Imperial archives 938.M42

The war against the greenskins to the West had turned into a war of attrition. Months had passed with neither side gaining the advantage. The imperial forces were holding the endless tide of Orks at bay at the mouth of the great valley. No doubt the planets capital would have been overrun had the Orks crashed on the city’s side of the mountains. A wave of Orks bearing flame weapons broke through the line. Several raiding parties made it through before the armored company of Col. Greasemonkey were able to force the greenskins back and hold the lone once again. Most of the raiding parties rushed straight for the city, which was advantageous as imperial reserves landed behind the city. A panicked call from Capt. Maverick flying a recon mission in a vendetta gave us warning that one of the raiding parties had circled around the city and were heading for the drop zone. This would cut off the reserves which were being sent finally crush the invasion. We had little time to respond and sent a company of Catachans to meet the party. We did not have time to get any artillery or hydra’s from the front line but fortunately a Leman Russ which had come back for repairs was ready for duty…

The Orks were faster than we had thought and a ramshackle buggy was apon us before we could respond. A squad of bikes was coming around from the left flank and a tide of greenskins was rushing towards our lines. Cpt. Maverick managed to shoot one of the bikes despite the immense speed at which they were travelling aided by advanced targeting systems on the lascannons. The bike proved too fast for the melta equipped veterans who were specialized at taking down large, slow tanks and all the excitement was too much for the chimera’s gunner who shot a burst of laser energy at exactly the spot where the bikes had been when he last saw them. Fortunately the companies cooks were able to shoot out the fuel tank on one of the remaining bikes and the riders decided that they would rather do a quick repair job on the remaining bikes. The truck was shot by every multilaser we had and upon eventually crashing a massive Ork, the size of a chimera emerged right between our lines, power klaw raised.

The bikes were still doing a repair job on the left flank which allowed us to focus on the massive iron Ork. He charged two chimera’s, ripped the tracks off the first and used it like a chain to mangle the turret and it multilaser. The rest of the big Orks squad attacked the other chimera so viciously that it exploded causing 3 casualties on the platoons 2^nd squadron. The guardsmen responded as they do when faced with the possibility of combat and unloaded their weapons into the iron giant. 4 multilasers, 2 autocannons, 9 lightning hits from a Psyker, 7 plasma blasts (one veteran fired too excitedly and his weapon melted the better part of his torso), a battle-cannon, 2 heavy flamers, 3 melta guns and numerous lasguns managed to kill the Iron Giant and his supporters. Between Cpt. Maverick and the melta squad they managed to take out the remaining two bikers on the flank. Marbro, with a special mission to delay the bulk of the green tide appeared in our field of view right next to a massive mob. His demolition charge painting the walls with the blood and organs of 4 surprised boyz.

The remaining boys would have none of this and their leader (I assume, as he was bigger than the rest and shouted louder) casually walked up to our stealthy master of combat and removed his head with a rusty power claw. (Either that or he deployed a dummy in his place and disappeared.) He had completed his mission and the orks gathered around the corpse presumably to congratulate their leader. The boys started to scatter as they saw the chimera of our platoon command squad bear down on them. 4 flamers and one heavy flamer showed the xenos the wrath of the emperor and nearly melted the reinforcing steel in the ruined building with the vast amounts of promethium they fired.

A group of defcopta’s arrived late, but sent a wave of rokkits into the vulnerable rear of the veteran’s chimera on the left flank. Fortunately the vehicle survived but the copta’s followed up with buzzsaws and ct some new doors into the hull. Our gun line were too busy watching the platoon command squad burn the aliens to notice a low, fast moving squad attach them from the rear. The squad was led by a cunning ork armed with two massive swords. They charged the crater that was left by the exploding chimera and managed to put 11 wounds on the remaining 5 guardsmen. The squads captain (who had already caused damage on the Iron Ork with his trusty laspistol) and one of the troops from the heavy weapons squad managed to survive long enough to strike back (Double 5’s and triple 6’s). The blunt end of the autocannon causing no damage, (note: basic training should include a brief lecture on the ineffectiveness of using an autocannon as a club) this stupidity was too much for the sergeant and they attempted to flee, only to be cut down but the sneaky ork. The colonel’s plasma squad, along with a flamer squad had been watching the slaughter and when they saw there were no surviving friendlies the executed the remaining orks. Another plasma gun overheated and left a second veteran in a puddle of steaming plasma.

The final part of the battle consisted of Cpt. Maverick and the platoon command squad racing over to a ruin full of orks protecting something the orks viewed as valuable. A heavy flamer and 7 flamers, when combined with meltaguns and a battle cannon had devastating results on the unsuspecting orks. The gunner assigned to the lascannon in the Leman Russ finally managed to figure out how the targeting system worked and scored his only hit of the game on the last ork in the ruins.

-Chris