Ash fluttered, the scared sky an angry backdrop to the delicate movement. It was a moment of serenity in a time of almost ubiquitous cacophony. Lieutenant Girdeon sucked in a breath, his helm filtering out the toxins that permeated everything. Beta Garmon II had been an integral part of the greater Imperium. Now it was just a wasteland of ashen pestilence. The red of his armour was stained, he feared forever. He advanced cautiously for the traitor had been relentlessly against the perimeter defences. Nyrcon was no longer a city. It was now a city scale fortress. The Blood Angels served as a thin greyed red line defending this sector.
Movement caught his eye. Reflex brought his bolter to a firing position, his aim sighted on the movement. “Movement; sector alpha zeta two”, he reported. Some of his brothers had spotted too, raising their weapons with the same instinct. Those who hadn’t now adopted the same firing stance. The ashen blizzard obscured whatever he had seen. Was it enemy infantry or another loyalist legion performing reconnaissance? Any communications beyond the immediate vicinity had been disrupted by the rad fallout of the detonations that had reduced almost everything to ash and soot.
Massive ordinance screamed overhead. Girdeon wasn’t sure in that moment which direction it sailed. It took a second, but it was friendly he believed. An explosion to his front confirmed that belief. He hoped it dealt hurt to the traitors.
More movement to their front snapped his attention away from the distant destruction. “Enemy infantry”, Sepheur reported. There was no question in his statement. Bolters erupted, propelling mass reactive rounds towards a barely seen enemy. The burst was short lived as the ashen mist drifted thicker. There was no return fire. Silence returned. Girdeon became aware of his breathing again.
A rapid thudding opened up on this line. An unsighted autocannon of some form. He ducked back and switched to infravision, but it was no clearer than his augmented vision. The rad heat corrupted it too. He glanced to his ammunition readout, though he instinctively knew what it would say. A half clip. He craned his helm around his rockcrete shelter and screwed his eyes. Dirty cream and mottled green shapes moved ponderously in the mists. He squeezed the trigger sending bolts screaming at his targets. At least two of the shapes collapsed to his fire. More of the line began to fire, all with bracketed bursts. A hail of shots were returned in response, both bolter and autocannon. Sepheur’s life icon flashed red and then yellow in Girdeon’s visor. His unseen lips pressed tightly as his boltgun answered. A deadly conversation of fire answered by fire continued. More death icons flashed. Two Sicarans groaned into view, their painted hulls were chipped, scratched and decaying in a manner no Blood Angels’ vehicle would ever appear in combat.
“Fallback”, hissed Lieutenant Girdeon, his lips barely parting to utter the most hated of orders. Their advance, in this sector, was stalled for now.
Ciarán and I played a 2000pt game of Horus Heresy: The Dark Age using Legions Imperialis models. It worked surprisingly well with the only real adaptations being: using centimetres as inches and using dice to indicate individual casualties. We used the Dominion mission. Ciarán’s Death Guard seized the initiative, getting on objectives and keeping pressure on the centre. The Blood Angels fought for the objective, eventually taking it, but the cost was high. Their commander was exposed in the process. This lead to the Death Guard getting ahead in terms of attrition and then taking out the Blood Angels Optae. While the Blood Angels got on par, even pulling ahead on objective scoring, the Death Guard would score heavily on secondaries. Further fire was exchanged, but the Blood Angels couldn’t kill enough to get ahead.
It was a great game and led to the traitors taking back some territory lost during the Adeptus Titanicus Weekend: The Decimation of Beta-Garmon II. The battle continues…
Until next time,
Owen