crewman appeared and started to punish the traitor infantry with the stubber on the hatch. Men were gunned down as they tried to run. Without him realising it, Second platoon had opened fire as well, in a matter of seconds every traitor was dead.

"CLEAR UP!" came a shout from the tank.
"CLEAR DOWN" he replied, "Second platoon move out".
The men moved out down the ruined street and he thought about how battles change in an instance. Not more then a minute ago they had
been under heavy fire from the enemy, now they were advancing against
said enemy with armour of their own.

***

Lieutenant Koffzca grinned as he called out to his crew.

"Enemy tank, Reaver pattern dead ahead! FIRE!"

The destroyer lurched as the cannon fired. Smoke backwashed into the crewspace and was sucked out quickly by the louvres on either side of the hull.

"Target elimination confirmed!" called his targeter, who immediately started to search for another target.

Koffzca smiled to himself as his crew took a quick note of the kill; that was his eighth kill in this battle. Surely a new record in the company! He was jerked out of his thoughts by the urgent calling of his targeter.

"Enemy to front, enemy to front!"

"Address and fire at will, Markus! Keep us in cover, but preferably with good shooting angles!" he ordered calmly.

The vehicle shook as a round exploded harmlessly off its angled hull armour.

"And for throne's sake, DO IT NOW, MAN!" he bawled.

The destroyer reversed away from the approaching traitor tank, but it was not fast enough. A shell hit the ground near it and ripped away a section of track. They ground to a halt in the middle of the open street, a clear target. Koffzca gulped.

"Abandon! Get out! GET OUT!" he shouted, as he watched the stubby barrel of the AT-70 traverse downwards to point directly at them.

***

Major Rummel stared unblinkingly through his destroyer's scope. He waited patiently for the right time to fire, although some other armour commanders would have opened fire already, ruining the chance of a clean kill. Rummel truly understood the power of the destroyer that he was commanding, however. A quiet position and quick fire with maximum chance to kill was how he operated his tank, and this fact alone had led to him being called an 'ace', and had racked up eighteen kills in his career. He was glad that the infantry which had just begun supporting him from the last street had followed his instructions and kept their heads down. He waited...

"What the hell are you waiting for?" came the clipped vox signal, no doubt from the sergeant.

"Be quiet, you fool!" Rummel spat into the vox.

"You have a shot! What are you waiting for? Personal orders from the Emperor himself?" the infantryman voxed again.

Rummel sighed and ignored him.

Wait for it, wait for it!

The time for action was now.

"FIRE!"

***

The flat crack-boom of the Destroyer's cannon firing echoed across the street. The Reaver AT-70 which had been so focused upon Koffzca's stricken Destroyer shunted several feet sideways, its tracks sparking on the hardpan. It ground to a halt, turret swung completely around, its main weapon hanging on a single hinge. Fire ran across the side of the tank from where the explosion had ignited the electrics and motor servos, before reaching the main magazine.

The Chaos tank blew itself to pieces in an explosion so powerful that it shook both Koffzca's and Rummel's Destroyers and left Garrond and his infantry cowering in the rubble. Looking up to where once before there had been a tank and the road, they saw only a crater- nay, a hole, several feet deep, covering almost the entire width of the road. The walls of the building directly opposite had also been mostly destroyed.

"Target elimination confirmed!" called Rummel's spotter.

"Thank you, Wolfe, but I think we already knew that." His crew laughed as the tension eased.

"Get us out there," he ordered. "Rummel to Support. We need an Enginseer at 60/81b ASAP. Destroyer damaged."

The vox crackled to life.

"Support section to Rummel. Request heard and approved. Will be on site in approximately twenty minutes. Out."

***

Lieutenant Koffzca had climbed out of his Destroyer and was inspecting the damage to the track section as Rummel's Destroyer tore its way free of the ruins, sections of prefabricated Ferrocrete bouncing freely off the slanted armour of the tank as it drove clear and turned to them.

"That damn b****** will have another mark to paint on that barrel now," he thought. "That should have been mine!"

Rummel climbed down and walked over to him.

"Support is on the way. Twenty minutes."

"Thank you, sir." That was all that Koffzca could say before Rummel had climbed back into his Destroyer and started to back up into the new ruins to await and cover the Enginseer's team when they got there.

***

Rain poured down, droplets bouncing into the air when the hit the water-logged ground. Street lamps flickered in the wet night air, casting inane shadows over the alleyway, sparks flying from broken cables. Ahead through the gloom, the flashes of weapons fire marked a fierce firefight in progress, though the sound was muted by the pouring rain. Private Dieck watched the flashes impassively, cradling his lasrifle, knowing that he would be in amongst that hell soon, scowling at a noise created behind him. Private Viby had stumbled on a loose piece of rubble and had fallen headlong into a large pubble. He splashed around for a few moments, trying to find his feet, and scrabbling for his rifle in the puddle.

"Emperor's sake, Viby! We're trying to be stealthy here!" Private Dieck whispered harshly to him.

"Ease up, Dieck. Any one of us could have slipped on that." said Corporal Jakobson.

"Come on, lad." Sergeant Kambietz said, offering Viby his hand and pulling the young private to his feet. After making sure

Viby was steady again, Kambietz moved to the front of the squad. The ten men were crouched in the cover offered by the sides of the buildings around them. The Imperial buttresses of the ruined Basillica, that had been fashioned into Imperial Aquila heads long ago, were merely pitted and rusted now. At one time they would have been a brilliant gold, but now they sheltered the guardsmen from the prying eyes of the enemy. By the time Dieck looked back to the fight, the area ahead was still and silent. The firefight seemed to have ended.

"How's things looking out there, Beynon?" Kambietz asked, coming up alongside his grenade launcher specialist.

"Mighty quiet out there, Sarge. Helluva noise not more than five minutes ago, but now mighty quiet. Almost like..." Beynon trailed off.

"Almost like they're waiting for us." Kambietz spoke the unspoken end of the sentence, staring at the windows across the street. He was sure that he had seen movement up there, but with the bad visibility from the rain and the failing street
lights, who knew what he could have seen?

"Orders coming through, sir. We're to advance and take Building 619 in Grid 60/18b. That's the one across this main street, sir." Jakobson said, pointing at the building in question. "The rest of the platoon will be assaulting from their positions, sir, as well as Third Platoon and elements of Sixth as well."

"A major offensive, eh? Well, let's look alive!" Kambietz said, starting up his chainsword. He raised it in the air and grabbed a grenade. "Come on, lads! We have our orders! Assault formation! Enzmann, I want you to hit that wall with everything your missile tube has. Make a breach large enough for us. Beynon, target any windows and put a grenade through them. I want you to keep them pinned down. Everyone else into the breach with me. Any questions?"

"Sir! Behind us!" cried Private Viby, pointing down the street from where they had just come. A large shape loomed out of the mist, its autocannon protuding from the front as a greenish glow lit up the pilot. A faint buzzing and clanking accompanied its movements.

"A Sentinel..." Jakobson said. "If they're also being sent in for support, it looks like this is bigger than we thought."

"Looks like the assault is starting, lets move!" Kambietz said. They broke cover as one, Enzmann's missiles flying past them, blowing chunks of ferrocrete into the building. Grenades hurled from Beynon's launcher peppered the windows facing them, exploding violently inside the upper stories of the building. Brilliant red stripes of energy spat from the squad's lasguns, the las rounds cutting steaming paths through the rain. All along the street, as he looked left and right, Kambietz could see ripples of lasfire from the advancing squads. Explosions lit up the darkness and fires began to crackle amongst the debris.

Return fire began to pepper the street around them, hard rounds glowing and leaving tracer trails in the air, enemy lasrounds a lighter shade of red pierced the darkness. A Private in front of Kambietz doubled over and dropped dead as two separate lasrounds found him, blowing out of his throat and making a large hole in the top of his chest. Still holding the grenade in his right hand, the clip held in, Kambietz raced towards the objective. A cry of terror and fury erupted from his throat...

"For the EMPEROR!"

***

Well, I hope you enjoyed that, it was a trip down memory lane for me at least.

As I continue on with my Ventrillians, who knows, perhaps the destroyer crews will be renamed something more suitable for that army and included eventually. I have much stronger converting and modelling skills then I did back then and am not as worried about converting things such as tanks and expensive kits nowadays.

Until next time...

 - Lewis