Apocalypse Battle Report

Andrew Lotz submitted this Apocalypse battle report.

Some buddies and I got together over the weekend for a quick Apoc game (12,000 points). My Imperial Guard and a buddy's Raptors Space Marines versus a Nurgle CSM, Tyranid, and Space Wolves alliance. I figured I'd share some fun photos and the storyline.

Cheers.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Transmission Code: Beta 377U9K++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

+++][+++++++++++++++++++++++++Attention: Ordos Malleus++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++][+++

+++][+++++++++++++++++++++++++Attention: Ordos Xenos+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++][+++

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Report: Al-Arach 52nd Regiment+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Re: Heretical Plague Indicators++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Action Report: Al-Arach 52nd Infantry Regiment, Lt. Colonel Eugustine

Location: Ionna, Third Moon of Dagurius Prime, Segmentum Secundus

Imperial Disposition of Forces: Al-Arach 52nd Infantry Regiment, Al-Arach 4th Armored Company, 1/2 Company of Adeptus Astartes (designation: Raptors)

Memorandum:

My men of the Al-Arach 52nd Infantry were dispatched as part of an Imperial task force to Ionna, the Third Moon of Dagurius Prime, eight years ago to combat a minor infestation of xenos that was discovered on the lunar surface (ref. Xenos order 8J88N-52). The xenos (suspected designation: splinter of Hive Fleet Leviathan that remained dormant until recently) had begun gestating in underground lairs under the habital lunar surface, and the Imperial colony on the moon was attacked. Our response had been effective, and the campaign to eliminate the xenos was nearly complete as of this report.

Sensors reported the arrival of a single light cruiser in the system, no designation. Attempts to contact the cruiser resulted only in static and a sound like the buzzing of flies. Dispatched observers spotted a number of landing craft heading from the cruiser's low orbit position toward the central area of xenos infestation on the moon. I contacted Captain Argus of the Raptors, and we mobilized the central elements of our forces to pursue the landing craft and intercept the interlopers.

As we approached the site, we found a most curious spectacle. A greenish haze lay over the battlefield, and huge shapes were moving toward us. I ordered rebreather protocols of all my forces, and we formed a solid battle-line in order to deal with the threat. I assumed that it was just another surge of xenos bio-monstrousities, which my forces were well-prepared to eliminate. Unfortunately, the new arrivals had changed things.

The Imperial battle-line was formed quickly, ready to intercept the xenos in the usual pattern. Note the Hellstorm Squadron of Hellhounds supporting the 4th Armored Company's Stormlord. The Al-Arach armory is specially equipped to handle "living wave" style xenos threats, with our extensive use of promethium and volume of fire equipment.

Out of the mist came more than just our now-familiar xenos threat. A number of Rhino-pattern APCs were leading the way. As the first ones neared, we saw markings like I had never seen before.

As the vehicles drew closer, we saw two things that horrified us. First, some of the Rhinos sprouted gruesome tentatcles, or were drenched in a strange sticky greyish tar-like material that seemed to warp and flow before our very eyes. One of the vehicles, a Vindicator, was reported to seem almost "alive", the strange tar moving and shaping like a face atop the armored surface of the vehicle. The second, and more horrible fear, was that the wave of power armor-clad warriors striding behind these rhinos had a familiar designation: the heraldry of Leman Russ' Space Wolves. 

While my 52nd company and the 4th armored made a huge dent in the waves of xenos creatures, the APCs disgorged a set of passengers we were wholly unprepared for: strange, power armor wearing foes covered in boils. It was if a cloud of flies had been unleashed from the Rhinos as well as these immense and strangely silent warriors. Then to our horror, right in front of the 4th armored battle line, a few of these unknown warriors went into convulsions. It was if their bodies expanded outword, or something inside of them burst out of them. Suddenly, three huge entities stood before our tanks, their weeping pustules leaving a wake of brownish contamination on the land. Even more horrifying, the xenos behind them seemed to ignore them--it was if the strange chemical toxins in the air were affecting the xenos, causing their hive mind to follow the commands of these poisonous perversions of reality.

The battle was then joined in earnest. The Raptors, who were fighting on the right flank of our forces, were strangely silent about the nature of their opponents--those power armored warriors in heraldry that appeared similar to that of the Space Wolves. A few reports, particularly from the targeting crew of the 4th armored's Baneblade, suggested that the men were indeed Space Wolves Astartes, but with a horrible greenish pallor. What sort of disease would cause even the mighty Astartes to turn on their allies? I dispatched Commissar Allen to remove that gunner from active duty, given the heretical claims of his report.

The battle became more and more desperate. While the Raptors turned their whole fury on the so-called "Space Wolves", my forces were left to deal with the rampaging creatures of pure disease, as well as the tide of xenos that seemed to be bound to their chemical miasma. I saw the foes first-hand, when a pair of heavily-armored heretical foes teleported just behind my position, their bodies alive with twisting guns and horrific weaponry. They managed to dispatch our Deathstrike missile launcher before it could fire, but the weight of my men's accurate lasgun volleys managed to tear down these two horrors in return.

Meanwhile the huge chemical beasts assaulted the pride and joy of the 4th armored, their Stormlord tank. While the Baneblade hammered the foe without a single scratch, the Stormlord had every single weapon torn off in a frenzy of claws and chemical erosion.

Our more mobile forces, meanwhile, were ahead dispatching the xenos to the best of their ability. The Hellstorm squadron proved to be effective as usual, burning all sizes of bio-beasts to a cinder in righteous, purging flame. Only the very largest of the bio-monstrousities could survive the blaze, and even then some of them fell to the cooking heat of the promethium.

While the 4th armored was ravaged by the assault, my 52nd infantry company managed to unload enough firepower to demolish almost all of the foul, disease-ridden abominations assaulting our position. The battle churned onward, with a stalemate being reached on the right flank between the Raptors and the combined forces of the plagued ones and the Space Wolves impostors. Then as suddenly as they had come, the plagued forces began to draw back. We watched them as they cleared the battlefield, the hunched warriors apparently taking samples from both the xenos as well as harvesting organs from the fallen Astartes warriors. We fired at the landing ships that surged out of the mist to carry the disease-ridden warriors back to their cruiser, but their atmospheric shields kept them well defended. The Raptors, in their rage at fighting the so-called Space Wolves, neglected their usual maneuverable air support and the heretical Plague Marines were able to escape with whatever results they had hoped for in the mission.

I fear that this was but a trial assault, some plan to use chemical agents to pervert the minds of upstanding Imperial citizens (I had to order 47 of my own soldiers to be eliminated in the following weeks for various signs of heretical perversion--however the use of proper rebreather protocol managed to stop most of the heretical infections). As to whether those were infected heretical Space Wolves, the Raptors were not sharing and I did not pursue the matter further. What was horrifying, is that the chemical agents also seemed to be effective on the Tyranid xenos threat. Whether the chemical just masked the plagued warriors from tyranid senses, or whether the beasts were under their full control, remains to be seen. I can only hope it is the latter.

Lt. Colonel Eugustine
Al-Arach 52nd Infantry Regiment

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Transcription Servitor Liquidated+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Transmission Code: Beta 377U9K END++++++++++++++++++++++++++