Battle Standings:
Outcome: Minor Victory
Harakoni Victory Points: 1221 VP
Death Guard Victory Points: 584 VP
Acting Beyond the Call of Duty: Anti-Tank Support Talon 2 (Took out Defiler in turn one stopping the entire enemies assault, and took down Forrix the Warchieftain)
Best Painted/Converted Model:
Harakoni - Commissar Tichondrius (Almost only one painted at this point!)
Iron Warriors – Forrix the Warchieftain
Battle-story:
Yet again they swooped low over the dunes, suns glistening off the black wings and hulls all about as the phoenix deployed in force once more…
The horizon was but a dull orange bathed in hues from crimson red to fiery yellow. A golden reflection of the twin setting suns around Calinha, one small and golden the other a huge ominous red, made shadows of immense length. Every painter in the galaxy would find this a beautiful sight worthy of keeping for posterity, but for the Phoenixes it meant only one more dreary battle. Their focus was but on the dust-clouds ten folds of miles in the distance…
With practiced ease the doors slid up and the flyers gave birth to the entire Phoenix, falling graciously from the Vulture’s durasteel- wombs like gliding birds of prey.
After the Heretic Gorangaal had escaped them, their commanding officer, Icarus, had been given no choice but to try and assault the Iron Warriors near ‘The Core’. He needed to disrupt the traitor forces enough that they could not make an effective counter-attack on the Agrippa forces in control there. Obviously on route to mob up with the scattered Death Guard forces, the Iron warriors had to be stopped, or at the very least delayed as long as possible to give their Agrippa allies more time for preparation.
On route Icarus had gazed upon the reconnaissance provided by their agile Lightning Attack Fighters. Morhus had come through with flying colours, and ahead of the swooping men laid the perfect spot for their ambush.
It was a bottleneck of sand-dunes which the Iron Warriors would have to go between, or loose valuable time they didn’t have.
Icarus was forced to gamble on that they didn’t suspect an attack this sudden after the Death Guard had been hit. Few commanders knew the real potential of the Phoenixes and Icarus was glad, knowing full well that no Phoenix had actually met the Iron Warriors yet. Thus he suspected this to give rise to overconfidence and ignorance since few regiments could match the Warhawks in their role, a fact which usually helped his cause. One could only hope that the dunes hadn’t shifted too far though…
Various vox-messages came in through Themis, his veteran vox-caster, who was adept at sorting information from his caster-set even when in mid-flight. He always seemed more at ease with it, than without Icarus thought when his micro-bead chimed as Themis called him…
“Sir? Lightnings on standby in the launch-bays, awaiting your command. Agrippa sector claim to be under attack by the Necrontyr, whatever that means… Perhaps another traitor regiment?”
“Copy that, Themis! Keep me posted of the Agrippa-guards progress, will you?”
“Certainly, sir!”
Icarus shuddered for some reason. Although the subtle implants given to Themis by the Adeptus Mechanicus made him much more adept at his job, the near mechanical hint to his voice unsettled Icarus a bit, especially when voxed. He knew all too well what the Necrons were, but to his forces which hadn’t yet faced them, this was graded information.
As they approached the designated spot, Icarus gave his orders with a smile. The dunes had shifted but a little, and to their advantage…
“I want Wyrm claw covered by Mayhem behind the closest dune! Inferno on top of the left one in cover, and Havoc, Tautonicus and Pyres behind the right dune! Purgatos will stand observation post for us at the huge dune to the right and alert us of their presence when and if they arrive, giving me a tactical readout of their forces.
Magmaticus will remain airborne and out of sight in the cloud cover, and give me long range visuals of their forces. Make it happen, men!”
As the troopers scattered and swarmed to their different directions in all haste, Magmaticus reported in…
++ “The Emperor is with us today, Colonel. Lead column is heading straight for us still, but are slow-moving and will probably not reach us for an estimated two hours or so…” ++
Icarus concurred and ordered the just landed Inferno claw to start placing the landmines they had brought to halt the armoured column from reaching their lines. He could do much in two hours he thought. Better get to it…
* * *
The dust cloud was getting so close it was getting large on Icarus’ retina.
++ “ ‘Ball Lightning’ this is ‘Great Wyrm’. ETA ‘Puppets’ 5 minutes and closing… Deploy, I say again: Deploy! Over” ++
++ “ ‘Great Wyrm’, ‘Ball Lightning’, Deploying at maximum speed to your position giving ETA roughly 7 minutes. Starting our attack run! ‘Ball Lightning’ over and out! ++
Thus their support was underway, and if only they could stop them before they were grinded to pulp by the enemy armour, this might just work, Icarus thought to himself. It just might…
++ “All right Dragons of the Phoenixes: Disperse, and grab cover, lasguns to full setting and heavy weapons ready… Wait for my signal!” ++
And then he saw it… The huge column in plain sight for all to see! The reason it had moved so slowly was the Defiler which moved in front covering the others, armoured durasteel and fleshy ichors moved by daemonic influence. He waited for it to come to him, and about him his troopers were getting restless, fear clawing at their minds as the tangible feeling of warp magics in effect whipped about them.
“Sir! There is an immense amount of static still, but the Agrippa seems to have fought off their attackers!”
Icarus nodded hastily to Themis. “Good at least some of us are making progress…” he said absent-mindedly, although a deep respect for the Agrippans had started to surface. He had to look further into their tactics later on, he reminded himself.
The queasiness was almost overwhelming, and several of his nearby troopers gagged and retched as silently as possible, behind the dunes. His neck-hairs stood out straight and the stench of life that defied reality was getting noxious and irritating on his olfactory senses. Around him all the troopers began slowly bleeding nosebleed as the energy before them assaulted their bodies. Icarus noted also small drops of blood landing on the sand before him.
“Enough of this!” he thought, as the sound of crunching sand grew louder and louder. He gave a cutting motion with his hand to each of the Rocket Talons beside him, and the skilled troopers let loose upon the monstrosity… The Defiler roared and sidestepped, two missiles flying through the spidery legs. Luckily it was too close to avoid them all and two others hammered into it before the final shot, from the second talon, hit the topmost portion, blowing the head and thick front panels clean off. The daemon veiled as secondary explosions set off the power-plant and detonated it in a fiery mushroom. The legs and scattered debris was all that was left to indicate that the living nightmare had ever existed. All the troopers breathed more easily as the entity was sent screaming to the warp, the electrostatic feeling subsiding each second.
The shining Iron Warriors fanned out in total silence, their vehicle engines the only sound the phoenixes could hear, as they suddenly became aware of the masses of dragon before them. The huge legs of the Defiler proved a blessing in disguise as they blocked the entire column at the narrowest spot between the sand-dunes, quickly making a tight bottleneck halting the advance, making the Phoenixes face much less firepower at any given time.
Still there was a gap on he left side and the Traitor forces had seen it, gunning their roaring engines and sending a Rhino forward to close with them, followed by a Vindicator using the armoured personnel carrier as movable cover. It was a tactic they had witnessed before from both loyalist and traitor, and they had just the cure for it.
Icarus gave the messages to Themis, in the secret Harakoni battle-signs, who quickly relayed them on, and the noose was closing around the chaos forces.
The still wounded Aramachius and the valiant souls of the Inferno claw and the Honorifica Mortis leapt from their cover on the nearby hill. The wyrm shriek battlecry of the Phoenixes fresh on their lips, they were ready to face any adversary. Tichondrius watched with glee as not a single trooper in that claw faltered, running in a mad charge at the chaos forces spitting lasfire and melta death as they went, despite each and everyone being wounded in one way or the other. Even Draco fluttering behind Helios made short shrieks of optimism at the masses of men charging.
++ “Pyre and Havoc, secure the other flank! Tautonicus will stay put. Leto! I need you to hold that flank against counter-charges!” ++ Icarus made sure the veteran hero of the fateful Ruulian misdrops understood the importance of this, as he had a tendency to charge into whatever he could when they were in range.
Icarus’ micro-bead was chiming with replies and reports as the battle progressed, and the Helldragons moved forward on queue, crossing their dune-ridge with confident strides, running down the loose sand on the other side.
Tichondrius had grown tired of just watching and as the first Rhino came up alongside the Defiler his word was given, and all the six Heavy Bolters of the Mayhem and Wyrm claws ripped into it, sending it to a sudden skidding stop. As sand amassed before it as it burrowed down into the loose traction, shining marines jumped out the sides of the wreckage. Tichondrius risked a smirk for himself as the bottleneck became even tighter.
The Warsmith was bellowing orders of his own as it seemed, for his infantry was moving over on one side to support the Rhino rush, and the long range support over on the other, sealing the fate of the poor souls of the Pyre talon. Running forwards to get into range of the shining Predator in front of them, Garan and Fulke in front of Sergeant Pyre himself was suddenly jerked back as the crew of the Annihilator tracked them with their lethal lascannon volleys. With despair in his eyes Pyre saw that behind it a Dreadnought was walking into sight, and he roared defiance at them as the Plasma Cannon let loose on them. The two remaining members of his talon took the full blast of it, and as they were tossed around like old dolls from a spoiled girl-child, Pyre thought back at his time as a special ops trooper, a lifetime of violence behind him.
He skidded to a halt at the base of the dune they had just emerged from, glass fragments from the plasma blast about him and bone, fried flesh and armour fragments from his talon fused into his own twisted armour. Later on he couldn’t remember if it was the blood-loss or stench from the other members’ remains which made him pass out, but darkness snatched him up and cuddled him in its cruel embrace for the remainder of the engagement. For years later he would just smile politely at the mention of the vile feud that had taken place there and bled the sands of Calinha red in the name of the Emperor.
Bloodlust to avenge their peers made Havoc move forward behind the rocky outcrop out of sight of the deadly Predator and Dreadnought, as the loud veil of the supporting Lightnings approached rapidly from behind opening up on the armoured column in a total anarchy of autocannon shells and heavy laser bolts, although just stunning or shaking their targets rather than inflicting some permanent damage.
On the other side the shining infantry was forming up beside their wreaked Chimera, the Warsmith Forrix himself suddenly appearing with a retinue of his chosen champions. Tichondrius recognised the threat at once, the huge bionic behemoth not possible to mistake, and Themis relayed the order for Inferno to open up on the squad rather than the approaching and badly shaken Vindicator. Scoring a massive amount of hits, yet doing little lethal damage, Inferno was in for a deadly ride.
The Vindicator returned the favour of being ignored by strafing a path into Honorifica, cutting a member into bloody swaths with the pintle-bolter, hysterical and menacing laughter from the marine manning it as he did so. Dragon Faur of the Honorifica staggered forward under the weight of the Melta-gun, his clavicle and a dozen ribs cracked, he had problems breathing. Seeing his death before him he swore to himself that at least one of the shining devils he was going to take with him, and let out a volley accompanied by a scream of pain, as he was gunned to shreds in the same instant by screaming bolter shells. To his credit the whole torso of the marine he hit was missing, and he died with the knowledge that he had accomplished his deed bringing one more notch to the imperial death count.
Whether they were inspired or not only the Emperor can tell, but the rest of the claw opened up on the squad, as the marines returned fire. Two meltas claimed a marine life and the lucky las-shots that hit joints of their armour sent two more marines keeling over. The bolters of the marines were deadlier though and the combined pintle-bolters and the retinue sent four more guardsmen to meet the Emperor, as a vicious crossfire gradually closed to a deadly close-combat.
On the right flank the Havocs were advancing rapidly, but believing themselves to be behind cover they didn’t see the threat that approached. It was just the long shadow of it that alerted them in the nick of time, as sporadic autocannon fire from the warped Obliterator claimed one helldragon as the other scattered and dived for cover.
Another target for the Iron Warrios was appearing though, as Purgatos came staggering down the massive dunes on the right side, spitting laser death towards the Predator as it came. Having relayed what it could of the entire column to Icarus it was now ready to get another kill-mark on the hull for good measure.
The valiant Inferno claw had closed the distance to the marines, and engaged in bloody combat thinking they could overwhelm their enemy with numbers… A tactic that proved most futile as Forrix and his champions slaughtered the whole 1st talon within seconds. Aramachius short of breath and not thinking straight, screamed for them to stand their distance and take them with their firepower. A tactic no guardsmen could win against the Adeptus Astartes, warped though they may be. Furious at the indecision Icarus screamed for them to take cover, and as the claw ducked simultaneously, heavy bolter shells ripped into their charging lines, leaving but Forrix and his adjutant alive for the onslaught. “Now!” Aramachius roared, regaining his senses, and the second talon and the Honorifica went into glorious close combat with the armoured behemoths, as the Command and the third talon moved around to stop the Rhinos.
Icarus quickly reviewed the information from Purgatos, and screamed into the vox-caster as Tichondrius directed the Wyrm Claw’s defensive fire.
++ “Magmaticus! Take down those support troops with lascannons or die trying. We need them occupied! Ignatius, we need to stop their advance, give me your best aiming Morhus!” ++
As if summoned out of thin air, the Lightnings appeared for another run. Ignatius blew the rear portion of the right Predator track clean off, sending it spinning a few degrees, and pieces of the exploding belt hammering the Defiler husk with lethal fragments. Occupied with tracking the hiding sentinel the Dreadnought ignored the fast-moving Lightnings, and although he missed the behemoth itself, Koios slashed of the hydraulic hoses to its legs crippling the Dreadnoughts movement. Stray shots and much resentment were sent after the escaping Lightnings as the Dreadnought realised what damage it had sustained. Regaining its posture it turned and sent Purgatos to a hot hell, as the plasma shredded through the light armour of the sentinel, obviously making it feel a bit better about its fate of immobility.
Aramachius advanced on the second Rhino now past the wreck of its brother, but the Emperor had abandoned them, and even from short range the meltas refused to do any real damage. Gunning forward the Rhinos revealed the cargo it had left behind though and his talon vas quickly decimated by bolter fire, Aramachius saved only by the reflexes of Dort running in front of the bolter shots, sacrificing himself. Face down, bleeding like a butchered grox and looking like a jigsaw-puzzle, Aramachius cursed the traitors one more time for good measure before his left lounge collapsed after a fit of spasms. Death seemed imminent and unavoidable to him as he cramped and fell into unconsciousness.
The last rhino, now empty of the passengers who had claimed the inferno talons, gunned forward on the side of the left dune, its brother copying the act before it and parallel to it heading straight for the Mayhem Claw, hoping to run down as many guardsmen as possible.
Tichondrius smiled as the first Rhino ran into their minefield, cart wheeling front-to-back as the mines went off and blasted through the weak bottom armour. Realising the danger, its brother stopped just inches before the first mines on the far side of the dune, and was about to reverse his heading when it realised that it was stuck and had no way of getting back in time to be of any more use in the onslaught.
By Icarus’ orders Tautonicus took the fight to the foe and swooped over the right dune to engage the other flank and the squad that became Aramachius’ bane. Ploughing into them spears first, a bloody tally of traitor marines fell for the deadly Doomdivers lance-charge, before being locked in a furious combat.
At this point Forrix had finished with the remainder of the Inferno claw and turned to the last of the Honorifica, now running madly across the minefields for succour from the onslaught. Tichondrius almost laughed as the gargantuan marines didn’t dare follow the desperate trooper, seeing the result it had on the Rhino, sure that their heavy weight might just as well trigger them… That second of indecision would prove his bane, as every weapon in the Wyrm and Mayhem Claw let up on the two survivors, no less than three missiles heading straight for Forrix. His adjutant threw himself in front to give his life for his leader. Sadly for him though, his body sustained only two missiles before being blown to bits, the final one punching through the Warchiefs armour, sending the burning bearings and Wyrm-secretions deep within. As the bubbling hot metal scored horrendous damage, searing flesh and melting metal, Forrix staggered backwards. Realising the battle was lost the hulking brute turned and fled as a sandstorm came in to obscure the Phoenixes vision. It was as if the elements themselves took orders from the fleeing Warsmith.
Icarus was satisfied though, they had stopped the traitors as best possible, inflicting devastating damage, and better yet, secured the Guard presence in ‘the Core’…
Epilogue:
Icarus moved smartly around the corner of the hospital wing in full parade dress. He walked around personally pinning medals on those wounded. In the last two bunks law the worst wounded. Aramachius of the Inferno Claw, and the still unconscious Pyre of the Helldragons.
“Did we get them?”
A dazed Aramachius asked Icarus, as the machines worked further to repair his shattered physique, tubes of all sizes and colours going in and out of his body.
“Yes, my friend! They were routed completely. Although at a high cost…” Icarus sighed to himself.
“Weep not for the dead, Ood! They gave up a lifetime in retirement for one last chance of slaying the Emperors foes. They died the way they chose to, as masters of their own fate. You need to think more of the Honorifica as dead before they deploy!”
“I suppose you’re right, my friend, although that is something I can never do. I trained most of these men and they are dear to me. I cannot allow myself to think of them as nothing more than numbers.”
“Ah yes, and that is your greatest strength and your worst weakness my friend. Think not more off it. If they died to give us but a small respite I think they did their duty, and shall gladly join you for the next battle even though it might be on crutches.”
Aramachius wheezed as the lounge machine did another contraction, Icarus laughing at the stoic nature of his comrade, pinning another medal for wounds received in the line of duty on his gown.
“Why do you even bother with those medals, Ood? I have dozens already…”
“Because my friend, in the eyes of the Emperor we are all equal!”
The esteemed colonel turned on his heals and walked out of the ward, new battles to plan and new foes to smithe needed his attention.