Even as their numbers dwindle, the remaining hormagaunts rabidly press their attack on Brother Vex. The Librarian continues to hold off the horde singlehandedly, hewing and slashing as they come at him from all sides.
As Brother Quintus and the rest of the marines on the plateau turn their attention to exterminating the last of the hormagaunts bedeviling Brother Vex, brothers Emeric and Hrothgar gaze across the vast ice plain to the south, their eyes drawn to the uncountable thousands of scuttling forms that now blanket the horizon as far as the eye can see. The leading elements of the host are fully visible now, the vanguard driven ahead at the urging of the hive-mind to exterminate the troublesome and tenaciously resistant blot of biomatter that Kill-team Umbra and their allies represent. The precursor is comprised predominantly of the gaunt genus, but the techmarine quickly begins to lose count of how many warrior organisms are interspersed throughout their ranks.
Still about half a kilometer away, the battle-brothers recognize the true test is yet to come, and they have precious little time remaining to redeploy and prepare for their final stand.
Having dispensed with the most immediate threat, I follow the gaze of the Space Wolf southward. The storm approaches. Scanning...
The sheer volume of the swarming, chaotic mass makes it impossible for my cogitation banks to quantify the horde... My visual field is also overwhelmed by the targeting feedback given by Ferocitas' reticule.
Best to carry on with the mission; it is all that matters. I move west over a slight rise and locate an earthwork that was probably dug by the guardsmen. Adequate. I send a message to the hibernating Magos, using the base code recognized by his system's sub-routines:
<<<BOOTING...>>>
<<<INITIATE CONNECTION...>>>
<<<TRANSMITTING...>>>
<<<RECOGNITION REQUIRED // MESSAGE SOURCE: DESIGNATE BROTHER TECHMARINE EMERIC / KILL-TEAM UMBRA / DEATHWATCH>>>
<<<TASKED EVENT: MAGOS EXTRACTION // COMPLIANCE ACKNOWLEDGED>>>
<<<PROTOCOL DEVIATION: EXO-SKELETON MAGOS ESCORT DESIGNATE // SEPHEREN APOTHECARY // CANCELED>>>
<<<EXO-SKELETON MAGOS ESCORT DESIGNATE // EMERIC TECHMARINE // REASSIGNED>>>
<<<PROTOCOL REQUIREMENT // SECURE EXO-SKELETON IN EARTHWORKS NORTH-EAST-NORTH IMMEDIATELY ADJACENT DESIGNATE EMERIC>>>
<<<ACKNOWLEDGMENT REQUIRED>>>
010001100110111101110010001000000111010001101000011001010010000001000111011 011000110111101110010011110010010000001101111011001100010000001001101011000 010111001001110011
[ooc]Moving 14 meters west of my current position. I am hoping the Magos will move to the fortified position that is six meters north and two meters east of his location.
I briefly spy that the battle has stopped all across the plateau except for my melee with the remaining Xenos. I expect my battle brothers to concentrate there efforts to defend against the next wave thats approachs in the distance. Its my responsibility to finish off the filth here.
Force Sword Damage (1d10+5+4=12)
No matter what tactic I use these gaunts seem to predict my actions before I make them. Minimizing there loses with each of my swings. The Hive Mind is a dangerous foe indeed.
Seeing the last of the gargoyles drop from the sky I move to side of the Magos and take up a guard position. "Brother Vex I do not have a clear line of fire I am moving to support."
"Brother Caledonii I will finish the Xenos off soon enough. Set up leading fire to draw the oncoming horde into the mines we placed in sectors beta, delta and epsilon."
His eyes keener than the rest, Hrothgar stares intently at the crawling landscape from hell that are the Tyranid, his gaze drawn from the writhing ground to a black blot in the sky flying quickly across the kilometers wide no-man's-land between the limitless horde toward the smaller, albeit only proportionally so, vanguard swarm. He allows himself a weakness, the momentary, blossoming hope that it is the Thunderhawk inbound to extract them, and deliver them from this doom.
His hopes are quickly dashed the longer he looks at the shape.
Steeling himself, he accepts the truth of the matter.
It is no Thunderhawk.
A chatter of corrupted binary is received in response to the techmarine's transmission, and the wounded shell of the Magos slowly moves into position as directed, accepting Brother Emeric's command with an obedient submissiveness that would be unheard of if the Magos was still in control.
Settling into position, the Black Templar reloads his weapon, hissing a benediction to the Omnissiah as he performs the proper blessings of rearming.
The psy-active crystalline matrix in the forcesword crackles to life as it hisses through the cold air, severing the limbs and thoraxes of the xenos as the Librarian scythes a twisting path through their ranks. Ichor splashes and sizzles on the weapon, until only a handful remain to menace Brother Vex.
"All my brothers, except Brother Vex, who will finish up the last of our enemy, move up to prepare to destroy the hordes that are coming. Brother Vex will join us when he is done."
"All my brothers, except Brother Vex, who will finish up the last of our enemy, move up to prepare to destroy the hordes that are coming. Brother Vex will join us when he is done."
"Brother-Leader, permission to stay with the Magos and act as safe-guard."
"All my brothers, except Brother Vex, who will finish up the last of our enemy, move up to prepare to destroy the hordes that are coming. Brother Vex will join us when he is done.""Brother-Leader, permission to stay with the Magos and act as safe-guard."
"Permission granted."
"At your command"
His eyes keener than the rest, Hrothgar stares intently at the crawling landscape from hell that are the Tyranid, his gaze drawn from the writhing ground to a black blot in the sky flying quickly across the kilometers wide no-man's-land between the limitless horde toward the smaller, albeit only proportionally so, vanguard swarm. He allows himself a weakness, the momentary, blossoming hope that it is the Thunderhawk inbound to extract them, and deliver them from this doom.
His hopes are quickly dashed the longer he looks at the shape.
Steeling himself, he accepts the truth of the matter.
It is no Thunderhawk.
Hrothgar speaks ominously, "Brothers, the xenos have sent us one final foe to overcome. It is like a dragon of myth flying to our position. Prepare yourselves."
Hrothgar speaks ominously, "Brothers, the xenos have sent us one final foe to overcome. It is like a dragon of myth flying to our position. Prepare yourselves."
Hearing Hrothgar's tone I worry about the morale of my brother. Even as I finish off the remaining Guants I try to spur the Wolfs pride, and love of battle.
"Hrothgar, do you wish for me to contact the Hive Mind and tell it that this one is to small to be included in your Wolf Saga. Best to send this one back and get a bigger one?"
Hrothgar speaks ominously, "Brothers, the xenos have sent us one final foe to overcome. It is like a dragon of myth flying to our position. Prepare yourselves."
Hearing Hrothgar's tone I worry about the morale of my brother. Even as I finish off the remaining Guants I try to spur the Wolfs pride, and love of battle.
"Hrothgar, do you wish for me to contact the Hive Mind and tell it that this one is to small to be included in your Wolf Saga. Best to send this one back and get a bigger one?"
Hrothgar immediately understands Vex's intent and transmits a soothingly cheerful reply.
"By Russ! I like your spirit! Hahaha!"
"Yes, my saga demands a much bigger foe. And everyone will each have a line dedicated to him. The skalds will regale the Lords of the Fang for days."
So the omen shown to me before in the form of a great sea serpent it was our foe looking towards Hrothgar Sign your hymns of valor and courage for this is day shall be remembered when we vanquish this xenos filth
Shouldering his bolter again, the apothecary strides fearlessly toward Brother Vex and the remaining hormagaunts, loosing a flurry of single rounds that burst each 'Nid they strike in a splash of ichor and chitin fragments.
The cooly composed lethality and precision of the Blood Angel's fire is astounding to behold, particularly as he has just emerged from such willful, wanton, and nigh-berserk slaughter with his chainsword against the scuttling foes. Brother Vex impales the last of the creatures as Brother Sepheren moves into position beside him to face the oncoming foe.
With a juddering whump! of the ground around the fortified hauler, the Karlack 2nd fire their mole mortar again, the remaining guardsmen inside all moving to the firing ports on the south side of the vehicle. Inside can be heard the hoarse shouts of sergeants barking discipline and orders to reload.
After finding the range again, the crew of the artillery score a bullseye, the munition exploding audibly some distance away, the individual broken body parts of the slain gaunts now clearly visible as they plume upward into the air with the resultant explosion. There is no cheer from the guardsmen this time, only the hurried sounds of crew frantically trying to load one final shell before the hungry wave crashes against their redoubt.
His heavy bolter once more ready for action, Eli reaches out to gauge the reactions of his battle-brothers.
Taking time to review the squad's position, he faces back to the battle and looses a single shot into the approaching mob.
Seeing Sepheron decimate the remaining gaunts I take a quick look at the cliff face above looking for the Thunderhawk. It would be suicide for it to come from the same vantage point as the Tyranid Horde. I then settle my gaze on the horizon looking to use the fire from my bolter to thin the living mass that approachs our position.
"Thank you brother."
For Rook
With a snap of his wrist, Hrothgar flicks a shot at the far-off winged xenos.
The Magos settles into the guardsman-dug bolt-hole as I fire a round into the sea of Tyranids bearing down upon us.
Inwardly I curse with telemetry data indicating a miss and I turn back to secure Vyakai's carcass.
Fire for Effect bolter reaction shot
BS 74 (
Fire for Effect bolter reaction shot
BS 74 1d100 (
I take aim at the approaching swarm. As soon as I see one clearly I fire the few remaining metal storm rounds hitting the target and sending the shattering bolter bullet into those around it.
Tantalus Sub-Arctic Zone, Grid Zone Xi-Omega-1
South Plateau, Designated Extraction Zone
241.817.M41
Chrono Reading: [00:07:51]
As Kill-team Umbra move into position, Brother Decius cannot help but be reminded of the seas of Ithaka, so vast is the host. It is as if a great tsunami of blackish-orange claws and talons is surging across the snowy plain, just moments away from cresting upon their stolid, yet miniscule breakwater of battle-brothers. He fires into the massed horde of xenos just the same, but cannot help but reflect upon the futility of the gesture, like a man trying to bale out all the waters of an ocean with a paltry thimble.
Standing resolute in the midst of his brethren, Brother Quintus toggles the fire selector on his bolt pistol and fires at the scuttling edge of the xenos nightmare just as it reaches the base of the plateau. He scarcely has to aim the ground is so thick with the things and his round tears half the head from a Tyranid warrior laboring up the slope in a sea of termagants.
As soon as the Magos moves into position behind him, Brother Emeric opens fire as well, his rounds ripping through the front ranks of the host, impossible to miss from higher ground as the swell of xenos laps against the jagged edges of the frozen massif.
At this great distance, the Brother Hrothgar cannot be certain he has struck his mythical dragon, either that or it paid the wound no mind. Beating its titanic wings high over the thousands of swarming Tyranid behind the vanguard hordes, the Space Wolf now gains a sense of its scale. He is beginning to think this one will be large enough for his saga.
Tantalus Sub-Arctic Zone, Grid Zone Xi-Omega-1
South Plateau, Designated Extraction Zone
241.817.M41
Chrono Reading: [00:07:51]
The Dark Angel's heavy bolter fires, the mutagenic acids spraying in a fanning arc from the cannister-sized round on impact, incinerating the many Tyranid gaunts in its path, their faint squeals of mindless agony just audible to the distant marine's autosenses.
"Kommissar Sander, fire the mortar on the southeast horde."
"Kommissar Sander, fire the mortar on the southeast horde."
The young commissar yells over the loud roar of bolter fire into his vox-link in answer:
"You heard the Lord Astartes! Fire!"
Hrothgar fires another shot at the ravenous xenos horde (Vanguard Horde #1).
Hovering just behind his battle-brothers, the exhaust from his jump-pack creating a blurry haze in the frigid air, Brother Hrothgar levels his bolt pistol and fires, the round killing the first termagant to begin climbing the steep slope at the base of the plateau.
I quickly check the ammo count for the metal storm rounds and sigh at the remaining count. I only have 2 full bursts and either 2 single shots or a single semi auto burst. I will have to make them count. I swivel around to the larger horde with so many it will be hard to miss all of them I just hope it will be enough.
"Gentlemen lets make our Primearch's proud and the Emperor smile down upon us." then with a shout "For the Emperor!" I open fire.
The air crackles around me as droplets of ice form and shatter as I draw together my psychic engeries into the uncoming mass of Xenos filth.
Releasing it as a bolt of divine wrath into the heart of the horde as I am an agent of the Emperors Divine Will. An Angel of Death that shows no mercy to his enemies. May the Emperors Will be done!
Additional Hits Against Horde Magnitude (1d10=9)
EDIT:
Crouching into a firing stance, the Storm Warden takes care to squeeze off a controlled burst of his rapidly diminishing Metal Storm rounds into the larger mass of Tyranid clawing their way up the slope. The frangible rounds shred the massed xenos as they explode in succession, the pained keening of the horrors becoming as music to the grizzled veteran's ears.
His force sword still humming in one hand and his armor splashed and sizzling from the toxic ichor of his fallen foes, Brother Librarian Lyriel Vex strides to the very edge of the plateau, pointing the blade aloft while dredging psychic force through the skein of the Immaterium. Like a lightning rod, his sword flares with a nimbus of purplish light, crackling with power, before he finally levels the weapon in the direction of the Tyranid host and unleashes spiraling bolts of baleful witchfire. The resultant damage to the clambering Tyranid is devastating, ripping them asunder and tossing their lifeless shells back down the slope, one after another.
As the first wave of gaunts crests the edge of the plateau, completely undeterred by the attrition they have suffered at the hands of the resolute Astartes, the Karlack 2nd opens fire. The pulsing flare of their las weapons from the hauler's gunsports and the juddering rumble of the mole mortar, firing for perhaps the last time, remind Kill-team Umbra they do not make their stand alone.
The mortar shell bursts from the tall, columnar icicles draping the steep face of the plateau, exploding in an airburst of shrapnel along with jagged shards of ice and stone in every direction. For every 'Nid blown apart, still more of their relentless numbers scamper up and over the carcasses of their dead, using their very casualties to aid their ascent.
When they become visible, the guardsman open fire with a synchronized fusillade.
The first ten termagants to scuttle over the lip of the plateau's edge meet a veritable wall of fire that blows off limbs, burns through bonded exoskeletons, and reduces some of the Tyranid outright to little more than blasted chitin and ash. Commissar Sanders continues to exhort his men to die with valor, firing his own pistol from the makeshift hatch in the roof of their armored strongpoint.
Almost like a servitor slaved to Brother Emeric, the redundant subroutines running Magos Vyakai cause the tech-priest to swivel in place where he too hovers above the ground, tracking a Tyranid warrior as it makes for the Astartes battle-line. With a searing roar of superheated air, the infernus pistol belches death at its target.
The Tyranid warrior's head and upper body are melted away almost instantly, the xenos staggering forward until its barbed limbs collapse when the nerve impulses firing from the creature's ganglia finally end, giving it no other recourse.
As the larger tendril of the Tyranid advance crests the lip of the plateau they advance into the teeth of the fire, never hesitating, never slowing, never realizing the surprise left for them beneath the packed white snow drifts until it is too late.
The cluster mines detonate with tremendous force, even those marines at the safe limit of the angled charges staggering on their feet as a sizable chunk of the massif's edge blows into the sky, claiming dozens of xenos and throwing up a ten meter high curtain of obscuring, crystallized snow and permafrost.
Holding their ground tenaciously, the brethren of Kill-team Umbra wait with bated breath for long seconds until the finally the gaunts and their larger clutchmates of the warrior caste surge through the opaque cloud of scintillating ice particles.
They screech with voracious hunger with their quarry so near, and so the marines of the Deathwatch begin to feed them death.