A Brief Conflict or Two

Stage by stage I am learning the rules to 40k.  In order to help this I have been playing very small skirmish games using two identical force teams against my girlfriend who, as of today, now has a Tyranid army.  

In the week we had two battles.  In the first she was playing with my painted forces and I was playing with my base coated ones.  She had all the personalities and thrashed me 8-3.  The next game we had I won 9-4 but I only wrote a small piece of fiction about the first.

A picture from the 2nd battle.

As a child I wrote the name F. G. Bio on one of my marines bases.  I have no idea why or who he was.  So I stripped him of his parts and rebuilt him as the bionic warrior: Ferenus Gothchannius Biobelis, tormented by his time in the Warp in both body and mind.

Ferenus

Rerlus was a newer addition to my army.  He was base coated by my girlfriend and she gave him an eye patch as she thought it was on the model.  I enjoyed giving him some detail and adding to his craggy pirate looks.

Rerlus

Anyway here is the fiction from our very brief skirmish.

Predator Becomes Prey

As the wailing of his dying comrades blasted through his vox, Ferenus knew that the assault against them had been launched.  Previous allies were upon them.  He knew the Inquisition were to blame.  They scouted the pack back when they first faced the xenos threat.  The rest knew that they should leave their home in the past but Ferenus couldn’t bear it.  He had chosen to stay with two squads and Rerlus by his side.  The battle was pointless, he knew it at heart.  The majority of the Tyranids had left the planet.  Now that it had been stripped of all organic material there was no reason for them to stay.  He had spent the last few weeks pursuing any left over stragglers and had cleansed a few larger swarms that his squads had located. Inside he knew this was what he had waited for.  He needed to release his anger, the guilt he carried and to see those whom he once held as brothers in arms to check if the rumors were true.  It turns out they were.

As the Space Wolves tore through the Canis Aureus’ Beta Squad with reckless fury, they failed to notice Ferenus moving around the right flank of the battlefield securing the higher ground.  Their even greater mistake was assuming that the Aureus was simply a ten man strong force.  Karael had been waiting and watching for his opportune moment.  The Wolves before him were nothing but pups.  Their assault was an insult to his very presence.  He had fought by the side of the Wolves for over one-thousand years.  He had sacrificed his flesh in the name of Russ and now they had turned on him and his Chapter.  Opening fire with his Lascannons he tore apart his opposition, before turning his attention to the assault on Rerlus’ squad.  As the dreadnought collapsed before them, Rerlus gave the order to hold ground.  This stronghold contained data on his homeworld that he was not willing to leave behind.  

Taking a bolter round to the left side of his face he fell.  His body rigid, he knew that he had taken some form of neural damage.  As he lay on the ground he saw the marines around him, his great brothers, get torn apart by a heavy barrage of bolter fire.  Storming the compound they began to access the consoles as others fired from the windows into the storm of battle.

Having just led his force through the battlefield,  Ferenus split from his force to hold the crucial heart of the compound.  He had to prevent further backup from coming.  Arming the autonomous anti-spacecraft defences he saw the colossal lasers charging.  Filled with a newfound energy on seeing the giant defences of their homeworld active once more, the remaining Canis Aureus stormed the data stronghold.  The bolter fire decimated the Space Wolf forces.  Within a few seconds the battle field fell silent just before the mighty cannons fired into the skies.

Through the hole in the strongholds roof Rerlus could see the magnificence of his planet once again, tearing through the skies and obliterating the Wolves incoming spacecraft.  The Aureus knew that they were safe  for now.  There was no doubt that the Wolves had only sent a small force to clean up.  They would not have come prepared for vast planet defences.  In time Rerlus knew they would be back, but for a brief moment they could get what they needed and leave their homeworld for good, carrying the legend of it with their chapter.