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Sergeant Marcus Stone, Veteran of the 23rd Iron Heart Expeditionary Force and Hero of Lazlo Pass, grimaced as the transport rocked again, causing his arms to strain as he held onto one of the nearby supports of the cargo bay door. The old landing ship was a rustbucket, an ugly flying can of sputtering engines and creaking joints, and after centuries of rough landings, atmospheric entries and direct hits from enemy fire, Stone couldn't decide what was more surprising-- the fact that it was still intact, or the fact that the 23rd still kept the damned thing in service.

The shipboard vox crackled to life, signalling that they were nearing landing zone Two-Five-Five-Sigma, the last known position of the Adepta Sororitas. Taking a glance at his own squad, who were armoured in jade-green carapace like himself, Stone was reassured that they were battle-ready. On the wall opposite them, Sergeant Blight's squad was doing last-minute preparations, loading lasguns and ensuring their plasma rifles were well-maintained. At the centre of the cargo hold, the Chimeras, light tanks, and the looming forms of the Leman Russes were moored firmly in place by loading cables. Stone did not want to think about the endless barrels of promethium and fuel situated at the back of the transport, or how quickly it would incinerate him and everything in the transport if they took a direct hit. Not for the first time in this trip, Stone prayed that they would make it to the landing zone intact. Damious will kill me if I lose this much armour in a landing accident, he thought to himself.

Stone was reassured, however, when he felt a sickening vertical lift from below as the transport fired its thrusters. His stomach lurched uncomfortably, but soon the sensation passed as the transport righted itself. It wasn't until the cargo bay doors growled open that he knew they had landed. Windswept ash blew into the cargo hold, though it was not intense enough to warrant Stone fixing his rebreather.
　
Sigil-9661 was an arid world of windswept ash wastes and barren mountains, with only a few mineral resources to make it worthwhile in the Imperium's eyes. In the grand scheme of things, it was just one world of many yet to be reclaimed as the Imperial crusade rolled through the Kitchener Sector. The 23rd had been at the forefront of the campaign so far, fighting in the reclamation of Cassia, Achern IV and Gryhon Hermionis, and won several accolades in these engagements. The rest of the regiment, however, was currently involved in the relief of Felharbour, and when the call for aid had come from the Sororitas campaigning on Sigil, only a few squads and a single armoured company could be spared. Stone prayed it would be enough.
　
As the ramp lowered, Stone and his squad were the first ones to step through. The first thing he noticed was that the Sororitas were waiting for them: several squads of Battle Sisters stood lined before the transport, boltguns held upright as though on a drilling ground. They stood with a disciplined stillness that matched that of even Iron Heart's veterans, though the baroque power armour they wore made them appear that much more impressive. White armour shone in the sunlight of Sigil-9661, around which hung rosaries, prayer beads and other articles of faith. Their armour was framed by blue tabards, sleeves and hoods which must have once been a regal blue, but were now stained and faded from the windswept ash. Their faces were uncovered, though the stern silence of each expression dispelled any doubt that these women were trained soldiers.
　
And they'd have to be well-trained, Stone thought with a grimace, to stay calm in the situation they were in. Across the windswept plains, Stone could see pillars of thick smoke rising from where shattered transports lay burning, blackened fleur-de-lys and Ecclesiarchial symbols adorning their hulls.. The few undamaged vehciles, all compact Rhino-chassis transports, were all huddled in a defensive circle. The briefing had informed him that the Sisters were suffering heavy vehicles losses in this warzone, and what he was seeing confirmed it. A small, improvised cairn over by the side-- a mound of earth overlaid with stones in the pattern of the Imperial Eagle-- told Stone that it wasn't just vehicle losses the Sisters had been suffering.
　
Seeing that none of the Sisters were making a move to greet him, Stone strode forward, his command team following close by. Past the stoic line of Sororitas, Stone could see a solitary, armoured figure kneeling on the ground, a cluster of prayer beads clasped in her armoured hands. A solemn, dark-skinned face peered out from under a woven cowl, marred only by a glossy black lens in the place of one eye. If she noticed Stone or his approach, she made no sign as she continued to silently pray.
　
Approaching the kneeling woman, Stone flashed a smart salute, the action drawing attention to the Honorifica Imperialis fastened proudly to his chestplate. "Canoness Tarqan?" he asked. "Sergeant Marcus Stone, 23rd Iron Heart Expeditionary Force, responding to your reinforcement request. Colonel Everson sends his regards."
　
Canoness Merced Tarqan of the Order of the Blessed Damsel did not look up at the officer. Her gaze remained focused on the prayer beads, her gauntleted fingers sliding another black bead down the string. The only sign Stone had that she even acknowledged his presence was when she spoke to him.
　
"Your Colonel Everson has my Order’s gratitude, Sergeant," the Canoness spoke softly, her voice calm and untroubled in spite of the ruined vehicles not far from where she knelt. "Provided, that is, you have come with the fuel and prometheum that you have promised. We cannot move without the former, and cannot send souls to the Emperor’s judgement without the latter."
　
Stone nodded. "We have brought fuel and ammunition for several weeks, as per your request, Canoness Tarqan," he said "Colonel Everson has also dispatched some battle-tanks and self-propelled artillery to aid you in this warzone, Canoness. Our armour is at your disposal."
　
"Then I pray your regiment’s spirit is as resolute as their armour, Sergeant," Merced replied, glancing up from her prayer beads and examining him one good eye, "for once our advance resumes, it will not stop. Not until either victory or death has been achieved."
　
Stone's mouth twitched at the comment. "With all due respect, Canoness, the men under my command are hardened veterans," he said. "We have been briefed on the situation here, and we have come more than prepared to deal with--"
　
"Yes," Merced cut in. "The situation here." She stood up, her height now level with Stone's. He could see the ugly latticework of scars across the Canoness' right cheek. "Except we will not just be focusing on the situation here."
　
Stone blinked, surprised by the Canoness' abruptness. "Canoness, Tarqan, what do you mean? We were simply dispatched to aid you in this warzone!"
　
"I suggest you re-examine your orders then, Sergeant," the Canoness replied. "I requested reinforcements for the duration of this campaign. My Sisters and I are too far from our shrineworld to request reinforcements from our Prioress, and we have many worlds to visit after this one--- each one teeming with aliens, mutants and heretics all in dire need of smiting. We will stop only when every last world in this system is restored to the God-Emperor's sight."
　
Stone's jaw tightened. There were four habitable worlds in this system, all deemed hostile by the crusade's analysts. He and his men could be in for a long campaign away from the rest of the regiment.
　
Despite his reservations, Stone knew his duty. He saluted the Canoness again. "We won't let you down, Canoness."

For a moment, Merced was quiet. Then, slowly, she nodded. "As long as you and your men hold true to your faith, Sergeant," she said, "then I'm sure you won't."



Hey everyone! A few months back, a friend and I (MaxisLithium of Warseer) attended the Warmasters 40k Doubles tournament in Windsor, and after several weeks of work and writer’s block, I’ve finally gotten around to delivering you the reports!

The team tournament was fairly large, with 50+ players and a myriad of armies involved (with the most common ones being Grey Knights, Blood Angels, Dark Eldar and Tyranids). There would be 4 games, and each side would consist of two 1000 point armies. Maxis and I decided to bring Imperial Guard and Sisters, respectively, as that would give us some decent theme points. Neither of us had time to make any impressive conversions or display boards for the tournament, so we more or less figured we’d miss out on a lot of appearance points. However, that didn’t matter, as we were more or less hoping to do well on actual battle points.

Our lists were as follows:


Order of the Blessed Damsel

Canoness Merced Tarqan- jump pack, inferno pistol, master-crafted eviscerator, Cloak of St. Aspira, Book of St. Lucius
10 Battle Sisters- meltagun, heavy flamer, VSS w. Brazier of Holy Flame & Book of St. Lucius
-Rhino- extra armour, smoke launchers
10 Battle Sisters- meltagun, heavy flamer, VSS w. Brazier of Holy Flame & Book of St. Lucius
-Rhino- extra armour, smoke launchers
6 Celestians- 2 meltaguns, Veteran Sister Superior w. eviscerator & Book of St. Lucius
-Immolator- twin-linked heavy flamer, smoke launchers, extra armour
7 Seraphim- 2 hand flamers, Veteran Sister Superior w. eviscerator

(No pre-tournament pic of my army, sorry).


23rd Ironheart Expeditionary Force

Company Command Squad- 2 meltaguns, vox-caster, carapace armour, Company Commander Stone w. power sword
-Chimera- hull heavy flamer, pintle-mounted heavy stubber
10 Veterans- 2 plasma guns, vox-caster, Sgt. Blight w. power sword, Grenadiers
-Chimera- hull heavy bolter, dozer blade
Hellhound- hull heavy bolter, pintle heavy stubber
2 Leman Russes- 1 w. hull lascannon
Basilisk



(Note that because this tournament happened back in August, the old Sisters rules were still tournament-legal, so this was essentially the last time I used the old Codex).

For the tournament, we had more or less agreed that the Guard would be supplying heavy armour and firepower, while the Sisters would deliver on close-ranged firepower and jump troops. Initially, I wanted to take a foot-based Canoness to ride with the Celestians in the Immolator, and take an Exorcist with the spare points. After much debating on the issue, however, we agreed that a flying Canoness would be much more useful. You’ll note, however, that the Seraphim don’t have a Book: this was due to a printing error when we were finalizing the army lists (the Seraphim were supposed to have the Book, rather than the Celestians). In the end, it didn’t matter too much.

The Immolator, incidentally, would be a unit I would have been using for the first time. I never bothered using it with the old codex, and with the Immolator about to be nerfed in the new White Dwarf rules, I decided to use it while I still had the chance at this tournament.

Game 1- Space Marines & Imperial Guard

It had months since the Ironheart Guardsmen had linked up with the Sisters on Sigil, and since then they had seen more battle together than Stone would have anticipated. At Canoness Tarqan’s urging, they had launched an immediate mechanized assault on the ring of Archenemy forces encircling Army Group North, hoping to break the siege of Refinery 1228 and turn the situation around for the Imperium. Stone had protested that they didn’t have the numbers for such an assault, but Canoness Tarqan had responded by deriding what she saw as his lack of faith, and led her Sisters off to battle without him. There had been much cursing on Stone’s part that day, but he had nonetheless been forced to have his troops advance into battle after the heedless Sororitas. He may not have liked it, be he was a man who followed orders.

In retrospect, Stone thought, perhaps Tarqan had been right to deride his lack of faith, as the assault was a resounding success. The Traitor Guard had all but forgotten about the meagre Sororitas forces stranded in the desert, and had never expected them to be reinforced in their remote location. As such, the sudden armoured assault to their rear threw the hereics into disarray, allowing the besieged Mordian 27th to launch a counterattack of their own. Countless heretic soldiers were slain that day, caught between the hammer of the Sororitas and Ironheart soldiers, and the anvil of the unyielding Mordians. By the end, great pyres of the enemy were left burning alongside the charred wrecks of enemy vehicles in the ash wastes. In one decisive battle, the ground war had been turned around. Within days, the heretic forces on the planet had given their official surrender, and the battle for Sigil was over.

Stone, however, had always known that Sigil would be one of the easier battles of the Crusade, and after they shipped off for the next battlezone, he was soon proven right. A month later, the fleet translated out of the warp above Serket, the homeworld of the Green Scorpions Chapter of Space Marines. Although they were based in the Kitchener Sector, the Green Scorpions had been curiously absent from the fighting on Sigil, and did not appear to have units fighting in any of the other local warzones. Lord Krone, the Inquisitor directing the Crusade, had demanded that the Green Scorpions account for their absence. The Green Scorpions had never been known for their love of the Inquisition, and they had given Krone a surprisingly blunt reply. After that, the brief exchange of words turned into an exchange of fire as the fleet and Serket’s surface batteries unleashed hell upon one another, and another major battle began.

And now, Stone thought as his squad’s Chimera bumped and trundled across Serket’s stony ground, here they were, along with the Sororitas, one of the many, many units committed to invading an Astartes homeworld. The very idea of fighting Space Marines made Stone's stomach churn-- even if the Lord Inquisitor had declared the Scorpions to be traitors, Stone had always seen the Space Marines as the exemplars of the Imperium, and the idea of fighting them was not something he looked forward to. Canoness Tarqan, however, held the opposite view, and had expressed an eagerness to engage the “Traitors” and to purge them for their supposed heresy. Although he had grown to respect Tarqan’s experience and skill during this campaign, the woman’s fanaticism frightened him sometimes.

Stone shook his head and focused on the mission. Their job was to seize a vital supply depot being held by the Scorpions, and to elliminate any resistance they encountered. The resistance in question, according to Command, would be sizeable-- almost a full regiment of Serket PDF forces defended the depot, with Astartes reinforcements ready to aid them. Stone prayed that the Sisters would be help enough in dealing with the Astartes-- he’d seen them in action many enough times before to know that their terrifying reputation was richly deserved.

“All forces,” Canoness Tarqan’s voice suddenly crackled over the vox, “we are approaching the target area. Heretic forces are already present in substantial numbers, so be ready to engage at a moment’s notice. Remember your objectives, and suffer not the heretic to live! Ave Imperator!”

“AVE IMPERATOR!” several Sororitas voices answered in unison over the vox. Stone didn’t shout it, but silently voiced the word as he clutched his pistol and sword. Any minute now, shots would start flying.

He just hoped that, when they did, his side would be the one that was right.



For our first game, we faced a team of Space Marines and Imperial Guard. Their lists were as follows:



Green Scorpions Space Marines

Shrike
10 Tactical Marines- plasma cannon
8 Assault Terminators- 2 lightning claws, 6 thunder hammers & storm shields
Ironclad Dreadnought “Eddy”
-Drop Pod- locator beacon
Land Speeder- multi-melta, heavy flamer



(Note the Rogue Trader era Dreadnought and Land Speeder)


Imperial Guard

Company Command Squad- regimental standard
Platoon Command Squad- 4 flamers
-Chimera- hull heavy flamer
-Infantry Squad- autocannon, Sergeant w. power weapon, Commissar w. power weapon
-Infantry Squad- autocannon, Sergeant w. power weapon
-Infantry Squad- autocannon, Sergeant w. power weapon
-Infantry Squad- autocannon, Sergeant w. power weapon
-Infantry Squad- autocannon, Sergeant w. power weapon
10 Veterans- 3 meltaguns
7 Psykers
-Chimera- hull heavy flamer
Vendetta
Medusa





The converted Vendetta was possibly the one of the best conversions I’d run across in this tournament (although there were a lot of really good ones).


Overall, a rather frightening list: the big Infantry blob would be all but impossible to shift, and with Land Speeders, Drop Pods, outflanking Terminators and a Vendetta (or Vendettacopter, in this instance) all coming in, we would have plenty of nasty surprises to deal with.


SCENARIO:

The first scenario was Supply Recovery, which had us fighting over four objectives for Primary (two of which were placed after the first turn), and kill points as Secondary. For tertiary, we had to have equal to or more than the enemy’s units in their own deployment zone at the end of the game.


DEPLOYMENT:



The board was strewn with bastions and walls all over the place for a very fortress world-like look. One objective was placed behind a cluster of walls across from us, while the other was placed directly behind the central bastion.

Our opponents won the right to deploy first, and proceeded to place a Tactical Squad in on bastion of their deployment zone (with their Rhino in reserve), and the Platoon Blob far opposite them, camping on top of the objective right in the middle of some walls. Their Company Command Squad, meanwhile, was set down behind the Fortress of Redemption (which was ruled as impassable), well within shouting distance of the blob.







For our part, we deployed...nothing. We knew that they had a Drop-Podding Ironclad coming in on their turn, and we figured that a null deployment would be a sure way to catch them flat-footed. It’s also for this reason that we didn’t bother rolling to seize the initiative.

Our overall plan, at the time, was to bring our CCS up first turn to deal with the Ironclad, while the Russes suppressed the Blob long enough for the Hellhound and/or Seraphim to come into burninating range of them. All the rest of our mobile stuff would drive to capture the objectives, while hopefully staying ready to deal with outflanking Terminators, Vendettacopters, etc.


TURN 1

The game began with a Green Scorpions Drop Pod hurtling down from the atmosphere, crashing down near the barricades on the lower left flank. With dramatic gusto, Eddy stomped from his Drop Pod...and was met with the chirping of crickets as he found no enemies to fight. The poor Dreadnought slumped his mighty shoulders, disappointed that he had no one to play with.





The rest of the enemy reserves came on from the back, with the Medusa trundling onto the field just behind the Company command Squad, and the Chimeras holding the Platoon Command and the Psykers rolling up down the middle. Everything else was in reserve. With nothing to shoot at, the miffed Marines and Guardsmen sat down and began to play euchre, hoping that the enemy would hurry up already.

They didnt have to wait long, as practically all of our side arrived in one go. On the right flank, both Russes and the Company Command arrived. My teammate’s original estimate that the Command Chimera would be in range of the Dreadnought, however, proved wrong after a quick guestimate, and this forced him to take a bigger risk by disembarking Stone and his boys in front of Eddy.



In the centre, meanwhile, the Veteran Chimera and Hellhound trundled up, with the Seraphim and Canoness hovering just behind them to deal with any nasty deep-strikers. Finally, on the right flank, both of my Rhinos and the Immolator zoomed up, with the Basilisk taking up lobbing positions at the corner of the board.





With the Sisters & Ironheart Guardsmen having arrived in dramatic fashion, we commenced with the shooting phase. The Basilisk made a long shot at the Medusa, but scattered, clipping one of the enemy Command Squad instead and squishing him quite nicely (sadly, the enemy general wiped bits of adjutant off of him and passed his pinning test). The Leman Russes then unleashed pie-plating doom on the enemy blob. Our opponents, however, countered by having their CCS shout “Incoming!” Thanks to their existing cover, the enemy blob had a 2+ cover save, and when the dust settled only one enemy Guardsman had been sputched. Needless to say, my opponent and I were speechless.

Miffed at his inefficient shooting, Maxis then ordered “Bring it Down” on his Command Squad. To his delight, both meltaguns hit and penetrated Eddy’s hull....and proceeded to stun him twice. Stone and his boys were left staring sheepishly at the Ironclad, who seemed rather happy that he now had a lot of squishy people to play with. The supporting Chimera did manage blow the storm bolter off the Drop Pod, but that did little to brighten up an otherwise disappointing shooting phase.


Kill Points:

Sisters & Guard: 0
Marines & Guard: 0


TURN 2

With the first turn done, we placed the other two objectives. We placed ours on the right flank in some ruins, and...I forget where the enemy places theirs, but it was somewhere out of our reach anyway.







Thankfully for us, none of the enemy reserves showed up this turn. Undeterred, our opponents sent Eddy stomping towards the Command Squad, while the PCS Chimera moved behind the objective tower, and the Psykers’ vehicle moved into mind-bulletting range of our forces. The rest of the enemy forces held their ground like the campers that they were, though the blob was politely told to Get Back In the Fight by the nearby CCS, and all of those autocannons suddenly became quite active again.

In the shooting phase, we watched with baited breath as the Psykers gathered power from inside their box of doom...and then flubbed their psychic test, sparing us a zapping. The Blob, however, was much less kind, raking the Hellhound with autocannon fire and shaking it quite thoroughly. Both of the enemy Chimeras then swivelled their multilasers and targeted my distant Rhinos, but to my relief, they failed to do anything more than give the Sisters an impressive light show (which the Sisters thought was most kind of those filthy heretics). The Tactical Squad’s plasma cannon similarly failed to bypass the Rhinos’ smoke, and the Medusa lobbed a shot at the distant Seraphim, only to find itself an inch out of range. Contrary to our expectations, the enemy shooting phase had been much, much crappier than ours.

The close combat phase, however, was much less fortunate for us. Overjoyed to have some playmates, Eddy stomped into the Command Squad and giggled like a buffoon as he made three of them go squish. This wasn’t too bad, as we were figuring that the squad would break and Russes could shoot the crap out of the Ironclad in their turn. As luck would have it, Stone and his last Guardsman stubbornly held their ground, somehow believing that swords, knives and sticks would work against an armoured walking machine. So far, the dice had not been on our side in this game.





In our turn, the Ironheart tanks clearly wanted nothing to do with Stone’s idiocy, with the Russes edging away from the Ironclad combat and the CCS Chimera moving up past the Drop Pod. In the centre, the Veteran Chimera, Seraphim and stunned Hellhound circled the tower objective, ready to counter the Platoon Command’s meagre attempts to capture it, and on the right flank, the Rhinos continued to drive forward resolutely. Although we had failed to stop the Ironclad, we were still in a good position to seize and hold objectives.



In the shooting phase, the Leman Russes once again unleashed their full firepower on the Blob...and after more going to ground via “Incoming,” the best ordnance in the Imperial Guard once again yielded a single dead grunt. Yippee. The Basilisk took another shot at the Medusa, but this time scattered harmlessly off target. Annoyed, my teammate had his Chimeras shoot at their enemy counterparts. The ensuing round of Chimera Chombat, however, saw no damage inflicted whatsoever. Meanwhile, the Sisters...had their Immolator pop smoke, all the while wondering why they hadn’t brought their Exorcist.

So, our entire shooting phase has yielded one dead Guardsman. Surely the combat phase would be worse?

Laughing, Eddy continued to play “throw the Guardsman” with the Command Squad, chucking the last expendable body into the stratosphere. Stone, however, was spared this indignity when his refractor field saved him, and then, demonstrating that he had stones of adamantium, he once again held his ground! Win or lose, by this point we had all agreed that Stone had won the “badass of the match” award.



Kill Points:

Sisters & Guard: 0
Marines & Guard: 0



TURN 3







Our prospects of winning suddenly looked a bit bleaker as all of the enemy’s reserves arrived on time. On the right flank, the Vendettacopter flew down next to my Rhinos, dropping the enemy Veterans right next to the objective. Not-Shrike and his Terminators, meanwhile, rather than outflanking as we had feared, deep-struck directly in front of the Leman Russes, while the Land Speeder, using the Drop Pod’s locator beacon, came down facing the Russes’ side armour. The Platoon Command’s Chimera, meanwhile, edged up so that its hatches were in template range of my Seraphim. Uh oh. Finally, the Blob was brought Back Into the Fight by the enemy Command Squad. With so many enemy reserves having arrived in perfect spots, this turn promised much hurt for our side.

The shooting phase commenced...and actually only stung a little rather than actually hurt. The Land Speeder’s multi-melta hit the Russes, but because of the intervening title fight between Stone and Eddy, the tanks recieved a cover save, which they duly made. The Platoon Command Squad popped their hatches and fired their four flamers at the Seraphim, guffawing at the irony of killing Sisters with flamers. Merced and her girls, however, had never heard of this “irony” thing, and only one Seraphim was cooked. The Psykers targetted the Seraphim as well for mind-zapping, but the Seraphim were unimpressed by this half-rate witchcraft, and made their Shield of Faith save. Annoyed, our opponents had the Medusa lob a shot at the Seraphim, but although the big template hit four of them, they made all of their cover saves thanks to the intervening Hellhound. Praise the Emperor!

(The aforementioned Hellhound was much less fortunate, as the mean Blob proceeded to stun it with autocannons again.)

The rest of the shooting phase was much less lucky for our opponents. The Vendettacopter’s freeming lascannons of death failed to pierce the Immolator’s smoke cloud, and the Tactical Squad’s plasma cannon only managed to blow off a Rhino’s storm bolter. The enemy Chimeras fired their multilasers at the Immolator as well, but did no damage to the seemingly laser-proof tank. The only moderate success in the shooting phase was the Veterans running to get closer to the objective. Not-Shrike and his Terminators were much less enthusiastic, only spreading out one inch in front of the enemy battle cannons.



In the epic fight between Stone and Eddy, the Guard commander raised his sword defiantly, shouting the name of his homeworld as he lunged...and got squished as Eddy stepped on him, ending his big heroic moment. Wiping bits of Company Commander off his foot, the Ironclad consolidated closer to the now worried Leman Russes.



In our turn, having avoided another potentially nasty shooting phase, our forces struck back. Merced split off from the Seraphim to fly behind the PCS Chimera, while the Immolator zoomed to the right, disembarking the Celestians in front of the Vendettacopter. Both of the Battle Squads, for reasons I’m not quite sure about, then zoomed up and disembarked directly in front of the Tactical Squad and their bunker. I’m not quite sure why I did this, but I think the plan was for one squad to pop the bunker with their meltagun while the other squad delivered flamery death to the Squad itself.



Further on the left flank, the Seraphim flew up towards the Blob. While I knew the Seraphim didn’t have a chance in pewter hell of defeating 50 Guardsmen on their own, my overall plan was to hold them up for a few turns via Spirit of the Martyr, and then hit-and-run out of combat to engage the enemy CCS or Medusa. This, hopefully, would also give the Hellhound time to de-stun itself and get in burninating range of the remaining Guardsmen. In theory, this would work. And yes, in theory I would have learned by now never to trust in theory.

Meanwhile, the the Leman Russes edged away from the Terminators...and immobilized themselves on terrain, thus leaving them as sitting ducks for a lot of Terminators and a smash-happy Dreadnought. Once again, the dice were expressing their extreme dislike of us. Elsewhere, the Command Chimera sneakily drove behind the Land Speeder.



In the shooting phase, our side actually got to kill stuff for once! The Immolator’s twin-linked heavy flamers roared to live, burninating seven of the Veterans and sending them running off the objective! Boo-yah, well done, shiny new model! It’s a pity you’re now all but useless in the new Codex! The Celestians were no less impressive, immobilizing the Vendettacopter and melting off one of its lascannons.



My Battle Squads were much less impressive, however, and managed only to stun the bunker. Oh well, that’s one less turn of the enemy plasma cannon being underwhelming. The Basilisk, meanwhile, took another shot at the enemy Medusa, and...missed. Again.



In the centre, though, Merced showed her Sisters up by firing her inferno pistol at the PCS Chimera and blowing it up in one go, killing two startled grunts in the process. The allied Guardsmen, being the gentlemen that they were, spared Merced the need to run in and hack apart the survivors by gunning down the last three of the PCS with the Veterans’ Chimera. On the left flank, the Command Chimera raked the Land Speeder with fire, immobilizing it and destroying its multi-melta.


Finally, the Russes and Veterans concentrated all available fire on Not-Shrike and his Termies. After rolling a plethora of 1’s for their saves, our opponents could only watch in horror as 4 Termies went down! The remainder, including Shrike, held their ground, but killing half of the enemy Termies had given us a bit of hope.

The Seraphim, as a prelude to assault, opened up on the Blob, and although the heretics used Incoming! to go to ground, the flamers still killed 4 or 5 of them. And with that, the Seraphim prayed for Spirit of the Martyr and charged in...and after a series of crappy rolls, only killed two Guardsmen. Luck balanced out, however, as I only lost two Seraphim in return after making a lot of lucky armour saves. Combat was drawn, and both sides fought on.




Kill Points:

Sisters and Guard: 2
Marines and Guard: 1



Turn 4





Although they had taken a lot of losses the previous turn, the Green Scorpion Terminators ignored the Leman Russes, their Captain leading them to hopscotch towards the Hellhound while Eddy moved up to play with the Russes. (The tank crews weren’t too enthusiastic about this play period, especially since Eddy still had bits of Stone all over him). Elsewhere, the Green Scorpions Rhino edged up, aaaand....that was it. No other moving occured, save for the enemy Veterans fleeing off the board. Silly Guardsmen, fleeing from something that would be rule-nerfed in a month or so...



In the shooting phase, the immobile Vendetta showed that it still had some bite left, immobilizing and de-weaponing the Immolator with some point-blank lascannon shots. The Psykers tried to mentally zap the Veterans’ Chimera, but their shot scattered harmlessly away-- something that the Medusa decided looked so fun that it would try it as well, sending another pie plate whistling way off target. Finally, the Green Scorpions’ Rhino fired its hunter killer missile at one of my Rhinos. And missed. At point blank range. Technological ingenuity at its finest, ladies and gentlemen.



The close combat phase, however, was much more painful for us, as the Terminators fleeted up to assault the stunned Hellhound and explode it violently, ending any ambitions we may have had of burninating Guardsmen. Eddy, in turn, decided to play “how high can you jump” with the Russes, squishing one under his bulk in the process.

The worst to come, however, was in the combat against the blob. Once again, the Seraphim prayed for Spirit of the Martyr, as well as The Passion, so that the +2 initiative would boost their hit-and-run chances. In the ensuing fight, however, the Seraphim whiffed horribly and killed only one Guardsman, before the mass of attacks back killed two (including the Sister Superior). Thankfully, the last two Seraphim still had a hand flamer alive, and passed their leadership test. Sticking with my plan, I rolled for hit and run...

...and got a 6. My frustrated cry of “NOOOOOO” could be heard across the gaming hall. Not only were my last few Seraphim going to die horribly, but in the process, that enemy Command Squad would probably escape its much-deserved flaming.




After calming down from this setback, I remembered that we still needed to capture objectives at this point. With this in mind, I had one Battle Squad re-mount their Rhino and zoom down to the objective near the Immolator, leaving the other Battle Squad to keep attacking the bunker. If I could destroy the Vendetta this turn, then we would be holding that objective. Elsewhere, the Canoness flew up to assault the bunker. At this point, everythign else more or less stayed where it was: we had both objectives, so now all we needed to do was focus on inflicting a little more damage on the enemy.

In the shooting phase, my meltaguns were whiff-tastic, with both the Sisters’ meltagun and the Canoness’ inferno pistol succeeding only in shaking and stunning the bunker. Wonderful. The Celestians, however, more than made up for their leader’s ineffectiveness by wrecking the stranded Vendettacopter, securing the objective and earning us another kill point. Woot, well done ladies!



The Guard shooting was only slightly better, with the Veterans and their Chimera firing at the nearby Terminators, but doing no damage other than losing a plasma gunner from an overheat. If the game went on, we would have no way of stopping those Termies. The empty Chimera continued to rake the Land Speeder, but only managed to stun it and destroy its heavy flamer, turning it into a metal box hiding a valuable kill point. Just as things seemed hopeless, however, the Basilisk landed a perfect shot on the enemy Company Command Squad, scoring a direct hit and wiping them all out in one go! We had another kill pint, and my Seraphim’s inevitable deaths were prematurely avenged!



In close combat, the last two Seraphim finally met their ends, flailing about uselessly before getting shisk-kebabed by half a dozen power weapons. Similarly, the last Leman Russ was wrecked as Eddy decided to play caber toss with it, chuckling it off the board.



At the same time, though, I saw an opportunity arise: having my still active Battle Squad pray for Hand of the Emperor, I had them combo-charge the bunker and the nearby Rhino, while the Canoness also charged the bunker. In the ensuing wave of attacks, the Canoness, in a gross display of ineptitude, failed to damage the bunker. The Sisters, however, concentrating most of their attacks on the Rhino, managed several penetrating hits and proceeded to wreck it, tearing it apart with their bear hands!

This, ladies and gentlemen, is why Sisters are awesome. Or were, at the very least.

At this point, the tournament organizers declared the round was ending, so we decided to leave it there. Counting up the points, we tied on Primary with two objectives apiece, drew on Tertiary, but, with a 6-4 lead on Kill Points, won Secondary.

RESULT: Minor Victory!




THOUGHTS:

That was a close game, made all the more close by some incredibly bad rolls on our part. Failing to kill the Ironclad, immobilizing the Russes and failing to hit and run with the Seraphim were all particularly bad, and I consider us fortunate that these instances did not lose us the game. On the flip side, however, the enemy’s shooting phase was surprisingly bad, and overall our opponents failed to stop us from contesting or holding objectives with our superior mobility.

Overall, it was a good game, although our opponents were both inexperienced and unfamiliar with the rules. More than once, we had to stop and clarify rules that they were either getting wrong or were misremembering. It should be noted that before the game began, their list originally had 10 Psykers, and mistakenly wrote the Rhino down as a Drop Pod. One of the judges inspected their list, found them to be over-points, and penalized them by dropping 3 of their Psykers (and from what we overheard, they had made a similar gaffe in the last tournament as well). Between this and their army list gaffe, my teammate and I both game out of this game thinking that these two really needed more practice before they did any more tournaments.



Merced watched in grim satisfaction as the Traitor Marines began to pull back, their bright green armour shrinking into the distance as they withdrew from the field. Though she would have loved nothing more than to chase after them and burn them out of their holes like the vermin they were, that would have to wait. She and her Sisters had achieved their objective, capturing a vital supply depot after forcing the heretics to withdraw. Without it, the Green Scorpions would be hard-pressed in the many battles ahead.

Turning, Merced gave a quick inspection of her forces. As she had anticipated, her Sisters had fought as well as she could have asked them to. The jade-armoured Ironheart Guardsmen, she had to admit, had also given a good account of themselves, sticking doggedly to the mission even in the face of heavy losses. Their leader, Stone, had even fought a rampaging Dreadnought on his own, and while he had suffered grievous injuries, he would live. Merced thanked the Emperor for sending such resolute and devoted servants to aid her in her quest.

Yes, they were resolute...but were they truly ready for the sacrifices that awaited them ahead? Merced prayed that they were. She knew what the Emperor required of her and her Sisters. It was their holy duty to continue to purge the Kitchener Sector with cleansing flame, until every last trace of heresy was expunged.

She turned to her second in command, Celestian Superior Narisse. “We soon as we’ve tended to the wounded, inform the Ironheart that we’re to continue our advance. We can’t afford to give there heretics time to recover, and neither can we.”

As Narisse nodded and walked off, Merced folded her hands and, clutching her prayer beads, knelt down to offer benediction to the Emperor. There were many more battles to come, and she would not let it be said that she was not ready, body and soul, to do the Emperor's work. Their allies would accompany them to each battlezone, she knew, and would fight alongside them, win alongside them, bleed alongside them, and, if necessary, die alongside them.

And if they did not...if they showed a single moment's laxity, weakness or impurity...then neither she nor her Sisters would hesitate to cleanse them with holy flame.

A few quick hits from the report. Very well done with pictures. It looks like you were using the old SoB Codex - the Seraphim do not have to roll to Hit and Run in that codex, they have a special version of the rule which lets them just leave combat aand move 3d6 in a direction.

Also, you mentioned you were afraid your opponent would outflank rather than DS the terminators. When you hold a unit in reserve you must declare how it is entering. Ergo, you would know that they cannot outflank because they were not declared to be doing so.

Great bat rep!

Although I think your opponents messed up. You can only issue Incoming! during your own shooting phase not the enemies. So your Russes should have pulped allot more Guardsmen.

Or at least a couple more since they could have gone to ground for a 3+ instead of the 2+.

The other team mate here. No, the Guard player used his orders correctly. He issued 'incoming' in turns he didn't fire autocannons. The Blob sat there for half the game doing nothing but sitting on the objective. There were times when I wish I could have seen his command squad with my Russes, but they were neatly hidden behind a wall.

this game was not our finest hour, but the next one was worse. the third and forth were much better, though I had not slept the nigh before and as such had trouble concentrating.

As for Nonsens here and the Hit and Run rules, I trust him to know his book. I can only assume that the Errata made it proper Hit and Run. I really don't know.

In future games, I admit if I field this kind of command squad, I'll be giving the commander Meltabombs. They had Krak, but against an Ironclad, they're as useful and nerf darts.

Edit:
Nope, 2+ was correct. they were in 4+ cover, so normal going to ground would be 3+. Incoming gave them 2+. There were a few rounds where they didn't use Incoming, and still managed to shak off what fire I could send at them, but it's hard to recall this far on which turns they has 2+ and which turn they had 3+ cover from my Battle cannons. (My poor poor battle cannons which barely got to hurt anyone. )

calypso2ts wrote:A few quick hits from the report. Very well done with pictures. It looks like you were using the old SoB Codex - the Seraphim do not have to roll to Hit and Run in that codex, they have a special version of the rule which lets them just leave combat aand move 3d6 in a direction.

Also, you mentioned you were afraid your opponent would outflank rather than DS the terminators. When you hold a unit in reserve you must declare how it is entering. Ergo, you would know that they cannot outflank because they were not declared to be doing so.

Technically speaking, I did do it incorrectly. The thing is, I generally prefer using current Hit and Run with Seraphim because it doesn't confuse my opponents as much (and it spares me from having to drag out the errata every so often). With the current rules (and the Seraphim's crappy Initiative 3), however, it's a moot issue now.

Thatguyoverthere wrote:Great bat rep!

Although I think your opponents messed up. You can only issue Incoming! during your own shooting phase not the enemies. So your Russes should have pulped allot more Guardsmen.

Or at least a couple more since they could have gone to ground for a 3+ instead of the 2+.

Maxis Lithium wrote:The other team mate here. No, the Guard player used his orders correctly. He issued 'incoming' in turns he didn't fire autocannons. The Blob sat there for half the game doing nothing but sitting on the objective. There were times when I wish I could have seen his command squad with my Russes, but they were neatly hidden behind a wall.

this game was not our finest hour, but the next one was worse. the third and forth were much better, though I had not slept the nigh before and as such had trouble concentrating.

As for Nonsens here and the Hit and Run rules, I trust him to know his book. I can only assume that the Errata made it proper Hit and Run. I really don't know.

In future games, I admit if I field this kind of command squad, I'll be giving the commander Meltabombs. They had Krak, but against an Ironclad, they're as useful and nerf darts.

True, but the Command Squad did do well against every other kind of unit (as shall be seen later)

Games 2 and 3 coming soon!

Understandable, I kept the SoB FAQ and the book close at hand with the old codex because there are so many exotic and dated rules in it.

Game 2- Space Wolves and Sisters of Battle

The mountain air was crisp and clear, untainted by the ash, gunsmoke, pollutants or battlefield stenches that Stone was used to. Even over the exhaust of the Chimera, Stone could almost taste the difference at the back of his tongue as he stood up in the tank’s hatch. The cool temperature, clean air and tundra forest all around him actually reminded him of the lichen-covered ice wastes of Ironheart, and gave him a momentary bout of homesickness. He quashed it immediately, reminding himself, time and time again, that he was a Guardsman and a lifer, and proud of it. Still, this place was a nice change from the usual bunch of battlefields they’d been to so far.

“There heretic stronghold is roughly twenty more miles from our position,” came Canoness Tarqan’s voice. “We should continue if we’re to capture it.”

“At your command, Canoness,” Stone replied. To his right, the Sororitas vehicles were advancing, their pristine white armour almost blending in with the snowfall around them. For a moment, Stone remembered how grateful he had been when he hard heard that their joint task force would not be participating in the assault on the Green Scorpions Fortress-Monastery. Ever since the campaign on Serket had begun, the Crusade forces had suffered heavy losses as the Green Scorpions and their vassals fought tooth and nail against the invaders. Imperial strategos were already saying that the attack on their fortress-monastery would cost hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Guard lives, even with Astartes support backing them up. Although Tarqan had expressed her displeasure that the Sororitas would not be able to participate in the attack on the fortress-monastery, Stone could not have been more relieved-- he was a man of duty, through and through, but he knew that lives thrown away in pointless assaults did not serve the Emperor meaningfully.Instead, his Guardsmen and the Sororitas had been sent to strike at a secondary objective-- a PDF base near Serket’s northernmost mountain range, far from the hot deserts and greenlands of the world’s mainland.

Canoness Tarqan, of course, had pursued the objective with all the diligence and focus of the most relentless taskmaster. When the campaign had first begun, Stone had found himself constantly irritated (and sometimes more than a little scared) by Tarqan’s caustic, icy attitude and uncompromising fanaticism. Although by this point he had gotten used to the Canoness and learned to deal with her disagreeable personality, it still irked him that she would almost never listen to his counsel. Whenever Canoness Tarqan got it into her head to do something, she would see it done, whether he liked it or not, regardless of how many men he would lose in the process. She was at once the best and worst kind of commander-- relentless, driven, and ruthless to her enemies, but unfortunately also to her own soldiers.

Sighing, Stone focused back on the mission. Up ahead, he could see a line of mountains rising above the treeline, a great, grey monolithic wall that seemed to swallow up the sky. Beneath it, he could see rolling hills and dense tangles of woodland, as well as tangled knots of scrub and the ruins of old stone buildings. This sort of terrain could be used effectively by any ambushers they might run across.

He tapped the vox. “All forces, keep your eyes open,” he said. “We could run into resistance the moment we reach that treeline. Stay sharp, and keep all weapons primed and ready--

He was cut short when the vox suddenly whined loudly, causing him to cry out and almost throw off his headset. It stopped just as soon as it had started, however. The next thing he knew, an unfamiliar voice, rich and deep, spoke into her ear in a wide-range frequency-- one that only command-level Crusade members could use.

“Attention all Imperial forces currently engaged on Serket,” the voice said. “I am Inquisitor Mordecai Richter of the Ordo Hereticus, authorization code beta-crimson-rosethorn. As of 471.999.M41, the Conclave of Torys has found Inquisitor Waltern Krone, current commander of the Crusade forces in the Kitchener Sector, to be in violation of the limits and statutes of the Ordo Hereticus, and therefore guilty of abusing his rank of office.”

Stone blinked. He couldn’t tell if it was the cold, or what he had just heard on the vox, but a chill was going through his spine all the same.

“I am hereby ordering all Imperial forces engaged on Serket to cease fighting immediately,” the voice went on. “The declaration of Excommunicate Traitoris issued by Inquisitor Krone against the Green Scorpions Astartes is waived, effective immediately. Furthermore, all forces formerly under Inquisitor Krone’s authority are to submit themselves to examination and, if necessary, purging.”

And with that, the vox died out. For a moment, everything was uncomfortably silent. Stone swallowed. He imagined that, in their transports, his men all looked as uncertain as he must right now. Surely there was some sort of mistake? He didn’t like the idea of invading Serket in the first place, but an Inquisitor fighting another Inquisitor? What sort of madness was this?

“It’s a trick,” he heard Canoness Tarqan say on the vox. “A ruse by the enemy to make us lower our arms. All of you, ignore that message. This is an order. Until we recieve confirmation from the fleet, you are to ignore any messages claiming to be of Inquisitorial authority--”

That was the last thing the Canoness said before a volley of missiles came shrieking out of the woodland, slamming into the lead Chimera and annihilating it in an explosion. Stone was screaming into the vox for all forces to take evasive action as a wall of Rhino transports suddenly emerged from the undergrowth directly ahead of them. As his Chimera juddered to a halt, Stone could see that some of the Rhinos were powder-grey and decorated in furs and skulls, while others still were gunmetal and crimson and proudly bore the fleur-de-lys of the Ecclesiarchy.

All of them, however, were rumbling directly towards them.



For our next game, we found ourselves facing Space Wolves and Sisters of Battle on a fairly open table. It had been a long time since I’d been part of a Sisters vs Sisters game, and given how poorly I’d fared in that last battle, I was hoping to do much better this time. This was also going to be my first battle against the Space Wolves-- I’d heard all the horror stories about them on the internet, but I was confident that they would die to Divinely-Guided flamers and battle cannons as easily as any other Space Marines.

The enemy armies were as follows:


SPACE WOLVES

Rune Priest- Living Lightning, Murderous Hurricane
10 Grey Hunters- 2 meltaguns, plasma pistol, Mark of the Wulfen, wolf standard
-Rhino
10 Grey Hunters- 2 meltaguns, plasma pistol, Mark of the Wulfen, wolf standard
-Rhino
Venerable Dreadnought- twin-linked lascannon, heavy flamer
5 Long Fangs- 2 missile launchers, 2 lascannons
-Razorback- twin-linked lascannon



SISTERS OF BATTLE

Canoness- jump pack, eviscerator, Cloak of St. Aspira
10 Battle Sisters- flamer, heavy flamer, Veteran Sister Superior w. combi-flamer & Book of St. Lucius
-Rhino- extra armour, smoke launchers
10 Battle Sisters- flamer, heavy flamer, Veteran Sister Superior w. combi-flamer & Book of St. Lucius
-Rhino- extra armour, smoke launchers
7 Seraphim- 2 hand flamers, Veteran Sister Superior w. eviscerator
Exorcist
Exorcist

The Sisters build was similar to mine (or would have been, if I had taken my Exorcists). Combined, these two armies were a very scary prospect, with lots of firepower between them and some good close-ranged units as well. This would be a much tougher battle than the last one, especially since our opponents were probably more experienced than our last opponents.



SCENARIO AND DEPLOYMENT:

The second scenario was “Escape the Chaos World.” For this one, we had to claim table quarters by having units from both our combined forces in said quarters, with objective-grabbing as secondary and victory points as tertiary.







Both our sides deployed a wall of vehicles, with Seraphim hiding behind Rhinos on both sides to avoid getting shot to bits. The Basilisk and Long Fangs stared each other down on the left flank, with the Immolator and Hellhound squaring off against the Razorback and Grey Hunter Rhinos. My own Rhinos occupied the centre (versus the Grey Hunters and Dreadnought), while the Imperial Guard tanks and the Seraphim on the right squared off against the enemy Sisters Rhinos and the Exorcists. All told, this looked like the sort of battle that would quickly turn into a graveyard of wrecked tanks.

To my memory, there were three objectives-- one in our corner, one in the enemy’s corner, and one dead in the centre.


THE BATTLE

Sadly, I must describe this battle in a more stream-of-consciousness manner, since I have a somewhat imperfect memory of what happened.





We got the first turn, and everything on our side advanced forward aggressively, determined to get in range of those objectives. Only the Veteran squad and their Chimera held back, guarding our home objective. The Canoness flew with the Seraphim to avoid Exorcists/lascannons/assorted shamanistic nonsense. Shooting was minimal, but we did manage to blow up quite a few of the enemy Seraphim hiding behind Rhinos. Sadly, we failed to kill any of the actual Rhinos. Oh, and the Basilisk killed a pair of Long Fangs.







In response, the Wolves and Sisters moved up aggressively, heading towards the objectives as well. The remaining SeraphIm zoomed up ahead of the Wolf Rhinos, while tanks and Dreadnoughts managed to get some better shooting positions.

Speaking of shooting, although the other team had way more firepower, we got off lightly with a mass of shaken/stunned results on our transports. Well....the Long Fangs did kind of blow up the Hellhound...and the Rune Priest did kind of blow up the Basilisk with his Living Lightning. But otherwise, we got off lightly.

In our turn, the mistakes began. On the right, our advance slowed: we didn’t want to press the attack, knowing that if it failed, the enemy Sisters would be ready to rapid fire us to death. For some reason, however, I decided to move my Seraphim up to attack the enemy Sororitas Rhinos. In the process, I clustered my Seraphim and Canoness behind the Chimeras in a nice, template-friendly mass, and for some reason didn’t move my Canoness out of the unit to allow for Hit and Run. (MISTAKE NUMBER ONE)

On the right flank, though, my Immolator moved up enthusiastically...and immobilized itself. Nonplussed, the Celestians disembarked to melta some Wolf Rhinos to death. In hindsight, I have no idea WHY I parked my Celestians in front of the enemy like that with no support. (MISTAKE NUMBER 2) One of my Rhinos hung back, and the Sisters inside disembarked in rapid fire range of the enemy Seraphim, thinking I was out of disembark-and-charge range of the Wolves, and hoping to torrent the enemy Canoness to death. (MISTAKE NUMBER 3)



The shooting phase was awesome, with the Russes blowing up most of the Long Fangs and their attendant Rune Priest. Yes, we kind of left two alive, but I’ll be honest, blowing up Long Fangs and Rune Priests leaves me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside.



Meanwhile, on the left flank, the Immolator’s cannon tried to swivel backwards and hit the Seraphim, but I quickly discovered that I couldn’t do that without hitting my own Battle Sisters. The aforementioned Battle Sisters nonetheless wiped out the Seraphim in a volley of Divinely-Guided goodness, but unfortunately they left the enemy Canoness alive and healthy. Drat. Oh, and the Celestians whiffed horribly against the Space Wolf Rhinos, missing with both meltagun shots. At this point, I’d realized that I’d made a huge error by driving my Celestians into certain death for...for...well, for no apparent reason. Go me!



On right right flank, things got worse. Melta fire from the Command Squad managed to pop one of the Sisters Rhinos, but did no damage to the other one. To my chagrin, the enemy Sisters bailed out on the far opposite side of their Rhino, far out of assault range of the Serapim. At this point, I wondered why on earth I’d thought the Seraphim would be able to assault them in the first place, and began to get frustrated when I realized I’d made yet another noob mistake.



In our opponent’s next phase, things were predictably painful. The lone Canoness flew up and assault the Leman Russes, and proceeded to shake, stun and de-weapon them.





Elsewhere, the two Grey Hunter squads disembarked to say hi to my Celestians and Battle Sisters, respectively....





...and proceeded to mop the floor with them. For reasons that escape me, I removed the VSS of my Battle Squad as a casualty, allowing them to get run down by the Grey Hunters assaulting them. I think I was hoping the Russes (with one functional battle cannon left) would be able to make a big hole in them, not quite realizing that even a few Grey Hunters would still be quite nasty.



Meanwhile, both enemy Sister squads disembarked...

...and reduced my Seraphim to just one lonely girl, alongside the Canoness, despite Spirit of the Martyr. The enemy Exorcists, meanwhile, wrecked the Command Squad`s Chimera.





At this point, I was pretty mullered over losing half my army, and....you guessed it...proceeded to do even more tactical blunders! My remaining Battle Squad, instead of guarding their objective, moved up to rapid fire the enemy Canoness while the Russes nervously backed away from her. Even though they got off Divine Guidance, the enemy Canoness countered with Spirit of the Martyr, and only one wound got through her invulnerable save. Darn, I hate having my own favourite units used against me. The aforementioned Russes, meanwhile, killed four of the disengaged Grey Hunters, but they easily passed their leadership test.



Elsewhere, Stone and his boys, in an effort to save the objective, ran up and assault the enemy Sisters, beginning a long and drawn out melee. Merced would have joined them...



...but she had other concerns, flying up to attack one of the enemy Exorcists. Over the course of two turns, she would finally wreck the darned thing. The last Seraphim, meanwhile, flew back to our corner to conserve points, for all the good it would do.





Sadly, once again the other team took advantage of our tactical brilliance, moving one of the Space Wolf Rhinos in front of my own Battle Squad, blocking them from the objective!



If that wasn`t bad enough, the damaged Grey Hunter squad moved up to shoot at them, killing a few. Further on the left flank, meanwhile, the immobilized Immolator was finally grenaded to death by the other Grey Hunters.

It didn`t help that the Space Wolf Dreadnought quickly joined in the fight with Stone, crushing a few of his Command Squad. The fight dragged on, but it was clear that the Company Command was fighting a losing battle.

Oh yes, and the enemy Canoness charged the Russes again, neatly sawing both of them apart. Darnit.

At this point, there was little left that we could do except try to force a draw. Merced flew over to help out Stone, while my remaining Battle Squad fired their meltagun at the Space Wolf Rhino. And missed. They than cast Hand of the Emperor and charged the darned thing. And missed it. By this point, I think I had internally given up.



In the final scene of the game, Merced, unable to get to the Space Wolf Dread, charged into the enemy Sisters just in time to see Stone get squished a second time in the same tournament. Wow, this guy is a Dreadnought magnet or something. To add insult to injury, my Canoness whiffed her attacks and killed only one enemy Sister.



By this point, the game drew to a close. Although we tied on primary, we`d lost on victory points, and only held one objective to the enemy`s two.


Result: Loss


There’s not much that can be said about that battle except that I played badly (moreso me than my team mate). I had no real plan going into the game, and didn’t coordinate that effectively with MaxisLithium. Even worse, each mistake I made not only set us back, but also caused me to become increasingly frustrated with myself and, as a result, play worse. In the end, I think we can attribute our loss as much to lack of planning and loosing my cool on my part as to crappy luck.

To my knowledge, our opponents went on to do quite well in the tournament. If either of them are reading, then I apologize if I was in any way a less-than-enjoyable guy to play against. While this was certainly our worst game of the tournament, my teammate and I both came out of it hoping to do better in the next round.

MVP: None of our units really shone in particular, but if I had to give it to one unit, it would be the Russes for suppressing the Long Fangs so well. Honourable mention, though, goes to Stone and his Command Squad for leaping into combat to bravely (almost) save the day. That said, at this point the poor guy seemed to be on the recieving end of one Dreadnought too many.

LVP: A lot of units on my side could be nominated, but I’d have to say it’s tied between the Celestians and the Seraphim, both of whom got mauled without accomplishing too much.

Opponent’s MVP: The enemy Canoness did great, suppressing the Russes and shrugging off a lot of our firepower. Otherwise, though, I’d give it to the lone Grey Hunter Rhino that blocked us from an objective in the end.



When Stone woke up, he found himself lying down on a field stretcher, his entire body a seething mass of agony. He was bound in a tight body cast, and his throbbing limbs felt like they’d had iron spikes driven into them. Groaning, he blinked, his vision slowly filtering what looked like a grey sky above him. It took him a while to notice armoured figures in bright green armour standing attendant around him.

As his senses returned, he recognized them for his men. “Blight,” he rasped, recognizing the Veteran Sergeant standing to his right. “Blight, what...where...”

Blight, upon noticing that Stone was stirring, stood to attention along with his squad and gave him a sharp salute. “Welcome back sir,” he said. “We thought we’d lost you after that Dreadnought hit you. The medicae say its a miracle you’re alive.”

Stone stared uncomprehending at Blight. “Dread...nought...” Then he remembered...the last thing he’d seen before everything went dark was a titanic shape, a blocky grey giant sheathed in wolfskins and roaring battle-cries over a loud vox, swinging an immense fist at him...

He tried to sit up, only for a sharp pain to lance through his back as he tried. His eyes screwed shut in pain. “Blight...the Sisters...the enemy...what happened...”

Blight’s dusky face twisted into a frown. “Sir...you were down and we were surrounded. We had no choice but to surrender.” He inclined his head. “They’re deciding what to do with us.”

Slowly, Stone turned his head around. There, several metres away, Canoness Tarqan was kneeling as though in supplication before three figures. The first was a Sororita, like Tarqan, clad in polished silver armour with red robes worn over it. Her hair was the colour of brass shell casings, and her pointed face hard and unforgiving as she stared down at her fellow Sister. The second figure was the biggest, an Astartes, clad in powder-grey armour with wolfskins and strange, feral totems clinging to it. A long, braided white beard trailed down his chestplate, and a skull-tipped staff was held tightly in one hand.

It was the figure at the centre of the group who caught Stone’s attention the most. Although shorter than the Astartes and less harsh-looking than the Sororitas, he had an calmness about him that sent a strange chill down Stone’s spine. His hair was short-cropped and grey, his face worn and lined, and he wore a simple black coat over a silver suit of carapace armour, and yet of the three, he seemed the most fearsome. For the life of him, Stone couldn’t explain why.

The man was saying something to Tarqan, who merely knelt and nodded as though in obedience. The man’s eyes suddenly darted to the side and caught Stone’s. Before he knew it, the man was turning and walking towards him. It was then that Stone say the stylized letter I dangling from an iron chain around the man’s neck.

“Sergeant Michael Stone,” he said, “Sergeant First Class. 1st Company. 23rd Iron Heart Expeditionary Force. Previous engagements include the pacification of Sigil-9661. Recipient of the Honorifica Imperialis for actions during the Battle of Lazlo Pass on your homeworld.” The man gave him a grim smile. “By all accounts, a dedicated Guardsman. Career soldier. Unswervingly loyal to the Imperium of Man. Not at all the sort of person who would fire on other servants of the Emperor. Unless fired upon first, that is.”

Realizing that this Inquisitor might be accusing him, Stone straightened out, as best he could, in the stretcher, ignoring the pain that flared in his neck as he did so. “I was following orders,” he said.

“From a heretic,” the Inquisitor (Krone or Richter? Stone couldn’t tell) replied. “A man who even now is en route to the nearest bastion of the Inquisition to answer for his heresy.” He smiled again. It was not a very pleasant smile. “But you need not worry. Both you and Canoness Tarqan were misled by the former Inquisitor Krone’s lies. As, it would seem, were the vast majority of the Crusade forces. He saw this crusade as an opportunity to fuel his vain ambitions, and when a Chapter of the Emperor’s Astartes stood against them, he sought to purge them most unjustly. A purging is in order, of all those who served under Krone, but be thankful that you will not be affected by it.”

Inquisitor Richter straightened up. “It would be a waste for fine soldiers like yourself and Canoness Tarqan to suffer because of Krone’s heresy. And that is why I am giving you a chance to redeem yourselves. A chance to prove your loyalty by standing against one of humanity’s greatest foes, a being against whom countless loyal servants have fallen already. The name he is known by commonly is best left unuttered, for to hear it would be to invite madness and damnation.

Know him instead by his true name...know this monster as Grulgor.”

As most of you can tell, I play my HQ hard, and he seemed to attract the attention of walking hulks all too often.

This battle was a nightmare. It starte off well enough, but between our combined poor rolls and a near compleate lack of coordination droped us like a (Srgt.)stone.

Lord of Nonsense here is a good friend of mine, but when things don't go right, he takes it hard. Frustration is his mortal enemy on the table and off. My biggest priority after the third round was to get things over with so we could just move on and away from this disaster. We did what we could, but this was the low point in the game for us.

Though my memory if fuzzy, I know we did much better in games three and four, so look forward to that.

The obliteration of Grulgor will be an entertaining read.

Very well written up battle report.

That said, Lord, with that intro, you had me envisioning a pure-white Sisters of Battle army (maybe black or gold to outline shoulder pads/other small things), with maybe the left arm Blue, Red, Green, black, gold, etc... to designate their role on the battlefield, as well as seniority (horizontal stripes for rank)....hmmmmm, it'd look cool....
Especially since I'm just picking it back up...NOT NICE!

That said, very good backstory on the battles and the battle reports and pictures were excellent as well

I was rooting for Stone all along those batreps. Well written and tough fights all over! Poor guy must be such a mess after being squished so much :p

Looking forward to read more about Stone's Dreadnaught adventures

Game 3: Chaos Space Marines & Tyranids


To: Lord Inquisitor Mordecai Richter
Ordos Kitchener
Authorization: [CLASSIFIED]

From: Sgt. Marcus Stone
23rd Ironheart Expeditionary Force
Re: Inquisitorial Induction Action #2271

Thought for the day: It is unreasonable to expect reason in an uncaring universe

Lord Richter,

As per your instructions, the following is a report of the action on San Romero on 742.999.M41 by Task Force Steel Fire, currently inducted into Inquisitorial service after the Serket Incident.

At your order, we were sent to the surface of the planet of San Romero to investigate a loss in communications on the planet’s surface. San Romero, as per the briefing given to us by Inquisitorial intelligence, is an agri-world of minimal impotance only a few light years from the Serket system. Although all previous tithes and reports indicated that the population was faithful and obedient, recent intelligence indicated an attack on the surface by heretic forces. In particular, fleeting pict-images transmitted just before the communications breakout indicated the presence of Traitor Marines from the Death Guard Legion. This information confirmed earlier, unconfirmed reports of that the Traitor Marine known as Ignatius Grulgor was in the system-- a foul, unrepentant heretic responsible for the deaths of billions over several millennia. His presence in the Kitchener Sector could only endanger the crusade, and it was our duty to destroy him once and for all.

Due to the small size of our task force, Canoness Tarqan and I agreed that a quick, decisive strike was needed. Orbital surveillance indicated heavy activity near San Romero’s primary agri-complex, and so we made a swift drop just a few clicks away from the area. The plan, at the time, was to catch the Death Guard by surprise in a swift and overwhelming attack, and, in hopefully, kill Grulgor before withdrawing back to orbit. Secondary objectives were to destroy the Death Guard or force them to retreat, and tertiary objectives were to liberate the planet from the grip of Chaos.

Unfortunately, it seemed that the heretic Grulgor was aware of a possible attack. The moment we landed, the Death Guard were down there waiting for us, and they weren’t alone.

The moment we landed near the burned, pox-infested remnants of the settlement, we came under attack. A swarm of shrieking, taloned creatures that came rushing at us from inside the settlement, with greater creatures lumbering in their wake. Impossibly, and contrary to our expectations, a swarm of Tyranids was on San Romero, and even more impossibly, they seemed to be working in concert with the Traitor Marines. The Death Guard advanced behind the Tyranids, while at the centre of the foul horde stood Grulgor. I have seen many terrible sights in my military career, my Lord, but Grulgor was possibly the most nightmarish of all-- a towering leviathan of rotting flesh and filth-encrusted armour, borne aloft on tattered, draconic wings and wielding a sword the size of a Leman Russ’ turret. The beast stared out at us with one leering, swollen eye, and its throaty laughter could be heard all across the battlefield.

The moment Grulgor and his alien subordinates attacked, we raised our weapons and returned fire, and battle was joined.


After the disaster of the previous game, we were prepared to do a lot better in the next game. Our next opponents were a pair of really great guys fielding Chaos Space Marines (Death Guard themed) and Tyranids. The Chaos Space Marine player, in particular, had taken the fluffy approach of naming his army the Death Guard Second Company, and his Daemon Prince Ignatius Grulgor for some Horus Heresy tie-ins. Its a pity I couldn’t take a non-blurry picture of their display base (the Death Guard being ambushed by Tyranids), as it was really well done.


The Chaos/Tyranid team was as follows:


Death Guard Second Company

Ignatius Gruglor (Daemon Prince)- Mark of Nurgle, wings, Warptime
7 Plague Marines- 2 meltaguns, Champion w. power fist
-Rhino
7 Plague Marines- 2 meltaguns, Champion w. power fist
-Rhino
2 Obliterators
2 Obliterators


Hive Fleet Leviathan

Tervigon- Catalyst
10 Termagants
10 Termagants
3 Tyranid Warriors- devourers, boneswords, lash whips
Tervigon- Catalyst
3 Zoanthropes
Trygon Prime


These lists combined were pretty formidable, as the the numbers of the Tyranids and the resilience of the Plague Marines would probably complement each other quite well. Still, we were confident that we had the advantage of firepower in this matchup.



Just some of the Chaos player’s nicely-converted Obliterators.



Scenario and Deployment:

The third scenario was “Relative Value.” For this battle, we used Spearhead deployment and put a marker in each of our deployment zones, with a third marker being placed at the centre of the board. At the beginning of round 2, we would roll a d3 for each marker: the result would be the worth of the marker at the end of the game if a side held it. For secondary objectives, we had Kill Points, while Tertiary points would be awarded for controlling terrain pieces.





In deployment, we put our tanks in a nice semicircle, with the Leman Russes holding the far left, the Company Command and Hellhound forming the vanguard in the centre in front of the Immolator and a Battle Sister Squad, and another Battle Sister Squad and the Veterans occupied our right. At the rear of our lines, I placed the Seraphim next to the Basilisk, with the idea of keeping them ready to charge and tie up any sneaky Obliterators or Trygons who decided to deep strike behind our lines. The Canoness was joining them, but I had every intention of splitting her off to pursue a different target at the closest opportunity.



Far opposite us, the Tyranids deployed in a big, scary, buggy mass, with the Trygon and Zoanthrope in the centre and the Tervigons, Gaunts and Warriors right behind them, with everything pretty much huddling in Synapse range. The two Plague Marine squads deployed behind this blob of Tyranid nastiness, while the Obliterators occupied the left and right flanks, and Grulgor hid behind the sizeable shape of the leftmost Tervigon.

Our overall plan was to advance cautiously, all the while focusing our fire on the more immediate threats first (ie the Trygon and the Daemon Prince) before then trying to eliminate scoring units. The Seraphim would swoop forwards and charge any big nasties that got through our fire and hopefully go invulnerable to hold them up. Overall, we would try to contest the centre objective and hold our own, but if need be, the Seraphim would try to go for a late-game Hit and Run to contest the enemy objective as well.




TURN 1



The forces of the Imperium won the first turn, and we wasted no time in advancing. In the centre of the board, the Command Chimera, Hellhound, Immolator and one of my Rhinos Rhino all advanced towards the centre. The Seraphim, seeing that there wasn’t any deep-striking threat to worry up, flew up behind the advancing Rhino wall. One of my Rhinos skirted around the right flank towards the rightmost objective, along with the Veteran Chimera,, while the Canoness flew up the right flank to hide behind a large rubble pile. The Russes and the Basilisk, meanwhile, held their positions, content to unleash pie-plated doom on our opponents.





In our shooting phase, although there were a lot of big, nasty monsters to worry about, our first priority was to eliminate the enemy’s abilitiy to grab and hold objectives. With this in mind, the Basilisk lobbed a shot at one of the distant Plague Marine Rhinos, and with a luckily accurate shot, managed to immobilize it! The rest of the Guard’s firepower was directed against the big mass of Tyranids occupying the centre, and the Russes and Hellhound fired into it with gusto. At the end of the shooting phase, the men of Ironheart had dealt 2 wounds to the Trygon, one wound to a Tervigon, and killed a single Gaunt. As an encore, the Command Chimera swivelled its multilaser on the Zoanthropes and blasted one of them into gooey brain matter.





With their ride now busted and their insurance unable to cover it, the Plague Marines in the immobilized Rhino grumbled and exited their vehicle. Their brethren in the still-functional Rhino, on the other hand, showed their sympathy by laughing gleefully at them and wheeling off towards the nearest objective, their advance screened by a brood of Gaunts.



In the centre, all of the Tyranids scuttled forwards as quickly as their multiple legs could carry them, eager to get into nomming range of the humans who had hurt them so. Grulgor meanwhile, flew behind a pile of debris adjacent to the bugs, eying the distant line of Russes, while the Obliterators advanced casually behind the Tyranid swarm, half-heartedly cheering them on.



At that point, one of the Tervigons went into labour and birthed thirteen new Gaunts, though she immediately went sterile after rolling doubles. Sadly, neither the Chaos forces nor her fellow Tyranids thought to congratulate her on her new arrivals.



In the shooting phase, the Tyranids obviously feared the Hellhound’s big flame template of doom, and so the Obliterators and Zoanthropes concentrated their fire on the flame tank, blowing off its turret and immobilizing it. This was especially frustrating for our side, as the Hellhound now formed a nice road block in front of my Immolator! The rest of the enemy forces ran up as fast as they could, with the Trygon fleeting up onto the debris pile directly in front of the massed tank line. At this point, we realized that if we didn’t kill that big bug quickly, it would probably eat our entire army for breakfast.


TURN 2

At this point, as per the scenario, the we randomly determined how many points each objective was worth. As luck would have it, the objective currently being hugged by the Plague Marines wound up being worth 2 points, while the objective that the Sisters and Veterans were heading towards on our side was worth a hefty three. The one in the centre, between our two armies, was worth only one point. Right off the bat, our side had an advantage: we just had to hold our objective and contest the middle one in order to get the win.

Unfortunately, contesting the middle objective was going to be kinda difficult with the Hellhound blocking the way. The Immolator tried to move around it to the right. Unfortunately, the driver had to make a sharp right turn to avoid hitting a squirrel, and snagged the treads on some debris. The flame tank immobilized itself after a predictable roll of 1. Sigh.

Elsewhere, the Veterans and other Sisters’ Rhino moved up to capture the 3-point objective, while the Command Chimera huddled next to the big pile of debris in front of the Hellhound, the troops inside ready to bring their meltaguns to bear. My other Sisters Rhino and the Seraphim moved further to the left, ready to counter any threat that might strike from that direction. Finally, my Canoness zoomed up behind the big building near the 3-point objective, ready to fly over it and attack anything that got too close.

With the Trygon sitting directly in front of our entire army, it would have been rude not to fire everything we had at it. The Russes, the Company Command Squad and the Chimera all opened fire, and after an intense round of melta, battle cannon and small arms fire, the Trygon finally fell as the heavy stubber took its final wound. Score!



Not to be outdone, the Celestians popped the hatches and fired their meltaguns at the Obliterators. Some uncommonly good rolling ensued, and both Obliterators were deep-fried in an instant. Woot! As an encore, the Basilisk dropped another pie plate into the middle of the Tyranid horde, squishing all three of the Tyranid Warriors! Oh, and a single Gaunt.







Although the evil side had taken some nasty losses last turn, they still had plenty of nasty units to throw out way. Laughing evilly, Grulgor flew towards the Russes. You would have thought by now that we would have learned to screen the darned things, but it simply wasn’t the case. In the centre, the Tervigon and Termagants moved towards the central objective, with the still-fertile Tervigon spawning 14 kids in the process (this time, the Sisters, at least, showed some consideration, congratulating the Tervigon from afar even as they shot at it). The remaining unit of Obliterators and the Zoanthropes edged up as well, while on the left flank, the walking Plague Marines and the sterile Tervigon advance towards our massed tanks. Although we’d killed the Trygon, we still had a lot of big nasties left to deal with.



In the shooting phase, the Zoanthropes showed us just how nasty warp lances could be, exploding my poor Immolator and killing one of the Celestian meltaguns in the process. Those meanies! The Obliterators followed suit, firing their lascannons at the Command Chimera, but thankfully their weapons only freemed harmlessly against its front armour. Everything else ran, scuttled, slithered, crawled or sashayed closer to our lines.



In the combat phase, Grulgor charged the Russes, and quite predictably, wrecked one, before turning and bending the turret of the other into a pretzel. Hmm, so much for battle cannons of death.




TURN 3



Seeing the threat posed by Grulgor, the Seraphim flew down to tie the big lug up, while the Command Chimera moved up to shoot him. The remaining Leman Russ edged back to escape the Daemon Prince’s phegmatic wrath.



Elsewhere, my northernmost Battle Squad finally zoomed up and disembarked in front of some surprised Termagants, while the Celestians advanced resolutely towards the Zoanthropes, along with Merced, who flew up from behind the shed to get some action. Finally, near the back of our lines, the Veterans disembarked to secure the 3-point objective, while their Chimera edged up to be useful elsewhere.



In the shooting phase, the Seraphim prayed for Divine Guidance, and both they and the Company Command shot at Grulgor. The Emperor must not have been listening, however, as, between the divinely-guided flamers and pistols and meltaguns, we failed to score a single wound on Grulgor, who just sat there tanning himself. Merced and the Celestians fired their own meltas into the Zoanthropes and were a little more successful, frying one of the brain bugs, while the Battle Sisters opened up on the Termagants, but nonetheless lost eight, leaving four left to huddle in cover. Last but by no means least, the Command Chimera and Hellhound both focused their firepower on the still-fertile Tervigon, chipping one wound off of it.



Not wanting a smelly Daemon Prince wreaking havoc in our lines, I had the Seraphim charge Grulgor. I had them pray for Spirit of the Martyr, but the Emperor must not have been listening, as I failed miserably! Not wanting them to get beaten and run down, I had them pray for Light of the Emperor as well, which, thankfully, they passed. Sadly, the girls let me down again, losing four of their number without scoring a single wound on Grulgor in return. Two more Seraphim went down to No Retreat saves, leaving just the Sister Superior in combat with the big nasty. Hmm, that could have gone better.





Elsewhere, however, Merced and the Celestians both charged the last Zoanthrope, which didn’t stand a chance before it was sawed down messily. Wiping bits of brain off of her, Merced consolidated closer to the rightmost Tervigon, while the Celestians moved up to stand between the Termagants and the central objective.



With time now running out, our opponents moved up to counter attack wherever possible. The leftmost Tervigon scuttled towards the Command Chimera, while the other Tervigon and the uppermost group of Termagants moved towards the Celestians. Further down, the Plague Marines and Termagants moved forward in the wake of the Tervigon...and for reasons that completely escaped us, moved the Plague Marines off the 2-point objective! My teammate and I were understandably baffled, and I think we asked our opponents why they did this. I can’t for the life of me remember the answer they gave, but either way, it didn’t help them in the long run.

In the shooting phase, the Termagants and uppermost Tervigon concentrated their fire on the Celestians, downing three of the Sororitas elite, though they passed their leadership test. The rest of the enemy shooting phase was pretty lackluster, with the Obliterators shooting at the Command Chimera and bouncing off spectacularly.





In close combat, however, the barren Tervigon made up for the lack of shooting success, lunging at the Command Chimera and tearing it to pieces. Stone and his annoyed Command Squad disembarked, just in time to see Grulgor enthusiastically swat my Seraphim Superior aside and consolidate out of rapid fire range.



Finally, the Termagants charged my last two Celestians. I was holding my breath at this point, as, with their poisoned rerolls, the Gaunts could easily kill the last three girls and consolidate onto the central objective. This time, however, the Emperor (or any similar cosmic deity) smiled on me, and only despite suffering a bucketload of wounds, the Celestians made all their saves! In return, the Celestians killed only one Gaunt (causing another to die from a No Retreat heart attack), but it didn’t matter at this stage, as the last two Celestians managed to deny our opponents the central objective.



At this point, though, the tournament organizers declared that round three was almost at an end. We were all surprised and a little disappointed, as we didn’t think we had been taking that long, and the game was so tense that we all wanted to keep playing. Sadly, we had to tally up the points to see who had won. As it turned out, we won on primary, holding the 3-point marker and contesting the 1-point marker while Chaos held...well, nothing. Similarly, we won on secondary with four kill points to three, though if I remember correctly, the Chaos/Tyranid said narrowly won tertiary by holding one terrain piece to our zero. Even so, although the game had ended too early for anyone’s liking, the Imperium had come out ahead.

Result: Victory!


Our opponents, of course, took their defeat in a calm and mature manner.




Thoughts: Although I think our side made few, if any, tactical mistakes in this game, our victory really came down to the luck of the dice. The fact that we randomly wound up having the most valuable objective on the board meant that we just had to keep the enemy away from it to at least score a draw, let alone a victory, so it was an uphill battle for our opponents from turn 2. Even so, things were getting hairy near the end, with the Russes having been badly maimed, Grulgor having eaten my poor Seraphim, and the Tervigons and Plague Marines getting into charge range. Both our forces still had lots of stuff left on the board, and if the game had gone on, it could really have gone either way.

Even so, this was an enjoyable game and a great comeback for us. Our opponents were great to play against as well, and wound up being our pick for favourite opponents of the day.



The fighting on San Romero was fierce and bloody. Grulgor’s hordes were on us in a heartbeat, shrieking waves of Tyranids forming the vanguard of the Death Guard’s assault. Although our combined firepower was brutally effective, the Tyranid horde seemed unending-- at times it felt as though for every one of the xenos creatures we killed, another ten would take their place. As the gab between our forces closed, our lines devolved into close-quarter fighting. It was only through faith and steel that we held the line-- I saw the Celestians of the Sororitas holding the centre despite terrible losses, heroically cutting down many times their number of Gaunts. Canoness Tarqan herself reaped a terrible toll among the Tyranids, personally hacking down the bloated psyker-beasts whose witch-bolts were death to our tanks. I confess, though, I could see very little else for the purpose of unit citations-- my own Chimera was overturned by a lumbering Tervigon, and my squad and I were forced to battle the beast on foot with meltas and grenades.

Through it all, the Death Guard, curiously, hung back, seemingly content to let the Tyranids do all the fighting for them. The only exception was their foul leader-- the beast known as Grulgor wasted no time launching himself into our lines. The Daemon was the stuff of nightmares, a rotting leviathan who hacked apart two of our Leman Russes with that great, pestilent blade of his. The Seraphim of the Sororitas tried to counter-attack him, and for a moment we were uplifted by the sight of these angelic figures. Our hope was dashed as Grulgor seemed to effortlessly tear them limb from limb. For a moment, it seemed like nothing could stop this beast-- that it would personally slay each and every one of us.

And then, at the height of the battle, what I can only describe as a miracle occured. The Tyranids, who up until this point had been fighting with a frightening cohesion, suddenly began to thrash and spasm violently as though in agony. All along the line, the xenos assault collapsed. At around the same time, the Death Guard withdrew, Grulgor himself giving one last, throaty laugh before he flew off into the horizon. After the battle, it was a small matter for us to destroy the remaining Tyranids, but we were too exhausted to pursue the foul Traitor Marines.

I do not know why the Tyranids descended into agony the way they did. Perhaps whatever control Grulgor held over them dissipated? Canoness Tarqan has stated, quite boldly, that this was the Emperor’s divine intervention at work, and I cannot disagree with her. The timing of this was nothing short of miraculous, and is it not said that the Emperor’s will can be enacted in most unexpected ways?

In the days since that battle, we had found that the Death Guard have left the planet, leaving San Romero back under Imperial control. Ordinarily, I would call this a victory, and yet I am bothered by how readily the Traitors were willing to cede the battle and leave the planet. I cannot shake the nagging feeling that Grulgor achieved whatever foul objective he was after on the planet, and that our victory here counts for nothing as long as the creature lives.

I hope this report proves satisfactory. We await further orders: Canoness Tarqan is making a further request for permission to investigate, and potentially purge, elements of San Romero’s population for heresy. I myself simply humbly request further orders.

Marcus Stone,

Sgt, 23rd Ironheart

So did that space wolf player leave the plastic showing on 85% of his models or is it just really flat codex grey