Part 3 – Broken Legacy – Battle Report
The aged inquisitor peers over the map carefully, before a single finger selects a landing zone.
There.
Cassandra sighs. She would have raised an eyebrow, but she'd lost them both wrangling with her matter conversion coils earlier than day.
Are you sure old man?.
Correct location, correct energy signature, less deterioration than the surrounding area. If there's an entrance to the tunnels, it's there all right.
The priest clears his throat. Your suggested target is... rich in the unrighteous.
Rich? Cassandra shakes her head. It's crawling! We'll be putting down between two different forces aligned to the ruinous powers. We'll be overrun in minutes.
The crabbed finger withdraws into a gnarled fist. I need at least four minutes to conduct the ritual of intrusion. Can it be done?
The priest frowns. Can we win? It doesn't seem likely. Can we hold them off?... He sighs. Our forces are young, inexperienced. The presence of the sisters of battle will stiffen their resolve. Their lives will buy you your minutes. Tell me again that this is worth it, Inquisitors.
Oh, it's worth it. Signal the landing. Jacobus.
Turn 1
The Imperial forces take up position in the centre, holding four objectives including the main objective, holding the tunnel entrance. A sisters of battle multi-melta destroys a Nurgle Rhino.
The Nurgle forces advance, taking a single objective, their plagues marines inconvenienced by the lost of their transport, but not noticeably harmed.
The Slaneeshi/Kornite army advance, taking the last unclaimed objective. They charges into an imperial held building with three chaos spawn back up by a Khnornate warlord. The imperial forces lose a few adeptus arbites, while the death cult assassins kill one spawn and injure another.
Turn 2
Tyranids attack. In most cases they are repelled without harm, but the attack pins down a Khornate/Slaneeshi cultist hoard, preventing their advance, and kills half of an imperial melta gun unit.
The Imperials, distracted by the Tynaids and unable to focus fire on the onrushing (well, on-oozing) Nurgle forces, manage to destroy the tunnels with heavy weapons fire. They attempt but fail to destroy the remaining Nurgle rhino and pick off aNurgle plague marine. On the other side, a lucky shot explodes a Slaneeshi Rhino splilling it's cargo of Noise marines, while the tattered remains of a sisters of battle flamer unit manage to catch the cultists still fighting a lone termegant, and kill most of them with a single heavy flamer shot. A unit of daemonhosts charges into the melee between the death cult assassins and the chaos spawn, and suffers heavy casualties, although another spawn dies.
The Nurgle plague marines unload from their Rhino, and proceed to gun down the unarmoured Imperial arcoflagents. Still concentrated in a blob out of cover due to their combat with the tyranids, they prove easy targets for blight grenades and bolter fire. The Nurgle Terminators fire on the Imperial daemonhosts, to little effect. On the south side of the battlefield. Nurgle plague marines gun down a gang-themed plasma gun squad, who bolt and run.
A hell brute abondons his cultist entourage and kills the remains of the sisters flamer squad. Meanwhile the noise marines gun down the close combat unit led by Inquisitor Gregorius. The inquisitor himself is the only survivor. A Helldrake screams through the air and both Coatez and it shoot at each other, to little effect.
In the fight on the southern building, the Khornate general finally routs both squads, losing his last remaining spawn in the process, and runs down the daemonhosts, despite their impressive speed. The land raider pushes forward and disgorges a squad of deamonettes into the sisters repentia and their general Jacobus. Unfortuantely their faith in the emepror is strong, and only two sisters fall beneath the onlsaught. The return strike wipes out almost the entire unit, which becomes destablised and is destroyed.
Turn 3
The Imperials lose their temper with the two land raiders, and both are destroyed in a single turn. The Nurgle raider is hit at point blank by deepstriking Seraphim, armed with inferno pistols, while the Khornate land raider is charged by warlord Jacobus and the Sisters Repentia, who suffer serious casualties to the exploding tank. Meanwhile, the imperial forces ignore the more obvious target of the plague marines charging forward in order to focus on killing the nurgle demons. Cassandra, separated from her unit by casualities concentrates on shooting targets as far away as possible with her conversion beamer. A Khornate warbeast on the far side of the table is unexpectedly wounded. Her remaining plasma cannon servitors go into mindshock, and can't fire.
On the far side, Inquisitor Gregorius tries to take on an entire squad of Noise marines single handed, makes it into close combat, but then misses entirely with his demonic blade and dies.
The Nurgle forces manage to get into killing range,, fire and charge. The shock of being attacked by three units of plague marines shatters the imperial line, with only a few surivors. The seraphim are attacked by the Nurgle swarmlings, to little effect on either side, The last remaining arcoflagelents are attacked by the Terminators, who somehow manage to hold.
On the The Slaneeshi/Khornate front, Noise marines wipe out half of the sisters Multi melta squad, apparently fearing what a lucky hit could do to their flyer. The khornate general joins with the Hellbrute and charges the remaining sisters repentia. Once again their faith is secure, and they suffer only a few casualties, hurting the hellbrute in the process.
Turn 4
Close combat carries on, and the plasma squad rally and turn to face the plague marines once more. Coatez's squad, still healthy, wipes out the plague marines that got too close to them and the main objective building.
In combat, the sisters repentia kill the hellbrute, losing their sergeant in the process. Only two, and their priest general, remain.
The forces of Nurgle finish mopping up their side of the battlefield. The last of the arcoflagelents and the seraphim are wiped out by terminators, the last of the plasma and melta gunners and daemonhosts are gunned down.
On the other chaos flank the Khornate general revenges the fallen Hellbrute by wipeing out the last of the sisters repentia. Long range fire starts targeting the plague marines and Coatez, but his Jokero forcefield keeps his forces safe.
At this stage the imperials had a overwheliming superiority of objective points, and only one unit left (out of an original 12). They did however, still have two of their three inquisitors, and their priest-general. Both choas forces faced the prospect of a slow advance, with the Nugle forces having lost all their transports, and the remaining Slaneeshi/Khgornate forces only having heavy weapons units remaining. An Imperial victory was declared.
Coatez scowls in satisfaction, as the entrance finally opened. He glances around, notes Jacobus still has some of his fanatics remains, and waits for a moment. As the last sister falls, and as the plague marines storm towards Cassandra's position, he activates his teleporter. The two of them appear next to him.
If you've quite finished with your distraction? He gestures towards the gaping entrance, demolition charges already set to collapse the entrance as soon as they are through.
We've lost almost 100 people, Inquisitor. The priest is swaying on his feet, still giddy from the fugue of battle. Was that part of your.. calculation?
Of course. They were unliscensed psykers, daemonhosts, servitors, gang members. A few adeptes arbites. The Imperium can spare them. It's a shame we lost so many of your ecclesarchy troops, Jacobus, but it's so hard to keep arcoflagelents and death cultists alive, when they're sworn to die. No, their lives were ours to spend, and we have spent them well. Besides, we never had the supplies to take most of them back with us...
Cassandra shakes her head, and then checks the coils on her massive conversion beamer. So... what is this prize, then?
Oh.. it's great indeed. Ten thousand years ago or more, it was not just the Imperium that was experimenting with augmented humans. The eldar abandoned their research, preferring smaller scale manipulation. But some faciltiies were not entirely cleared away. You know I have worried about what will happen to our scant few systems, after my passing. Here we will find something that, if not keep us safe, will make our systems far far too valuable for the imperium to abandon. Come.. let us see what history has left for us.
A few seconds after the last of them passed through, the gateway exploded, unoticed and unheeded. Above them, on the surface of the planet, the forces of chaos fight on.