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Battle of Blood Rock Canyon.


The trench line was silent. Private Jules peered across the vast flat land separating the Imperial Trenches from the green skin lines. Nothing moved, save for the occasional flash of gleaming metal debris in the sun or the wisp of dust in the wind. Looking to his sides, Jules could see down the imperial lines, he could see the rest of his regiment, the 302nd Cadian, stretched along the trench network side by side with the 212th Krieg and 82nd Vallhallan all crammed into the cramped series of trenches, behind the trenches lay the vast canyon to the Imperial stronghold, and beyond that a Hive City, they were the first line of defense. With a last glace at the ork lines; Jules stepped down from his crate up against the earthen wall of the trench to join is comrades for a meal. A giant of a man with a gaunt white face young as only 25, wearing a giant trench coat handed Jules a meal bar as he approached the group huddled in the back of the trench. “Anything out there? Or were you staring at a mirage again?” a stocky Vallhallan said from the group “Oh shut it Varg, your no better” the Cadian Vox Operator Garretzon said looking up from his Vox only turning back to continue to tinker with the device, turning knobs, and pushing buttons while muttering litanies under his breath. “Any news from command?” Jules said biting into the meal bar, this time the Kreiger spoke, “Command said something about another regiment landing, I didn’t catch which, otherwise just a bunch of crap about the Green skins and the usual stuff”
“They said it was the 91st Experimental Lars, you need to listen better” Garretzon remarked without looking up. Lars went quiet, taken aback by the name of the newly landed regiment that would soon be joining the battle against the old foe.
Jules turned to Lars, still in shock, and shoke him back to reality.
“The 91st…” Lars muttered
“What about ‘em?” Varg said through a mouthful of meal brick.
Lars began to relate stories and rumors of the 91st Experimental Regiment, that their machines and equipment were all salvaged and cobbled together; some incorporating long lost Mechanicus weapons or their construction was so insanely radical it would drive a Commissar mad, not they had a normal Commissar attached to the 91st. The Stories continued with reports of the 91st using downed enemy machines by patching them together and using them to infiltrate large numbers of allied troops to the enemy’s rear or crushing a Chaos marine offensive by collapsing buildings on top of the Chaos legions before pummeling them with unrelenting heavy ordinance from their vast tank battalions, with many tanks carrying prototype Mechanicus weaponry, or powerful Artillery batteries. “So who commands that mad lot then Lars?” Verg said, interrupting a description of one of the Baneblades under the 91st command.
“His name is Commander Andrews, and he’s quite sane. Strange, but sane. He has a pet cat with him at all times, its fur is green and blue, and it sleeps inside a large Alcohol ration bottle, strapped to the Commanders side, but he doesn’t drink, the cat drinks it all” The Guardsmen in the group all wore a confused look on their face, “His pet drinks his Alcohol ration?” Garretzon said aghast. “Yeah, and both seem to survive the most horrendous incidents, there was a report of one of the 91st command bunkers being hit by a chaos Titan Turbo Laser blast, causing it to explode in a massive fire. Troops soon ran to the rubble to remove the bodies of the commander and his adjundants but under a large plate of armor torn from the front door the troops could hear meowing and tapping on the armor plate, they managed to move the plate to find the Commander and his cat with nothing but a few scratches and bruises. He is believed to be protected by the Emperor himself by those around him, but he chalks most of it up to luck, and tries to keep himself out of the line of fire.”

The group had gone silent in thought from the accounts of the 91st and its commander told by Lars, and they continued to eat in silence. Jules train of thought turned to the descriptions of the 91st’s war machines, wondering if he would be able to recognize them from the Ork devices when they arrived. Jules thoughts were cut short as warning sirens let out a blood chilling wail, Garretzons vox exploded with chatter, shouts of movement in the Green skin lines. Suddenly a shriek of artillery shells drowned out everything and Jules was thrown back by a shell impact, slamming into the trench walls.
Everything was blurry and Jules could hear nothing but an incessant ringing in his ears. A Huge blur stood over him and grabbed him by the collar pulling him to his feet, things slowly came back to focus until he could see the black rebreather covering Lars face leering down at him, he was shouting something but Jules couldn’t understand him until something was slammed into his chest and he was thrown face first into the opposite side trench line. Reality slammed back into Jules as he hit the earthen embankment, he quickly scrambled up the side until he could see over the walls and he peered over to a terrifying sight. The orks had since pored out of their encampment and nothing but a massive green tide could be seen ahead, dotted with numerous ramshackle devices trundling around in the Ork lines. Pillars of flame erupted from the Ork machines as they rumbled forwards firing their over sized guns wildly at the Imperial defenders Trench line. Most rounds missed completely but some hit the lines, sending troops flying, or outright vaporizing them. “Hold fire until told!” the Vox now strapped to Garretzons back bellowed the orders of Command. The orks continued to charge closer and closer, grinding Jules nerves like the earth beneath the millions of charging green skins.
Suddenly a multitude of explosions blossomed beneath the Orks, cutting swaths through the ork lines. “The Orks hit the mine fields! OPEN FIRE!”.

Jules didn’t need to be told twice, he shouldered his lasgun and fired into the green tide, at the same time the entire trench line erupted with weapons fire, a virtual wall of las shots, rockets, bolter rounds and more slammed into the Xeno lines, halting it like a great flood gate. Jules continued to fire into the Orks, trying to go for headshots but knowing that he didn’t need to aim as he would hit a green skin as long as he aimed into the thick expanse covered by green bodies before him and his comrades. The Ork tide halted like a river hitting a wall, corpses piled upon each other creating a wall of death orks in front of the ork forces that continued to pile up as the orks tried to charge forwards and the mass of firepower from the imperial lines cut them down left and right. Slowly the ork lines were pushed back by the unrelenting fire of the guardsmen dug in the trenches ahead of the ork forces. Jules and his comrades continued to fire into the horde, firing as shot after las shot, only pausing to slam home another power cell before resuming the torrential fire. Then something happened that made Jules heart stop, the Orks pushed forwards and resumed their charge despite the losses they were taking. The Orks began to get much to close, the Green skins began firing thier crude together guns wildly at the Guardsmen in the trenches ahead of them, slobbering and bellowing guttural war cries, while swinging their huge blades and axes in the air. The Imperial Guard troops continued to fire volley after volley of las-fire into the charging green skins, but soon the orks managed to get within spitting distance of the imperial defenders. Jules watched as he could make out the snarling face of an ork that had taken an interest in jule’s comrade’s position, charging wildly towards Lars and Vergs position. The massive green skin dove into the trench and Jules could see its back as it tried to swing its blade into both of his allies. Jules unloaded his lasgun into the creatures back but the huge Ork shrugged off the shots and continued to tried and kill his foes. The Ork suddenly let out a cry and Jules would see Lars standing on the orks chest shoving his lasguns bayonet into the massive creature’s eye firing the lasgun into the orks skull. The beast soon fell and Jules and his comrade turned back to face the Horde. A blood chilling shriek heralded another barrage from the ork war machines. The first barrage hit more Orks then humans but it wasn’t like the Orks cared, it was only a ranging shot, only 1 more until their machines began the slaughter. “Cover!” someone shouted to Jules left as another shriek of artillery shells split the air. Before he knows it Jules was flying through the air out and away from the trenches, deafened by the blast and utterly stunned.
Splayed on his back, Jules managed to lean up only to see an Ork “Nob” roaring at him, charging towards him with hammer raised. In a panic Jules began scrabbling backwards, watching in horror as the green skin got closer and closer, roaring and laughing in glee. The nob raised his hammer high into the air, ready to smash Jules into thousands of pieces, Jules braced himself for the end, but did not notice the air beginning to electrify all around him. The electrical charge continued to build and build in the air but neither Jules nor the Ork Nob took any notice of it. The death blow was on is way and Jules shut his eyes waiting for death to come, but instead hear a massive crack of lightning and all went silent beyond the sound of fighting in the distance. Jules opened his eyes stunned at the fact he was still breathing and not paste on the end of a Nobs hammer, he looked at where the Nob used to be but only saw a pair of smoking boots and glassed sand around boots, another charge built in the air and a huge lightning bolt cracked over Jules head and arced into the Orks lines, vaporizing orks out of existence or searing off body parts. Jules sat there stunned at the sight until an Ork Trukk leaped over the trenches and began barreling towards the canyon to the Hive city. Jules leapt to his feet and tried to find his las gun, but a heavy ‘Thump’ of sound hit him in the chest and the Ork truck seemed to be flattened by an invisible force exploding and bursting into flame before coming to a halt ahead of him. Several Orks stumbled out of the wreckage and quickly turned to Jules, roaring challenges and snarls, until a blinding light cut through them coming from behind Jules. Finally gaining the courage to turn around and amazing sight greeted him. Three Leman Russ tanks, each wielding a bizarre weapon system stood a few hundred feet behind him. The Tanks roared forwards and drove past Jules without a thought, unleashing their weapons upon the Orks, the middle one having giant electrodes blasting out lightning bolts, another had a gigantic speaker that blasted out sonic shockwaves and the last fired a giant beam cannon vaporizing orks, raking its laser left and right through the enemy lines. Then it hit him… The 91st Experimental had arrived.

Commander Andrews peered through the vision blocks of his command tank, the Baneblade “Thunderfury”, as he peered through the block at the battle outside his war machine he felt fur touch his right cheek and turned his head to see Tip’s, his cat, peering through another view block, purring at the destruction of the Orks she could see in the distance, her furry face pressed into a vision block of the baneblade like he was doing, her green and blue fur twitching with anticipation. “Don’t worry Tip’s we’re gonna give them hell too”
“Merrow” the feline replied amused at the thought, small furry face still pressed into the vision block.
Andrews taped the ear bud in his ear activating the tanks intercom, “Gunner! 20 degrees right, Ork Battle fortress, AP round! Fire at will!”
“Brace!” yelled the gunner into the intercom and the massive tank lurched as it cannon fired. Andrews pressed his face into the view block again, fur touching his cheek telling him Tips was watching as well. The Ork battle fortress, a huge pile of scrap metal and guns on tracks exploded into a conflagration of flame and burning bodies, Tips began purring heavily at the sight, needing Andrews’s uniform with her abnormally long claws. Andrews tapped the ear piece again, changing it to the regimental vox channel, quickly opening the Baneblades hatch to scan the carnage ahead of him, Tips jumped into the large Alcohol bottle on Andrews’s belt, poking her head back out to watch the carnage unfold.
The ear bud came alive with voices “Sir! The Cadians are being hit by a mob of Ork Deffdreads!, ones got a flamethrower their gonna get cooked!” a Sergeant under Andrews’s command spoke into the vox.
“Tornado! Sky Hammer! give those boys some breathing room!”
“Yes sir! Spin those blades! We got targets!” the voices of the Tornado’s pilots replied back
Moments later the roar of jet engines and the thudding of rotor blades cut through the air and the 91sts aircraft tore over Andrews’s head, the Tornado, bearing the Vendettas tried and true chassis but with a large Rotor blade system and heavy weapons, while its counterpart the Sky hammer bore extra weapons torn from enemy tanks upon its normal Vendetta frame roared above the battlefield. The Vendettas of the 91st banked hard and came down guns blazing along the trench line, Las Cannons ripping into Ork contraptions and rocket barrages, showering the orks with high explosive missiles and shrapnel. Andrews’s decided that the left flank was dealt with for now and turned to his right to see the Leman Russes under his command firing into the Green skin forces, a massive Ork Gargant threatening his tanks and the guardsmen they were protecting. “Driver get us behind our tankers, quickly!”, at that the Baneblade lurched forwards, black exhaust fumes billowing up behind it as it positioned itself with the line of tanks in front of it. The baneblade fired again, sending another rocket propelled shell into the distance at the gigantic scrap heap that was the Ork Gargant.
“All armor focus on that Gargant! Ready the Ashbringer!” Andrews shouted into the regimental vox channel. At those words all the Leman Russ tanks under his command, began firing their weapons into the armored hide of the Ork Gargant. The Gargant began firing one of its arm weapons wildly into the assaulting Leman Russes but their thick armor kept them alive through the onslaught of fire. The Gargant stumbled under the concentrated firepower of the 91st’s battle tanks and its hull suddenly shimmered and sparkled. “Its shields are down!” The voice of one of the Russ commanders, shouted into Andrews’s ear piece.
“Tyron that’s your cue, blow that things head off!!”
“Rodger! Let loose the fury of the Ashbringer!! Strike these xenos down my glorious machine!” The Shadowswords commander’s voice echoed in Andrews’s ear piece, as he spoke to his crew and machine. A blinding beam of light soared over the Thunderfury, the Shadowsword had unleashed its mighty volcano cannon. The beam slammed into the Ork Gargant and the terrible machine burst into flames as the titan killing cannon tore into its hide and ripped out its metal heart. The Gargant toppled over onto a group of battle wagons crushing them and the mass of Orks surrounding them, detonating as it hit the ground, vaporizing into millions of pieces.

The battle went on, Orks dying by the thousands left and right as the 91st’s armor and troops tore into them alongside the Cadians, Kreig and Valhallens.
A meow from Tip’s caught Andrews’s attention to a solitary cadian trooper watching stunned at the sight of the battle before him. “Drakson! You have command!” Andrews called into the Baneblades intercom, before jumping down from the enormous tank to face the Cadian trooper. “Soldier! What are you doing? What’s your name!?” The Trooper jumped at the shouts and scrambled into a salute “Private Larn Jules sir! 302nd Cadian Infantry!”
“Where’s your squad?”
“All dead I think sir…”
Andrews turned to grab a spare lasgun from the side of “Thunderfury”, Tip’s suddenly let out a hiss as the roar of rockets heralded the arrival of a mob of Stormboys, Orks with rockets strapped to their backs willing to fly headfirst into the enemy lines for the joy of the kill. Andrews shoved the las gun into Jules gut and turned around to unsheathe his power sword, hitting the button the blade’s hilt the sword came alive with energy, crackling blue. A heavy thud preceded the first Stormboy, Andrews jammed his sword into the creatures gut before it could think too strike, cleaving the beast in half. Three more Stormboys soon landed hard near Andrews and Jules. Jules tackled one beating it relentlessly with the butt of his lasgun, the other two ran for Andrews. Andrews ducked under the swinging blades of the Orks, cutting a chunk of flesh from one of the orks legs having it toppled face first into the dirt. The second tried to swing its blade into Andrews but Tips exploded from her hiding spot in the Alcohol jug and jumped on the Orks face hissing and spitting, clawing deep gashes into the creatures face. The Ork howled in pain trying to swipe the furious feline off itself, but Tips continued to claw and bite the creature until it toppled to the ground twitching and covered in its own blood, Tips had clawed its throat out. Andrews had long since dispatched the previous storm boy, impaling its skull on the end of his power sword, twisting the serrated blade to guarantee the creatures death. Andrews quickly collected Tips who was soaked in Ork blood with pieces of green skin flesh stuck on her long talon-like claws and grabbed Private Jules who had beaten the Stormboys skull into a messy pulp. “Sir!” the ear bud yelled into Andrews’s ear. “The lines won’t hold! There’s too many of them! We’re going to run out of ammo at some point!”
Andrews turned back around to face the frontline. Guardsmen were fighting tooth and nail to hang onto the trench line and prevent the Orks from sweeping through to the Hive city beyond the canyon the trenches defended, the 91st’s few infantry platoons and many Tanks continued to fire into the hordes, but it wasn’t enough, the Orks kept coming and there was no end to them. “I think its time we brought down the wrath of the Harbinger…” Andrews said solemnly.
“The What?” Jules said rushing up to Andrews.
Andrews ignored Jules plea for information on the Harbinger and began relaying coordinates to the 91st’s artillery batteries.
Andrews continued to watch the battle in front of him, until a massive bang of an enormous cannon in the distance jolted him back to his senses. “Everyone get down, get below ground! Aircraft clear the area now! Brace for impact!!” Andrews screamed into his vox ear piece on all channels, the thousands of guardsmen outside dove into the trenches and took cover while the tanks retreated back to hull down positions, spitting ordinance into the Orks, giving the guardsmen cover as they all fell back to cover. He turned and grabbed Jules, dragged him up the side of Thunderfury, dumping him down the hatch and slamming it shut behind him. “Brace!” Andrews shouted into the tanks interior.

All went dead silent…. A brilliant light suddenly shown through the openings in the tank. The vision ports shown like the sun and the Tank began to rock violently, shaking back and forth as it was hit by a tremendous shockwave, lurching the tank back and forth, Andrews, Jules and the crew holding onto anything to steady themselves as Tips ducked inside her bottle for safety. All went silent and the tanks interior went dark. Andrews carefully opened the commander’s hatch and stood up to see an unbelievable sight.

Where the Orks and their machines once were, an immense mushroom cloud of fire and debris stood. Tips hopped out of her bottle to perch on to of the Baneblade, watching the cloud rise higher and higher, her eyes glowing from the flames licking the remnants of the fields that the battle was waged on, 100 megatons of explosive force had obliterated the Orks in a single stroke. Andrews tapped his ear bud “All units report in.” leaning over to apply a small rebreather to Tips face and put his own on. Andrews scanned the remnants of the battlefield as the clouds slowly lifted; the Orks had been vaporized utterly, only a few scattered pieces of their war machines remained, glowing from the towering inferno that loomed over them.
Slowly most of the Guardsmen squads of the 302nd Cadian, 212th Kreig and 82nd Vahallen reported on the vox to him, with the majority 91st reported alive, only a few footsloggers died. “Gather up all equipment and supplies and fall back to the second line of defense, apply rebreathers as well, unless you want to end up in med block with radiation poisoning.” Andrews switched off the Vox before he could get any replies back. He only gazed at the destruction that had unleashed upon the old foe, thousands if not millions of orks instantly vaporized. He would get an earful from the Lord General for using one of the experimental weapons under the 91st’s command without the Lord General’s permission like this but it didn’t matter to him. His men were alive and the other regiments were as well and the Orks had been dealt a massive blow. But that was just a single battle. The war on this rock was yet to be won.





Im not a brilliant writer, nor am i a lore buff in 40k, i try to keep it close, its my very first fan fiction.
For all the tanks and machines mentioned check my gallery.

edit: i know its long, but feel free to comment.