Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hello, all! I've been lurking around for a little while, and a game I had last night got my narrative report muscles twitching, which gives me an excuse to actually join up and post...hope you enjoy!

Mission - The Relic

Night Fighting in effect first turn

Terrain notes - the Tyranid digestion pool thing counts as a forest, and the road's really just window dressing. The Executioner is lurking behind a low wall and the two buildings on the right are impassable.
Armies

The convict scum of the 347th Sharran Trench Rats:

Commissar Pendrall, Lord Commissar (warlord, Immovable Object) with power fist and Chimera with heavy hull flamer
Psy-Asset 1403-JX, Primaris Psyker


Drek’s Trench Foots, Ogryn Squad with two extra Ogryn


1st Squad, Veterans with shotguns and three meltaguns
2nd Squad, Veterans with shotguns and three meltaguns
3rd Squad, Veterans with shotguns and three flamers
4th Squad, Veterans with shotguns and a lascannon


His Wrath Upon the Unrighteous, Hellhound with heavy flamer


Redemption, Leman Russ Executioner with sponson multi-meltas
Pious Judgment of Stern Authority, Medusa with heavy flamer
Purgation of the Foul, Medusa with heavy flamer

Aegis Defence Line with Icarus lascannon


And the shrieking hordes of their tyranid foes:

Hive Tyrant Brood
Hive Tyrant - Twin-Linked Devourer - Brainleech Worms, Twin-Linked Devourer - Brainleech Worms, Paroxysm, Leech Essence, Hive Commander (Warlord, Target Priority)
Tyrant Guard (1) - Scything Talons

Pyrovore Brood (2)
Hive Guard Brood (2)
Ymgarl Genestealer Brood (5)

Termagant Brood
Termagant (10) - Devourer
Mycetic Spore
Tervigon - Cluster Spines
Termagant Brood
Termagant (10) - Devourer
Mycetic Spore
Tervigon - Cluster Spines
Termagant Brood (16) - Fleshborer

Trygon



Whoever had tried to pilot the Valkyrie was a fool, Commissar Pendrall decided. The vast, ruined area outside of their trenchworks might be crawling with tyranids, but so long as they kept their attention on the threat at hand, someone who knew what he was doing could hope to lie low and survive a little longer…so long as they did nothing to draw the foe. The aircraft had slammed into a building just ahead of their lines, engines clogged with spores and scored with bio-acid.

“We going to check that, Commissar?” Sergeant Merus asked, scratching at the chafed skin under his collar. Pendrall shook his head. Convicts these men might be, thieves and killers and cowards, but he would not throw their lives away for the sake of a fool. Out here, fools were left to die.

“They earned their fate,” he told the man, placing his magnoculars back in their waterproof pouch. “We will hold the trenches, and wait for the Warden-Commander’s orders.” At that moment, the vox in his command bunker squealed to life, parts of the message blanked out by static and distant roars.

“Request…repeat, request assistance…facility at Walther’s Spi…neurological agent, I have the data…” The vox suddenly failed, but the roars did not. Pendrall could see movement on the horizon, vast shambling forms lumbering through the gloom toward the crash site. Moving toward their lines.

“Commissar?” The sergeant’s voice held an unanswered question. After a moment’s deliberation, the Commissar bowed his head.

“Gamma Company will advance. There is something out there the enemy wishes to keep from our hands, and that is something I will not allow. All squads! All squads to positions!”





Drek didn’t like the Chimera. He used to hate it, but now he just didn’t like it. It was too dark and too small and even with his friends all around him it made him feel alone. Before the Treatment, it used to bother him so much that sometimes he would get sick. Even afterward it would make him feel a little ill, like the time he ate the rations with the fuzz on them. It wasn’t so bad with the Commissar, though. The Commissar helped a lot. Sometimes he would read to them from Skripshurr. Drek still wasn’t sure quite who Skripshurr was, but he seemed to like the Emperor a lot, and that made him okay. Today, though, he just stood quietly, staring at the door as the Chimera rumbled along.

That was okay with Drek too.




Suddenly, the Chimera lurched. Drek could hear sounds in the distance, big thumps like the feet of Huge Grubb in the stories back home, and a hissing, crackling noise as well. And something else, a kind of squealing shriek that made his skin feel all crawly. That was the bugs. He didn’t like the bugs, but he liked smashing them. The Commissar stirred.

“They’ve started without us, gentlemen.” He said, smiling. Drek’s friend Orburr’s heavy brow creased in puzzlement. “That’s not nice,” he frowned. “You said the Emp’ruh likes it when we shares.”
Commissar Pendrall’s grin widened. “I was speaking more of rations and ammunition clips, Orburr, but I think there will be enough fighting for all.”

The cheer was deafening inside the close confines of the Chimera, but the Commissar didn’t seem like he minded.




“I have sinned against the Emperor. The sin is intrinsic, for I cannot be cleansed of an aberrant mind. It must be absolved by death, and death alone. I have sinned against the Emperor…”

Trooper Zerak ground his teeth in irritation. He wanted to tell the mutant to shut up, but he didn’t dare. It just kept droning the same three sentences over and over, and he wasn’t sure what would happen if it stopped. Hell, he wasn’t sure what would happen if it blinked. He shifted the tanks on his back, feeling the promethium slosh as he braced it against a collapsed wall. The Sergeant stepped over one of the little fires left from the crashing Valkyrie, scanning the gloom.

“The signal came from out there somewhere, if we can – “

That was when all hell broke loose.





“It’s right on top of us!” Trooper Beldar shrieked, staring out the viewport. His hands clenched on the Hellhound’s controls, sending the sturdy vehicle lurching to one side.

“Control!” Lieutenant Arius roared, spinning the turret in a desperate attempt to keep the oncoming tyranid in his sights. “Keep her steady, I can hose it down – “

The Tyrant’s claw punched right through the vehicle’s armored shell, detonating the volatile chemicals within. The crew never stood a chance.





Commissar Pendrall’s blood was up. Staring into the auspex at the oncoming wave of contacts, he snapped the Chimera’s vox system on. “This is Commissar Pendrall to all units. Not one step back, not one inch given unless it be slick with xeno ichor! All guns target the center of that swarm!”

He hoped it would be enough.





Lieutentant Yenalf surveyed the still-burning wreckage of his former comrades in arms dispassionately before he slammed the hatch closed and manned the Russ’s turret controls. The Hellhound crew had been reckless, advancing too far in hopes of catching more of the little bugs. Their sacrifice was not in vain, however.

It had lured the big one back into his line of fire.

Redemption spat bolts of white-hot death at the towering monstrosity that led the swarm, followed by the distinctive booming hiss of melta fire. Some struck home, some flew wide, some turned chunks of rubble into liquid slag. And yet the beast still came on.




They had predicted the spores, that was the devil of it. At least seventy percent of the tyranid’s attempts to break their line had been accompanied by at least one mycetic spore attack. They had aligned their guns and trained their crews, and the men left to man the trenches kept an eye on the roiling clouds as their comrades fought and died in the mud of no man’s land. And when the first spore came crashing down to flank the advance, the gunner’s aim was straight and true.

A pity he only seared off the remnants of its protective outer shell…



The shots were coming in thick and fast now. Trooper Zerak couldn’t tell whether the screams were from his squad or that damnable ammunition the xenos used; either way, the shrieking was like to drive him mad. It was a good thing the mutant had been one of the first to be hit, or his incessant mumbling would have finished the job. He hoped the thing had found some of the absolution it craved.

One of the bugs stuck its ugly head around a shard of broken Valkyrie and hissed at him, so he pulled the trigger on his flamer. Held it down until there was nothing left but ash. That felt good, felt like he was doing something important, so when the next one arrived he did the same thing. This time the squad’s other survivors joined in.




“Sidearms, gentlemen.” Yenalf heard himself say as the Russ rocked again. Redemption was as tough as they came, but even her metal hide wouldn’t stand up to that sort of treatment for long. Gunner Helbreth wiped his grimy face, leaning back from his cramped seat at the sponson.

“Sidearms? What bloody good are laspistols going to do against that bloody monster?”

The Lieutenant cocked an eyebrow as he pushed the barrel under his chin. “Absolutely none.”

By the time the Tyrant managed to pry the top of the tank off, there was nothing in it left to kill.




Sergeant Merus groped blindly for another clip. He couldn’t tell whether the wetness on his face was blood or tears. Probably both. The ground was littered with dead men, it was just him and old Palliver left out of first squad, and that blast from the rear could only mean they had gotten one of the Medusas. The bugs were everywhere. It was hopeless, hopeless…

Suddenly, the Chimera ramp clanged down, and Commissar Pendrall charged out at the head of his ogryn. Merus gaped. “What’s that damn fool doing?” Palliver gasped, ducking behind a rusted beam as the enemy’s shots spattered against it.

“He’s leading.” Merus snapped grimly, leveling his shotgun. He could see a figure in tattered Mechanicus robes crawling toward the Chimera, away from the oncoming swarm. “And we’re going to follow.”




Drek could feel the heat from the nearby explosions, but he didn’t care. The smell coming off the dead bugs the Chimera had just cooked was awful, but he didn’t care about that either. The Commissar was with them, and they had a bug to smash. This one was big, really big, and it had spikes instead of arms. It roared at them as they pointed their guns at it, and the ogryn roared back. Their guns roared too, and the bug staggered when they hit it, but it didn’t look hurt. Drek felt funny when he saw that, like he was back in the Chimera without the Commissar, but then its eye turned red and its head snapped back and it screamed. The Commissar was there after all, and his pistol was smoking.

“They can bleed!” he shouted, loud enough to hear over the bug screaming. “They can bleed, and if they can bleed they can die! Are you with me?”

The ogryn all roared again, and Drek was the loudest. “I’m with yuh, Comm’sar!” he yelled. “I’m with yuh always!”



The xenos were all around them, the advance had been outflanked, and the Commissar didn’t care. None of them had taken a step backwards. Even as the endless waves charged, howling for blood, they fired and reloaded and fired again like the heretical Men of Iron the Mechanicum warned against. They could hold. With men like these, he could hold the whole damned planet. Beside him, Drek shouted out a challenge as they swarm crept closer, withering under their fire and yet still slowly tightening the noose. A garbled voice screamed for help and the Commissar looked to the side just in time to see a wounded tech-priest wrestling with a gaunt.Our mission, he thought, and then something warm and red struck him and there was no more time for thinking.



It hurts, Drek thought. He hadn’t been fast enough. The bug they had got out to fight had shot them with something and that had hurt in a tingly way, and then the little ones had shot them with the even smaller bugs that lived in their guns and that just hurt. He tried to move and found that he couldn’t. He couldn’t help the Commissar, and neither could his friends. One by one he saw them fall, shot or stepped on or chewed up, and at last the Commissar was alone.

That hurt the most, he thought as the blackness closed in. That he couldn’t help…



“Holy frak,” Trooper Merach whispered as he watched the ‘nids tear through their lines. “This is it. This is how it ends.”

“It ain’t ended yet, son.” Sergeant Feldren snapped. “So I suggest you stow that talk, sight that damn lascannon, and get a bead on that thing,” he pointed toward the Tyrant and its bodyguard, which had begun to storm toward the trenches, “because if that thing gets here and we somehow survive, the Commissar’s going to want to know why we let it make such a damn mess!” With that, he turned the emplaced lascannon towards the Tyrant, letting off a stream of fire and curses in equal measure. For once, he managed to hit something, sending the creature’s bodyguard crashing to the ground.

Merach didn’t think the Commissar would be coming back, but he fired anyway. What else could he do?



Something snapped in the Commissar as he watched the light leave Drek’s eyes. The ogryn had been beside him for dozens of battles, his simple ferocity and pure faith a welcome bulwark against the darkness. And now he had been killed, and for what? Someone in the ruins had dropped the gaunt, but the tech-priest was ominously still and it was painfully apparent none of them would reach the safety of the lines. In front of him, the serpentine monstrosity hissed, its one remaining eye full of alien hate.

“I see you.” The Commissar snarled, and charged. It was a feint. As he had hoped it lashed out at the oncoming human, but he jinked to the left just in time, outstretched power fist glimmering with energy as it clamped on to the Tervigon contentedly chewing on Orburr’s remains. The creature roared in surprise and agony, and the Commissar laughed. Something struck him from behind hard, but his refractor field held, and instead of being cut in two he was flung into the air. Pendrall would never get a better shot.

“NOT ONE STEP BACK!” he roared, and latched on to the Tervigon’s jaw. Its cry changed into a bubbling shriek as the power fist’s field began to eat into the armored flesh…and even that was cut off as Pendrall yanked down, hard. Something gave in the beast’s skull, and it reeled back, staggering away from the fight with only half a face. The Commissar dropped his gruesome trophy and turned to face his other foe, smiling grimly.




Zerak sobbed in despair as he watched the second spore hit the ground behind their lines, splitting open like a rotten fruit. There would be no escape for them. No glorious rescue mission, no last-minute deliverance, no chance at a pardon and redemption, save the sort the psyker had found.

It didn’t seem fair for him to die on this far-away world for the sake of a few stolen ploins. It didn’t seem fair at all.



Whatever else Trooper Palliver had been – tech-heretic, thief, murderer – he had been a good soldier. Sergeant Merus knew, because he had led him, both before their conviction and after. As he watched the flames wash over the remnants of the other squad and heard the squeals of the gaunts as their living ammo chewed its way through both of them, he realized he had never known the man’s first name.

Now he would never get a chance to ask.



Somewhere during the fight, the Commissar’s cap had fallen off. Now, he knelt carefully and picked it up, never breaking eye contact with the Trygon. They respected each other too much for that. He could hear the Tervigons snuffling around behind him, perhaps about to rush him, but if they tried he would drag at least one of them to hell with him.

They charged faster than he expected, their voices guttural bugles announcing the attack. One of them knocked into him and sent him sprawling. For one terrible instant he thought he would land on the power fist, but his head came down inches away from the deadly field. Cat-quick, Pendrall scrambled to his feet poised to strike, and then staggered as something punched him in the small of the back. “Oh.” He whispered, his booming voice a ghost of its former self as he saw the Trygon’s claw emerge.

He had lost his cap again.




Even from where he was, Trooper Merach could see the big bug flick the Commissar off its talon like a scrap of cloth. He knew they were dead men. The ‘nids were all through the trenches, the Sergeant had been killed moments earlier, and his loader was slumped over a pile of spare charge packs. There was only one thing left he could do, one last defiant gesture.

“All guns on the big one!” he roared. “Target the Tyrant! Bring it down!”



For a moment, the beast staggered as twin beams of red light slammed into its chest. Merach cheered as it sank to one knee, bellowing in pain. By the time it rose again, bio-weapon spitting death at the few men still standing, he had been pulled down under a swarm of termagaunts.

He was spared the sight of the alien standing triumphant atop the fallen bulwark.





Victory to the Tyranids – Guard tabled on Turn 5


On retrospect I played that way too aggressively, allowing the spores an easy flank and not getting my money's worth out of the Defence Line. Still, it was fun, especially watching the Commissar go absolutely berserk as soon as he stepped out of the Chimera!

Cool report. For the first time, I feel like these pictures did a very good job of showing what happened. And the extra fluff added a lot to the battle.

I agree you were a bit too aggressive. Though that probably had a lot to do with the fact that a large portion of your army had shotguns

Very cool report! Really loved the narrative, amongst the favorite that I've read so far. And I'm curious why all the shotguns? Looking forward to your next report

Wow that got real bloody real fast. I liked this report as well. Those shots from Vassal are very clear to follow, it's not always as clear as here in a BatRep what is going on.

Looking forward to a next one

Thanks, guys! Glad you liked it!

And I'm curious why all the shotguns?

For trench-clearing, of course!

In all seriousness, I didn't think I'd miss a couple of lasgun shots at long range, none of the other weapons (except for the lascannon squad) had any kind of range to them, and it really boiled down to a fluff choice more than anything else. So of course this was the one game where a lucky lasgun shot could have polished off the enemy leader!