[Battle Report] The Void Goddess Rises | 10th Edition | Crusade | Into the Miasma | Necrons vs Space Marines

Bands of darkness encircled the world: sand whorled in lightless fury, stirred by hunger and spiralling outwards, ever outwards, a hand clutching at the stuff of the world with ravenous fingers, closing to a palm that lay beneath the barren, empty seas.

From orbit, it might have been beautiful, but here on the ground, it was lamentable. Kavadah had come too late. The Tomb was no longer safe. The prisoner was loose, if not activated, and the Mourning Sun had stirred.

Atop his stalker, Obryn understood that he had failed, and a synthetic synapse pulsed electric regret through his perceptions. His eyes dimmed. The task had been simple enough: keep watch, over the tomb of a traitor and the weapon she had awoken. While Tekeshi was contained, so was the Mourning Sun; if Tekeshi awoke, so would the Mourning Sun, and the destruction of this poor abandoned world would be complete.

Only one set to watch. A full phalanx, and too many avaricious overlords might come seeking to tame that which none could control. Secrecy meant security meant stability meant safety. One observer of the Praetorians. One job.

Obryn's eyes flared actinic green. There was something loose in the desert sky, bucking wildly through turbulence, flying blind in the last long night. Something grey, and crude, combustion engines roaring as it struggled to maintain its course. It was doomed. It would fail as he had failed.

And yet, as layer upon layer of filters and focus assembled to penetrate the gloom and watch it fall, Obryn realised that all was not lost. There were no gods living to deliver him; nothing but mere happenstance, at astronomical odds. Nevertheless, Obryn gave thanks.

The vermin had stowed away the prisoner aboard one of their aircraft. There was a probability, however slight, that his error could be amended, that the world could yet be saved.

Obryn did two things, in that instant. First, he fired. The stalker reared up, tracking the erratic path of whatever aircraft had delivered him this opportunity. Twin beams crackled, tore, breached, and in a cascade of flayed and filed particles, a wing sheared off the craft and it spiralled down, down, down. Friction and tension would rip it apart before it struck.

Second, Obryn transmitted. An elegant pulse of data ascended through the shrieking sand, and half a world away the Black Star answered, curving smoothly in its orbit as its masters altered their course upon the ground.

On the edge of his perception, a low electromagnetic wave, frequency beneath contempt and almost beneath consciousness. What it contained was gibberish. Obryn recorded it, as possibly salient, and directed his stalker toward the crash site.

There was still a chance.

+++ ARVUS WV2004 +++
+++ SENSORIUM STATUS: ERROR +++
+++ NAVICOMP STATUS: ERROR +++
+++ HULL INTEGRITY: 18% +++
+++ CARGO SECURITY: +++
+++ CARGO SECURITY: +++
+++ CARGO SECURITY: +++
+++ TRANSMITTING LOCATION +++
+++ IN THE EMPEROR'S NAME +++

So, here we are again! It's been three months since I last slammed hams at anything like an acceptable scale (Kill Team is fun, but it just doesn't scratch the same itch) and it was high time Garbutt and I fired the Narrative Forge and continued our Crusade.  

Last Time in Sector Maledicta, the Sworn successfully staged a distraction while the campaign macguffin - a tesseract cube containing the consciousness of ex-Phaeron turned-doomsday-weapon-key Tekeshi - was spirited away on board an Imperial flyer. Now, the planetary Overseer, its lone representative of the Triarch, has seized an opportunity to recover it (or, possibly, he's just shot down an entirely unrelated Imperial flyer that happened to be within gauss cannon range). Necron scouting elements move to secure the crash site, while Captain Kaine and company gun their engines and leg it to intercept.

This would be our first Pariah Nexus mission, complete with rock-paper-scissors Strategic Footing mechanic that govern who sets up first, and who has a slight advantage in terms of the mission rules. I pitched Into The Miasma as a way of compensating for the lack of big LOS-blocking terrain pieces - a -1 to hit malus across the middle of the battlefield would, I hoped, take some of the lethality out of shooting, and we had a lot of craters so the infantry would at least gain the Benefit of Cover.

We actually played two games during my fly-by-night visit to the Wulfruna System. The first, a field test for the Obeisance Phalanx, was an utter blowout that left me with two units at the top of turn two, and absolutely no chance of achieving either mission objectives or agendas. I won't lie: my sodium levels spiked to dangerous and antisocial levels after that realisation, and I conceded before I did anything I might regret. Externally, as a matter of principle, to lose is one thing but to be pubstomped in half an hour after a day's travel is another. Internally, I'd built this game up during months of not playing and, as such, was overinvested from the word go.

One very large cup of tea and three episodes of Love, Death and Robots later, I'd calmed down enough to re-rack and play again, this time with a slightly smaller Hypercrypt Legion force. We made a load-easing decision regarding house rules: one Agenda each, an Oathsworn one for Garbutt and a Tomb World Systems one for me. The XP he'd picked up from the concession had levelled up a lot of his units, so I would come in to the engagement with a Crusade Blessing: I picked Defiance Undimmed for some bonus XP that would hopefully close the gap, as long as I didn't get bazonga'd again.

Game of two halves, innit?

It should be noted that, had it not been for the last minute Hypercrypt teleport shenanigans and being Battle Ready, this would have been a much closer game with only ten points in it.

We'll talk about Crusade homework and levels and so on later, as this was a key game for both of us and the Orders of Battle are looking a bit different nowadays. For now, enjoy these records of our slightly smooshed trip into... the Miasma.

Overseer Obryn, joined by the Tomb Blades outriding for Kavadah, makes an advance into the crash zone. They are not long for this world, as I have absolutely no idea how to use Scouts, and generally move them into a position where they're going to die first.

Captain Kaine and his associates are ferried directly into my grill by Stormraven, and proceed to absolutely demolish the Tomb Blades, with Kaine's pistol dealing the very last wound.

As the Necrons advance for a counter-attack, Kaine and his squad uphold the honour of the Emperor by [checks notes] moving backwards so none of my Skorpekhs can reach them. Obryn absolutely whiffs on his shooting, probably sulking because I forgot his special rules and left him 'till last, and the subsequent Astartes turn sees close range deletion of my Stalker, Scarabs, both Skorpekh units, in fact everything except the hopelessly out of position Warriors and the Immortals parked on my right flank objective. Five Space Marines and five entire units of Necrons are dead and there's not really any coming back from that...

ENGAGE HYPERPHASE PROTOCOL!

En masse, the Necron infantry are enveloped by a wall of green light as their mothership arrives overhead. The Skorpekhs reanimate, the Warriors redeploy, and the lines are reformed, while the Stormraven dusts off, head of Tekeshi safely contained.

This is quite a complex series of events, featuring some beautiful Astartes and some satisfactory Necrons. These Skorpekhs have just charged the Inceptors, but have been subjected to a Heroic Intervention by that very Captain Kaine and his Assault Intercessors, who will end up wiping them out on my turn before they have a chance to strike. Quite vulgar behaviour on his part. In the background, Overlord Kopekh materialises with his new Warrior cohort, attempting to catch some Astartes in a crossfire, and manages to land a single wound on a single Eradicator.

Breaking into that Astartes battlepile is not easy.

Even as his brothers fall around him, blasted by withering Overwatch fire from the Necron infantry, Kaine presses on, cutting down Overlord Estryn and the front rank of her Immortal bodyguards. Sadly, he overlooked the smallest of his many enemies... a swarm of Canoptek Scarabs descended and detonated, wounding him past even his endurance.

Thus freed from engagement, the Immortals and Warriors were free to teleport through the miasma, behind the Astartes line, and - along with some very patient Skorpekhs who'd made the ultimate sacrifice of not killing anything to defend a mysterious obelisk and secure the escape route - scored a closing 30 VPs and also fulfilled my Relentless Expansion Agenda...

Perception returned.

Estryn despised the experience of reanimation: the suspension of awareness and its abrupt, disorienting return, a gush of incoherent data, lacking context or significance. It was why, generally speaking, she preferred not to die.

She was on the Black Star, and Kopekh was beside her, stepping from his own casket, hesitant as he too calibrated his experiences and counted the interstices of time that he was being told had passed.

"Welcome back, nemesor."

Teznet - loyal Teznet, paragon of shipmasters - saluted her with a sombre hand.

"Thank you. How long was I - were we - "

"Almost two rota. We regret that we were deceived by Overseer Obryn. The downed vessel did not contain the key to the Mourning Sun. We are forced to assume the vermin transmitted it by the second vehicle; the one that absented itself when our ship moved within operational range."

She recalled, now. The dust, the darkness, the flash of primitive weaponry, effectively silent in the din. Then the charge - her Hands reaching out to blast and punish and deter - Teznet closing the distance with his cohort - the gleam of the sword - the sudden certainty that the vermin would not stop -

"Acknowledgement: I failed you." Kopekh was more confident now, moving to her side. "Context: my hyperphase deployment was ill timed; I was shot down before I could intervene. Declaration: it will not happen again." 

Some ancient habit had guided the tips of his fingers to her diaoxyzine mantle; tracing the line that the sword had taken through it, through the more intimately integrated necrodermis beneath, into the function and form of her, the very core. Following her wound, as her recollections synchronised with his; as they shared the recollection of defeat.

"We regret the interruption," Teznet blurted, "but Azhad wished to address you immediately upon your reanimation - "

"And so I shall."

The cryptek's voice was harsher, cruder; he hadn't been permitted the same integrity of circuitry on biotransference, and Estryn knew it piqued him. He didn't levitate, as so many of his sect did; he slithered, propelling himself on an extension of his second spine. Legs hung, neglected, in empty air. It would be comical, were it not for the intensity with which he moved. Azhad was bitter, and covetous, and he knew perfectly well that he was dubbed the Ascended out of mockery.

"Nemesor. Vargard. My analysis of Overseer Obryn's disclosure indicates a statistically significant probability that the activation unit of this weapon has been evacuated, and the weapon will activate regardless of strategic decisions or their tactical outcome."

"And is there good news?"

"Some. Geomantic power generation on what remains of Xiberia was overwhelmingly committed to maintaining the balance of power between prisoners. With that obligation removed, and now that we are clear of the shroud, our astromantic perception is extended. In the parlance of nobility: we have not lost the key. In fact... I know precisely where it is."

"Instruction," said Kophek, before Estryn could speak herself. "Pursue the key. Assignation: you are responsible for its recovery. Additional: activate translocation systems in the Xiberian ruins. Declaration: my nemesor, I will not allow you into further danger - "

"I have no wish to die again." Estryn's fingers splayed across his chest; her palm blotted out the ankh of the Triarch, and her gaze turned to the coiled cryptek. "Azhad, kindly follow my vargard's instructions. You have my authority. Awaken the Deathmarks, recover the prisoner - and bring me that officer's head."