[X] Direct Crimson Crusaders near Kandar's position to assist him. The assault must continue. (Less Risk to Kandar, Slightly Delays Overall Boarding Action, Probably Secures the Song of Lament)
Don't want to delay, would honestly maybe prefer to leave him to take down the enemy solo but that's not gonna win and I'm heavily torn, because also don't really want to leave the Lamenters of all people in deep shit.
[X] Direct Crimson Crusaders near Kandar's position to assist him. The assault must continue. (Less Risk to Kandar, Slightly Delays Overall Boarding Action, Probably Secures the Song of Lament)
[X] Direct Crimson Crusaders near Kandar's position to assist him. The assault must continue. (Less Risk to Kandar, Slightly Delays Overall Boarding Action, Probably Secures the Song of Lament)
An Obliterator with Legendary Weapon Skill? That's an interesting investment for the human(?) heavy weapon platform. Anyway, that "no dodge allowed" ability cancels out Cicero's Legendary dodge bonus. The thing is, we don't know Kandar's stats, so we don't know whether he needs Cicero to back him up against a Legendary opponent.
[X] Direct Crimson Crusaders near Kandar's position to assist him. The assault must continue. (Less Risk to Kandar, Slightly Delays Overall Boarding Action, Probably Secures the Song of Lament)
An Obliterator with Legendary Weapon Skill? That's an interesting investment for the human(?) heavy weapon platform. Anyway, that "no dodge allowed" ability cancels out Cicero's Legendary dodge bonus. The thing is, we don't know Kandar's stats, so we don't know whether he needs Cicero to back him up against a Legendary opponent.
Actually, all Obliterators have the Legendary Ballistic Skill that lets them ignore dodge. All Chaos Champions, like Khorne Berserkers, Tzeentchian Sorcerers, Plague Marines and Slaaneshi Noise Marines and Champions have some manner of Legendary Skill under the new system, gained through chaos gifts. Obliterators annihilate everything with heavy firepower and nothing can avoid their gaze, and are one with their weapon-bodies through the Obliterator Virus.
The Obliterator Virus has otherwise left their senses utterly atrophied, peaking at Perception 3, because all their senses are optimised towards weaponry and annihilation. But they don't need to see when they can blow your face off from a kilometer away with a lascannon. Beware the day they find a Turbo Maximus.
EDIT: Also Kandar, much like a younger Stonehaven-era Cicero, has no Legendaries. He has a reasonable statline, comparable to Crusader Veterans, but he's not anything exceptional yet.
Write-Ins are available as an option, up to and including Suddenly Death Company.
[X] Direct Crimson Crusaders near Kandar's position to assist him. The assault must continue. (Less Risk to Kandar, Slightly Delays Overall Boarding Action, Probably Secures the Song of Lament)
Actually, all Obliterators have the Legendary Weapon Skill that lets them ignore dodge. All Chaos Champions, like Khorne Berserkers, Tzeentchian Sorcerers, Plague Marines and Slaaneshi Noise Marines and Champions have some manner of Legendary Skill under the new system, gained through chaos gifts. Obliterators annihilate everything with heavy firepower and nothing can avoid their gaze, and are one with their weapon-bodies through the Obliterator Virus.
The Obliterator Virus has otherwise left their senses utterly atrophied, peaking at Perception 3, because all their senses are optimised towards weaponry and annihilation. But they don't need to see when they can blow your face off from a kilometer away with a lascannon. Beware the day they find a Turbo Maximus.
EDIT: Also Kandar, much like a younger Stonehaven-era Cicero, has no Legendaries. He has a reasonable statline, comparable to Crusader Veterans, but he's not anything exceptional yet.
Write-Ins are available as an option, up to and including Suddenly Death Company.
[X] Direct Crimson Crusaders near Kandar's position to assist him. The assault must continue. (Less Risk to Kandar, Slightly Delays Overall Boarding Action, Probably Secures the Song of Lament)
[X] Direct Crimson Crusaders near Kandar's position to assist him. The assault must continue. (Less Risk to Kandar, Slightly Delays Overall Boarding Action, Probably Secures the Song of Lament)
[X] Assist Felix Kandar directly. Reclaim the Song of Lament. (Personal Risk, Minimal Risk to Kandar, Delays the Overall Boarding Action, Secures the Song of Lament)
"Thought of the Day: Hatred is the purest form of love for the Emperor."
The void war over Laanzig rages, bloody and brutal, as the Blood Angels and their kindred shred the traitorous fleet into shreds. And aboard the Clarita Propositum, as the ship rumbles and lurches with every macrocannon broadside and bombardment cannon strike, deep within the ship's Strategium, the High Chaplain observes the battle as it happens in near-realtime, updated constantly by data-packets every five minutes. Sometimes those minutes stretch into hours. Sometimes they don't update until it is done. But as he observes, he also feels. And he feels nothing. No more brothers falling to Black. None of them faltering to the Red. No more brethren he must slay.
Alone, in the Strategium, Astorath the Grim allows himself a long, drawn out sigh of relief. It is good, he thinks, to join a battlefield with no new members of the Company of Death. The thirty with him will be among the last the Chapter knows. No others will ever suffer the same fate. They can fight and die here, each and every last one of them a true hero of the Blood Angels.
The doors slide open, and Astorath does not need to turn to recognise the heavy thumping against the metal floors. Weighty, steps made with barely-restrained fury. Well measured, perfectly-timed steps in unison, another piece of an infinitely complex puzzle meant to draw attention and keep the mind occupied, to keep the attention elsewhere. He knows the type.
"Can you fight, Lemartes?" The High Chaplain asks, his back to his charge, trusting fully in his brother.
"Always, High Chaplain," the other responds in clipped, controlled words. He joins his mentor and master by the hololith, watching the battle unfold. "Will I?"
Lemartes was a jocular sort long ago, Astorath remembers. A troublesome student, warned countless times for being too close to the brothers around him. A Chaplain's place was to be a distant exemplar, he had told him again and again. A role model from afar, too bright to gaze upon in full, always the perfect sons of Sanguinius. In a way, he thinks with a smile under his helmet, the younger Lemartes was like young Aurelius. Quick to humor, quick to battle, and forever loyal. But all that changed on Hadriath XI.
Now the man before him was fury incarnate. Gone was his humor, gone was his closeness and familiarity. All of it was burnt out of him by the Black, leaving him with nothing but the screaming fury of a father long dead. Only loyalty keeps him lucid, and that has cost him much. The way he walks like an automaton, the way he stands slightly slouched like an animal ready to pounce. Even the way he speaks, terse and focused instead of verbose and passionate.
Gone was Lemartes, Chaplain of the Blood Angels. In his place is Lemartes, Guardian of the Lost.
Astorath quashes his sorrow and nods firmly at his charge. "Of course. But our time will come yet."
"Compliance," Lemartes breathes, shuddering with every syllable. Every breath, every twitch, every atom of his being is now filled with rage. Only a prodigious will as Lemartes could possibly control it. And even a will as Lemartes could only just.
Astorath has never wondered when his iron will would break. He has always trusted that Lemartes would die fighting, glorious, still in control when he went to the Throne. He always had faith that Lemartes would be rewarded for an eternity in service beyond any reasonable metric. He always believed that he would find tranquility in battle someday as one of the last in the Company of Death.
Perhaps that day is today.
----
His brothers cry for him. They cry out for vengeance, for retribution, for glory reclaimed and honor anew. He wants, with both of his hearts wants to help them, to give them the glory they've been so denied, to give them the weapon that belongs to them. But alas, he cannot. He will not. The mission has priority. This starbase must die. He cannot deviate from his post.
But he can provide those who can.
"All units, this is Wind-Command. All units fifteen seconds from Lamenters, divert to support. Priority Code-Karanda."
Crimson Crusader 8th Company - Available Units
86 vs 40, 4 Degrees of Success
Wind-Nine, Assault Squad Available!
Wind-Ten, Assault Squad Available!
Fury-Five, Vanguard Veterans Available!
Sanguinary Priest Boxidus Available!
"Welkis. Fury-Five diverting."
"Wing-Nine, diverting."
"Wing-Ten, moving out!"
"Boxidus, supporting the advance."
Cicero smiles. Truly, the plan he and Kandar devised was well-made, with many layers of overlapping support. He only wishes he could be there.
Arrival
Rolled 14, Poor
3 Rounds until Arrival
And that they are not too late.
----
When Captain Cicero promised reinforcements, Captain Felix Kandar knew that his senior in warcraft would not fight the Obliterators with him. The man is an exemplar in his eyes, someone who was there on Stonehaven where his Chapter Master outlived his Chapter, then again when the Adeptus Astartes marched upon the Planet of the Sorcerers, then again to save the Cure from the metaphorical clutches of darkness and guard the Seraphim Vault from the very real clutches of heretics. The Vault, where the fists of his Master's Master, Malakim Phoros, are now enshrined as the hero-weapons they are.
So when Cicero promised reinforcements, Kandar felt disappointed. But at the same time, he felt elated. For he could prove his worth, as a Space Marine and as one whose Master was saved by his. Without the Crimson Crusaders, there would be no more Lamenters. He would be mortal. He would not be here, or an Angel of Death.
So he bided his time, so he and his brothers could prove themselves.
"Forward, brothers!" He roars, pointing his chainblade forward at their enemy forged of twisted metal, knowing that in this instant, their guns would be empty and their path clear. "Into the jaws of death! Into the mouth of hell!"
----
They surged like a singular being, flexing an arm with power. Almost at once, the Lamenters tore past their slave-soldiers. No more fodder, no more support. There were only ten Obliterators against one hundred Space Marines, their weapons cycling and venting their waste heat, a momentary calm in an ocean of tumult.
The ten of them paid that no mind. They fought on, with plasma cannon and lascannon, fused to their being as part of their tremendous bulk. One hundred swept past them like the ocean. But these ten will be the stone that breaks them.
Encircled, isolated, stamped in by the full force of a Space Marine Company, the Obliterator-clades saw twenty of them rush in upon jump packs, swooping like hawks with their chainblades and bolt pistols. And there, they note impassionately, emotion lost and replaced by weaponry, betrays their inexperience.
One does not simply rush ten Obliterators with as paltry an advantage as two to one.
Lamenters 2nd Company
Assault: 55 vs 40, 1 Degree of Success
Obliterators Encircled, Secure the Song of Lament!
Two-Five: 6 vs 50, Failure
Two-Six: 8 vs 50, Failure
Unable to Penetrate Armor, Relic Not Recovered
Twenty one Astartes in mustard yellow, bearing the bleeding heart on their shoulders, fall upon them. Swift and nimble compared to the bulky and ponderous Obliterators, they dominate at first, too fast to assault at range and too close to switch their weapons. But their chainblades are too weak. They cannot saw through the thick, corrupted metal of their bodies, what was once Terminator Armor.
Their weapons stop hissing. The plasma coils morph, turning into the twin stellarators of a Multi-Melta. The Lamenters see this, and one clad in the livery of a Captain calls for evasion. But too late. And too close. Their distance is now a liability.
Chaos fires.
Obliterators
1st Squadron: 63 vs 40, 2 Degrees of Success: Assault Two-Five, 2 Casualties Inflicted!
2nd Squadron: 95 vs 40, Critical Success: Assault Two-Six Annihilated! Gene-Seed Irrecoverable!
Two Lamenters scream as they are boiled from the inside, and fall to the side before their membranes engage. Ten more aren't allowed even that. They die in a flash, naught but slag and smoke.
But they are persistent. Stubborn, even. Their Captain attacks still, having survived their attack. And he dives for the first of them, the one who has held that holy axe for centuries and failed to make it his. But he will not survive this charge.
Chaos fires again.
Captain Kandar - Survival!
19 vs 40, Failure!
Critical Wound! Captain Felix Kandar is Incapacitated! Initiative Lost!
Perhaps it is fortune. Perhaps it is fate. Perhaps it is a failing on their parts. But the Captain lives.
He lives, but barely. One arm is gone, turned to slag. Half his jump pack with it. He groans, a curse on his lips, as the Sus-An Membrane consumes him with a shudder. The Captain of these yellow angels bearing the bleeding heart falters, and is as good as dead.
The first among their clades feels a twinge of something where his hearts would once have been. This is not the first time he has faced the Lamenters. Then, they were furious, desperate, and monstrous in close combat. Their valor remains the same, but he now finds them wanting.
The Obliterators step forward, Multi-Meltas reverting into Plasma Cannons. They look in all directions, at a Company without its Captain.
The Lamenters run. And Chaos fires again.
----
"Emperor above…"
When the Crimson Crusaders arrived, Sergeant Welkis had expected a bloodbath. A Company of Space Marines caught in close quarters, forced to assault a fortified position guarded by two squadrons of Obliterators? Casualties are to be expected. Even deaths.
But they come to a bloodbath, not a battle.
Round 3
Obliterators
Assault: 61 vs 40, 2 Degrees of Success
Traitor Counterattack!
Lamenters 2nd Company
6 vs 50, Critical Failure
Line Collapsed! Casualties not recovered!
Obliterators:
1st Squadron: 68 vs 10, 5 Degrees of Success: 5 Casualties Inflicted! Tactical Two-One Stunned!
2nd Squadron: 85 vs 10, 7 Degrees of Success: 7 Casualties Inflicted! Tactical Two-Three Stunned!
The Lamenters 2nd Company has collapsed utterly. At half strength, barely even sustaining a simple bounding retreat. Even the urgings of their Chaplain are fruitless. Well and truly broken, their resolves shattered by the overwhelming firepower of the Obliterator-clades. Welkis did not see Captain Kandar among their number. He feared the worst, and quashed it immediately. Fear is meaningless. Act with that assumption.
Captain Kandar is dead or worse. His company is being cut down like wheat to the scythe. Their brothers are - not fearful, no Astartes feels fear. But they are lost. They need a guiding light.
He looks around him, seeing nothing but his brothers beside him. The twenty Assault Marines of the eight, those new to the Chapter. And his brothers of Fury-Five, veterans of wars as Stonehaven, Sortiarius and Baal.
Welkis glances at Boxidus. The Sanguinary Priest just nods back at him. "Ave Imperator, Sergeant," he says. "Let us go, to Glory or Death."
Their jump packs flare, and as one they leap into the fray.
----
Their Company is in shambles. Their Captain is dead. And they have not claimed the life of even a single Obliterator. The Lamenters effect a retreat as best as they can, but it is sloppy and incoherent, hardly worthy of their forebears. With half the Company dead or dying, and all cover utterly useless against the Obliterators and their high ground, it is only a matter of time before they join their seniors from before Stonehaven.
Until the Crimson Crusaders arrive on top of the traitor's positions, jump packs screaming, and start tearing into the enemy from inside their own ranks. The twenty or so of them fan out in flawless unity, striking fear into the hearts of the enemy. Their lines start faltering, their advance halting. The Lamenters are unmolested soon enough, all attention on their brothers. A momentary breather, won through resolve and wonderful timing.
Crimson Crusaders
Rally: 69 vs 60, Success
Line Reestablished
"FORM RANKS!" One Lamenter cries out. "HOLD FAST, FOR THOSE WE CHERISH!"
The squads concentrate again, back into formation, back into cohesion. The Crimson Crusaders engage the enemy now. The least they can do, as their Company recomposes, is to ensure no traitor takes another inch.
----
"Welkis! The Captain!" Sanguinary Priest Boxidus turns around, his chainsword buzzing and wet with blood, exsanguinator arm pointed at a yellow Space Marine face down by the Obliterators. "Move now, while we still can!"
Welkis nods, and contacts all brothers of their mission. "Crimson Clad! To the Clades!"
Crimson Crusaders
Assault: 53 vs 50, Success
Pushing the Offensive!
His brothers all respond quickly, and the direction of their assault turns upon Fury-Five like a pivot. Hopping from head to head, their jump packs burning burst by burst, they leap towards the Obliterators before more damage can be done to their brothers below.
And with the Obliterators in sight, so is the Captain.
As they land in a ring around the fallen Captain, the line brothers of the 8th Company forming a barricade of whirring chain teeth and bolt shells around them, it is clear to see that Kandar is in a sorry state. His wounds have been cauterised by melta-burns, and he is deep in the grips of the membrane. Only a Sanguinary Priest could awaken him, and only with the right facilities. Now, in the middle of battle, he is a liability.
"Kandar is stable, but only for the moment," the Sanguinary Priest reports, and wraps the Captain's remaining arm around his shoulder. "I must return him to the landing bay."
"Wind-Ten, escort our brother!"
"No, I can handle myself. Kill the Obliterators!"
The Crusaders vox compliance, and surge towards the traitors with blade and boltgun.
"Fury-Five, to the Song of Lament!"
They crash into the Obliterators, boosting along at breakneck speed through the throngs of heretics on their jump packs, blades raised high and Inferno Pistols ready. The Obliterators make to receive them, growing Power Fists and Lightning Claws.
They clash with the sound of thunder, loud enough to sweep across the battlefield and draw all eyes. The Obliterators swing at them, haphazard and unbalanced, unsuited to the intricacies of melee combat. They are living weaponry, bristling with plasma and laser. Even in melee, they are a monstrous presence, talented enough to destroy mortal champions or even the normal Astartes.
But not the Sons of Sanguinius. Not the Crimson Crusaders. And not those who emerged from the fiery crucible of a Daemon World, a Primarch's World and a Throneworld under Siege intact.
Crimson Crusaders
Fury-Five Charges 1st Obliterator Squadron!
Rolled 51 vs 50, Bare Success!
1st Obliterator Squadron Engaging Fury-Five in Melee Combat
He sees it, the ironwrought oathbreaker who stole the Lamenter relic. The Song of Lament is still in his grasp, still free of the corrupted fleshmetal.
He charges, stepping between punches and slashes like the space between heartbeats. He swings, slashes twice quickly, quick enough for the air to woosh and snap. Two heavy weights fall against the ground by the time he takes his third step: The Song of Lament, and the twisted Obliterator.
The rest fall in short order, Fury-Five untouched. And Welkis lets out a sigh of relief, for the Song of Lament is unmarred. One more thing not to lament.
Duel!
Fury-Five: 93 vs 15, Critical Success!
1st Obliterator Squadron: 18 vs 60, 4 Degrees of Failure
Flawless Victory! 1st Obliterator Squadron Annihilated!
Sergeant Welkis is now Notable!
The Song of Lament has been recovered!
Welkis, The Furious Sword
"Armor is nothing without speed. Speed is nothing without fury. And fury is nothing without duty."
Position: Vanguard Sergeant, Veteran's Company
[WS-8, BS-6, S-6, T-7, A-8, I-6, P-5, WP-8, F-6]
Traits:
- Dour
- Protective
Wargear:
- Power Sword (AP 5, Strength 3)
- Inferno Pistol (AP 5, Strength 4)
- Mk-VIII 'Errant' (Armor 55)
- Jump Pack (+10 Charge)
Dodge: 40
Armor: 55
Wounds: 3
----
Wind-Nine and Wind-Ten Charge 2nd Obliterator Squadron!
Wind-Nine: 23 vs 50, Failure
Wind-Ten: 90 vs 50, Critical Success! Free Attack!
2nd Obliterator Squadron Engaging Wind-Ten in Melee Combat
Duel!
Wind-Ten: 2 vs 50, Critical Failure Shielded by Success!
Wind-Ten: 78 vs 50, 2 Degrees of Success!
2nd Obliterator Squadron: 17 vs 60, 4 Degrees of Failure
Victory! 2nd Obliterator Squadron Defeated!
When the dust settles and the last Obliterator corpse is meltagunned for good measure, Welkis and his Lamenter counterpart run up the tally on both sides. The Lamenters have suffered greatly in this battle, the Crimson Crusader notes ruefully. He spares a look for Priests Boxidus and Zerus, tending to the many wounded and dead of the Company. A body is laid beneath a tarp, and ten more are marked only by the shattered fragments of their chainblades.
And on the Rhinos inbound and out from the landing bay, those thirty-some wounded lost in the grips of their membrane… is their Captain.
Welkis exhales, his helmet mute to the world but a channel to his squad. Casualties are to be expected from a Chapter so young - and did the Crimson Crusaders not bleed all over the galaxy in their three crucibles? Hundreds died on Stonehaven, hundreds more on Sortiarius, and hundreds yet on Baal.
But on their first great battle, on Stonehaven, they had the Blood Angels with them. The Angels Sanguine stood alongside them. As did half a Chapter of Warhawks, who joined for the sake of brotherhood, not bloodline. And were they not assisted by the Inquisition? Or lead by their Chapter Master, who looked out for them?
The Lamenters face a similar crucible here, to what they faced on Stonehaven. But, Welkis laments, they are not nearly the mentors to them that theirs were on Stonehaven.
"We must do better," he says to his brothers, and all of them nod in agreement.
Final Casualties
Lamenters 2nd Company
Casualties (Total 33):
- 18 Devastators
- 12 Tactical
- 2 Assault
- Captain Felix Kandar Fatalities (Total 11):
- 1 Devastator (Gene-Seed Recovered)
- 10 Assault (Gene-Seed Not Recovered)
The update was growing long, and I figured some update was better than no update, so I decided to post this first. The next section will have a vote though.
Lamenters 2nd Company
Assault: 55 vs 40, 1 Degree of Success
Obliterators Encircled, Secure the Song of Lament!
Two-Five: 6 vs 50, Failure
Two-Six: 8 vs 50, Failure
Unable to Penetrate Armor, Relic Not Recovered
Round 3
Obliterators
Assault: 61 vs 40, 2 Degrees of Success
Traitor Counterattack!
Lamenters 2nd Company
6 vs 50, Critical Failure
Line Collapsed! Casualties not recovered!
Welkis, The Furious Sword
"Armor is nothing without speed. Speed is nothing without fury. And fury is nothing without duty."
Position: Vanguard Sergeant, Veteran's Company
[WS-8, BS-6, S-6, T-7, A-8, I-6, P-5, WP-8, F-6]
Traits:
- Dour
- Protective
Wargear:
- Power Sword (AP 5, Strength 3)
- Inferno Pistol (AP 5, Strength 4)
- Mk-VIII 'Errant' (Armor 55)
- Jump Pack (+10 Charge)
Jesus, Lamenters got freaking ruined. I guess that's Obliterators for you, if your Assault marines can't get the job done everyone is going to have a bad time.
Alas, until the thread collaborator function lets people edit each other's posts, I'm stuck with tracking all this myself. Though, I also have separate G-Docs for it all, so it's not as bad as it could be.
...I was actually planning on writing up an Almanac on known enemies and their statlines + general gimmicks, like chaos champions and their gifts or orks being orky, stuff like that. And also rewrite the characteristics list and update the legendary examples with the new system.
~eh~ at least they currently retain the ability to recover their losses. The survivors will make a good cadre for the future as well.
Still, they are far less combat effective since they lost their captain and half their number. We will need to be careful about how we deploy them for the remainder of this engagement.
