Guard Slaughter

Guard Slaughter

Bellanhak had little time to gloat on his victory over the chaos marines as an Imperial Guard Regiment occupying the fortress at Verleeka pass had successfully repelled all attempts to dislodge it.

Several armoured vehicles protected the bastion including two chimera and at least three tanks. Three Vendetta transports carried veteran guardsman in reserve. The bastion itself boasted a command squad capable of calling in orbital bombardment and a heavy interceptor gun.

Bellanhak restored his force to full strength of 1973, leaving the bulk of the 70567th to hold his gains from chaos. He again went with four wraiths and destroyers, one of them heavy, twenty immortals, half with blasters and half with carbines and a fresh Triarch Stalker. Again he used eleven warriors and a cryptek in reserve, this time aboard the NNV Maelstrom, and a second Night Scythe, the NNV Shadow Wraith for a deathmark squad with a cryptek.

He brought the Annihilation Barges NNV Inexorable and Force of Will again, adding the NNV Storm Child, spreading them more widely than before, the Force of Will again on the right, with the Inexorable wide left with the stalker on the extreme western edge. The destroyers again were placed on the left, this time they would occupy the high ground, with the tesla immortals on the right and the overlord and his troops in the centre.

The enemy opened fire first inflicting losses on the destroyers and troops with long range fire from the distant bastion. The counter inflicted damage on several enemy armoured units, knocking out one tank and damaging others, and the wraiths assaulted and destroyed another towards the eastern flank.

The Force of Will, advancing against the enemy right added its weight to the east whilst to the west the destroyers fell early and for the second battle running his Triarch stalker lost its weapon system. All three enemy Vendettas had arrived and were doing damage but our wraiths took out the eastern chimera though most of its passengers survived the explosion.

The Force of Will engaged the right hand Vendetta with the central immortals whilst the Storm Child exploded in the centre, hit by an (un)lucky shot from orbital bombardment. Our Night Scythes arrived but one was shot down immediately by interceptor fire and the second did not last much longer. The Triarch Stalker was then immobilised and also on our left, the Inexorable was wrecked.

A Vendetta landed troops centrally, close to the main objective by the bastion and on the right another did the same, its passengers engaging our immortals. Gauss fire brought down the right hand vendetta and its passengers fled into the jaws of the Force of Will which destroyed them despite having lost its Gauss cannon. The wraiths assaulted and finished off the survivors of the eastern chimera who fled, and then they turned west towards the bastion and enemy centre.

The warrior unit forced to enter the fray on foot moved to confront the troops landed centrally by the final Vendetta and they moved to seize the objective they were targeting after cutting down the luckless guardsmen in a hail of gauss fire. Our deathmarks also deprived of their transport, deep struck behind the bastion and wiped out the enemy HQ atop the bastion with their blistering fire supported by their cryptek’s Abyssal staff.

Enemy troops re occupied the bastion and opened fire but the deathmarks advanced to contest the objective, as did the wraiths who prevented the central objective being taken by the pair of hovering Vendettas.

Time ran out with our troops holding three objectives and contesting two more, we also had first blood, linebreaker and a fallen enemy Warlord and a Vendetta loss counting against the enemy too, making the score ten one to us, the single enemy point awarded for the elimination of our destroyers. We had suffered the loss of two barges; both Night Scythes and the Stalker had been crippled.

Troop losses were one third, mainly immortals and the deathmarks’ losses were ten percent. We also lost one of the two crypteks and one wraith. Total rallied forces were 1120 strong, a loss rate of about 43%. The enemy was left with two Vendettas and a squad of troops holding the bastion but not the associated objective. The also had a tank and damaged chimera left, total losses estimated at two thirds.


3.11.13