Wolves and Warlocks

"Good job, everybody!"

Inside his Throne Mechanicum aboard Okami, Ogami clapped his hands.

"You didn't let us down! That training exercise against the Space Wolves went very well! You brought honor to House Yato!"

"Did we really?" Suzuki grumbled under his breath, wiping the perspiration from his brow. His Armiger Warglaive, Hebi, was brought down by a bunch of Outriders, Infiltrators and Thunderwolf Calvary. He was still smarting from that.

"Yeah, well..." Tanaka sighed. Kazan fared little better, having been brought down by the Primaris Wolf Priest on bike. That damned crozius was pretty...powerful.

"Hey, at least we did okay," Kanda remarked. He had it great, for Urik or whoever the dude was on the Thunderwolf had charged him...only to fail to damage his Knight Moirax. He and Chiba then proceeded to clear out the Infiltrators, bikers and Thunderwolf Cavalry with graviton pulsars.

The Space Marines stood no chance against the potent grav weapons, their power armor crumpling and crushing them like a can.

Most of the work was done by Ogami, though. Okami's Reaper Chainsword had done some serious work, slicing the Outriders apart and outright destroying both riders and bikes. A shot from his las-impulsor blew the Wolf Priest apart. Whichever Infiltrator survived the grav onslaught were then stomped under by Okami's titanic feet.

"I was worried for a moment," Ogami continued, glaring at the two bondsmen piloting the Armiger Warglaives. "The two of you went down so easily, wrecked by the Space Wolves. You had best do better this time...this is no longer a training exercise. It's the real thing."

The Knights of House Yato were dispatched to a bloody battleground that the Thousand Sons had seized control of. Aku, the twisted Daemon Prince, was leading his Rubric Marines and Scarab Occult Terminators to conduct some sort of warp ritual to tear down the barrier between reality and the immaterium, thus flooding the planet with Daemons.

Only the Knights of House Yato could stop them.

"Apparently the Blood Angels tried to fight them last week, but they got decimated instead."

"Why can't the Space Wolves fight the Thousand Sons instead?" Tanaka wondered out loud. "Instead of doing that whole training exercise thing?"

"Question not the wisdom of the Emperor!" Ogami snapped. "So ordered the Shogun, and so we shall obey. Knights of the Imperium, we march!"

They didn't get very far. Suzuki had barely taken a stride when his Hebi was blown apart by sorcery. Arcane energies saturated the area, dishing out mortal wounds to the swaying Armiger Warglaive and blowing it apart.

Then Aku swooped in and eviscerated Tanaka's Kazan in a single strike. The Armiger Warglaive went down and blew up, dealing a bunch of mortal wounds to the Daemon Prince in revenge.

"There goes my steed," Tanaka sighed, feeling deflated as he watched his faithful steed get blown apart.

"Don't worry, bondsman! I'll avenge you!"

Ogami performed a Heroic Intervention, his Okami stepping in and cleaving the stunned Aku apart with his Reaper chainsword. Even the conviving Daemon Prince could not withstand the might of the Imperium's greatest machines, his ethereal form smote to dust by the formidable swing.

Undaunted by the loss of their least experienced leader, the Scarab Occult Terminators and Rubric Marines marched forward, firing under the direction of the Exalted Sorcerer. Ogami snorted as his ion shield deflected the ensorceled bolts, and he opened up with his las-impulsor. Despite his best shots, as well as supporting volleys of grav from the two surviving Knights Moirax, at least half of the Scarab Occult Terminators survived the deadly onslaught. The unwavering phalanx continued to stomp forward, their eyelenses gleaming ominously in the cloud of dust their strides kicked up.

"Do you think we fear your large, metal steeds?" The Exalted Sorcerer sneered, conjuring more spells to blast the advancing Knight Preceptor. Okami rocked from the impact, but the Omnissiah protects. Lethal warpcraft that should have obliterated the Questoris Knight chassis disspated harmlessly, though severe damage was still inflicted on the wavering war engine.

"If you don't, then you will learn to," Ogami shot back.

"Unfortunately, the Emperor had created us to know no fear," the Exalted Sorcerer retorted.

"Uh, I don't think that's applicable to the Traitors, though," Kanda said.

"Don't forget that Rubric Marines and Scarab Occult Terminators are fearless," Chiba reminded him. "Their morale will never break and they will never flee, no matter how many casaulties you inflict on them."

By now, Okami had stomped a squad of Rubric Marines to dust, leaving just the Aspiring Sorcerer left. The Scarab Occult Terminators and Infernal Master charged, their kopesh swords and force staves sending Okami reeling from warp-fueled impacts. However, Ogami remained defiant and scythed down the poor Infernal Master with a swipe from his Reaper chainsword.

"You shall not pass!" He roared.

Withdrawing tactically, he then decided to charge a second squad of Rubric Marines instead, mowing them down underneath his Titanic Feet. Kanda and Chiba continued firing at the Scarab Occult Terminators, but somehow the Scarab Occult Sorcerer survived their deadly onslaughts, though the automata he led were annihilated.

"Like we'll let you!" The Exalted Sorcerer yelled. Turning his wrath upon Kanda, his sorcerery wrecked the poor Armiger Knight Moirax, the esoteric flames turning the walker into scrap.

Meanwhile, the Aspiring Sorcerer and Scarab Occult Sorcerer turned their wrath upon Okami, only for the adamantium armor to rebuff the scalding slashes of their force staves.

"Nani?!" The Scarab Occult Sorcerer shrieked. "We just need a single strike to go through! Just a single hit! How the heck did he withstand all of that?!"

"Tough armor, combined with the poor armor penetration of our force staves, I suppose. And the roll of the dice." The Aspiring Sorcerer's tone was wry despite the dilemma they were in. The Scarab Occult Sorcerer didn't get a chance to reply because he was squashed by Titanic Feet.

If this was an earlier edition, he would have been removed from play by a roll of 6 on the stomp table, but Ogami settled for overwhelming the tough Terminator by sheer volume of titanic feet attacks.

That was his last triumph, for the Exalted Sorcerer crushed his armor with spells. No matter what the Omnissiah did, this time, His protection failed and the Questoris Knight crumpled. Okami slumped to the ground, finally defeated.

"Finally!" The Exalted Sorcerer crowed, only to find himself staring down the barrels of Chiba's grav pulsars. The next thing he knew, he was squashed into a pulp by intense grav beams. As he fell to the ground, he glanced in the direction of the Aspiring Sorcerer, hoping that at least one of them would survive and escape...

The remains of the Aspiring Sorcerer lay on the ground, twisted flesh and a pool of blood. Evidently Chiba had taken care of him first before focusing his attention on the leader.

"F...!"

That was the last word of the Exalted Sorcerer before he was bombed into oblivion.

"That should take care of them." Chiba sighed in relief as he surveyed the battlefield. It had been quite the brutal slugfest, and by chance he emerged as the sole survivor. He wondered what was next. Shrugging, he turned back toward the idol that House Yato had successfully protected during the bloodbath. "Well, we'll be getting reinforcements next month. I wonder who's going to join our roster. Hopefully somebody bigger and with more powerful guns."

My Knights will be ready...

Well, we had pretty awesome reveals at Adepticon.

So the Imperial Knight codex will be next up for release. Yay, I guess? I don't know how to feel about this. Yeah, I'm delighted, but I feel like the Chaos Space Marines should get their codex first. Of course, at the end of Adepticon, they said they will, and they will be getting 2 wounds too, but shouldn't they be ahead of the Knights?

Oh, well. Not going to complain. I'll look forward to my codex. I'm perfectly all right with Chaos Knights getting new models like that new psyker Abominant and Karnivores, and Imperial Knights not getting anything. With the price hikes and my need to buy a new computer (my current laptop is falling apart), I'm saving as much money as I can. I already have more than enough Knights, so I'm okay with this. I think.

Okay...maybe I might get the Knight Abominant...I dunno. Nah, I probably can't afford it, so never mind. It is what it is.

Oh, but that's not the biggest news. The biggest news is this:

Yes, my friends, it's happening! HORUS HERESY! YES

I don't really play Legionnes Astartes, but I play Knights. Hopefully my Knights will make a return in the Horus Heresy. They have a long and glorified history, so I'm looking forward to playing them both in 40,000 and the Heresy! I might be tempted to expand on my Imperial Fists because I have a bunch of Terminators, but we will see. Templar Brethren for the win! We'll see what happens with the new rules, and once again, my budget is limited, so...yeah. Anyway, we'll see.

That was an amazing Adepticon!

Ritual of Becoming

Warhammer Community just posted this article on the Ritual of Becoming today!

Apparently there will be more details revealed at Adepticon. What will it be? New Knight models? A new video like the arming of the Space Marine? I guess we'll find out!

Honestly, I don't know about new models. We know that Chaos Knights will have new models with the volkite stuff, so I doubt the loyalist Imperial Knights will get anything. I'm okay with that, I don't have money at the moment, and rising prices just make things more difficult. So yeah. I'm looking forward to the codex, but that's about it. In any case, I'm a little excited for this little teaser, and if it's a video, that will be awesome!

Oh, and here's the text from the video:

To the Loyal Imperial Subjects of this World:

The Great and Most Noble Lords and Ladies of the

HOUSE

DU FRAIN

Do rightfully request and require your presence

at the ritual of becoming ceremony,

in readiness of their departure to combat vile

heretical forces for the glory of all humanity.

Attendance is mandatory on point of death.

I wonder if Chapter Master Valrak will do a video on this? Edit: He did! I just knew he would. He's a House Taranis player, so...of course he would.

Forge Worlds with their own Knight Houses

So I was reading something from a social media group the other day, and a friend was coming up with homebrewed stuff for his Knight House and forge world. Apparently his forge world has a Knight House or his Knight House came from a forge world (what's the difference?). Then one fella just came up to him and told him that he got it all wrong. "One thing you need to know is this: Knight worlds are separate from forge worlds. They have close ties with forge worlds, but they are separate."

That, my friends, is not necessarily the case. Forge worlds with their own Knight houses exist. Mars is a prime example of this. House Taranis is a knight house from Mars. And if you read the Adeptus Titanicus supplements, you'll see that there's a few Knight Houses from forge worlds, such as House Sidus from Ryza. So yeah, that's not necessarily the case. If you want your forge world to have its own Knight house, by all means do it! Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

As evidence, here's some examples from the Adeptus Titanicus supplements, even before I mention the foremost House Taranis from Mars.

Forge World: Mars

House Taranis

Forge World: Mars

House Zavora

Forge World: Ryza

House Sidus

Forge World: Mars

House Morbidia

Forge World: Xana II

House Malinax (this is the rival Knight House of House Yato of Draconis III)

Forge World: Incaladion

House Mordred

Here are the examples of Knight Houses from forge worlds. So next time you create your own homebrewed Knight house and want it to be from a forge world, don't let a lore gatekeeper tell you otherwise! Yes, House Raven comes from Kolossi and has close links to Metalica, House Krast comes from Chrysis but probably has links to Mars as well. House Vulker has a homeworld, Aurous IV, and has close ties to the forge world of Bellus Prime.

But then you can always point to House Taranis, who hail from Mars. If anyone claims that House Taranis is unique and a special case (or Mars, since it's the Holy originator of all forge worlds), then bring up the examples I did. House Sidus of Ryza. House Malinax of Xana II. Don't let them discourage you from homebrewing stuff that is lore accurate, but because they just happen to not read every little bit of the lore (even I won't claim to be a loremaster, no matter how much I read), they mistakenly think it's not. Do it your way! They are your dudes, not anyone else's.

Hope this encourages people to just homebrew whatever they want without having to worry about the relationship between Knight houses and forge worlds!

Defense of Haysworth

"Those xenos-loving heretic scum have set up their blasphemous idols in Hayden town! We are going to tear them down!"

Ogami was raving as he pointed at the enormous effigies of the cultists' four-armed Emperor. Two of them stood tall in the despoiled cathedral of the world Haysworth. Apparently the Cult of the Twisted Helix had infiltrated the agri-world and were now constructing foul idols to their so-called star-gods.

"You mean desecrate them?" Tanaka asked, earning a glare from Ogami through a pict-screen.

"Whatever! Just destroy those...those foul objects!"

"But we need to protect the Emperor's idols too," Kanda reminded the cranky, old pilot of the Knight Preceptor. He was right. The Knight Lance of House Yato had been stationed in yet nother cathedral opposite the one that the Genestealer Cultists had taken.

"We can do both!"

"We don't have the numbers..."

"Just do it! Don't argue with me!" Ogami was swiveling Okami about to take a shot, but he cursed when he saw two squadron of bikes roaring at them. Dust swirled about them, cloaking them under a fine sheen of cover. Tanaka sighed as he watched the vague silhouettes streak forward underneath the dark cloud. They were going to be hard to hit, even with the targeting auspexes installed in his Helm Mechanicum.

Indeed, they didn't even have any time to fire a single shot when the Blitzkrieg struck. Okami staggered when mining lasers and seismic cannon shots slammed into it, its ion shield flickering under the fierce barrage. Bolstered by the effect the heavy weapons had on the reeling Knight, the acolytes opened fire gleefully, their autogun shots pattering against the diminishing barrier.

"No! No, no, no!!! NOOO!!!!!"

Tanaka's head spun to the side when he heard Suzuki scream. His fellow bondsman was desperately trying to backpedal while being charged by a Patriarch. A Broodlord...whatever that abomination was called. The hissing creature was accompanied by similarly bulky Aberrants, the xeno creatures following their leader's...uh, lead, and charging with power picks and industrial saws.

They needn't had bothered.

The Patriarch ripped into Hebi, tearing the poor Armiger Warglaive apart with its claws.

"WHY ME?!" Suzuki wailed. "Why is it always me!? LEAVE ME ALONE!"

His cries were cut off as Hebi fell. The Patriarch let out a triumphant hiss as it stood atop the fallen Armiger Warglaive, raising a claw to the air.

"UGH! Not me again!"

"Shut it!" Ogami snapped irritably, occupied as he was by the zooming Genestealer bikers. They were slashing and stabbing at him with picks and other makeshift weapons, but dealing little damage. Okami was still damaged heavily from the mining lasers and other powerful weapons, but that didn't stop him from stomping on the bikers to oblivion. Only a single rugged buggy survived, spinning away from the staggering Okami. Ogami swore. "Come back here, you little frakker!"

"Make me!" The Genestealer Cultist driving the buggy sneered and flipped the tottering Knight. The passenger minding the mining laser was about to swivel it about to fire, but Tanaka was already moving forward.

"So long, sucker!"

"What?!"

"When did he...?!"

Relying on stealth skills reminiscent of the late Ursarkar Creed, Tanaka's Armiger Warglaive popped out of a building and fired a meltagun and thermal spear shot at the speeding buggy, vaporizing it. The two occupants screamed as they were engulfed in flames.

"Time to fight back!" Ogami roared. Kanda and Chiba followed suit, their graviton pulsars spitting transparents waves that distorted the air, crushing the Aberrants. The xenos-spliced mutants shrieked as their bodies were caught and pulped into bloody rags by the graviton pulses, strips of flesh fluttering to the ground.

Okami stomped toward the second squadron of bikers, his las-impulsor barking and flaying a couple of them. He then charged into their midst, razing them with Okami's Titanic Feet. and stomping them into oblivion.

Enraged by the loss of its spawn, the Patriarch let out a shrill cry. Flinging itself at Okami, it slashed and sliced into the damaged Knight. Behind, the Genestealer Acolytes let fly with their mining laser and autogun. A single biker also swerved about, the Atalan Jackal Alpha firing her sniper rifle with unrivaled precision. Okami stumbled, its ion shield flickering from the hits. Then a mine blew up under its feet, courtesy of a snickering Reductor Saboteur.

"What's mine is mine!" She shouted, pressing a button on her detonator. More flames enveloped the poor Knight.

While Ogami struggled to right his Knight, the bellowing Patriarch pounced. Its claws cut rents through Okami, severing cabling and exposing the sparking interior. To his astonishment, Ogami actually parried a couple of otherwise lethal strikes, the Reaper chainsword whirring and spitting as its teeth caught the claws of the stunned Patriarch.

"Eat this, xenos scum!" He yelled and cleaved through the Patriarch with his Reaper chainsword. The Brood Lord could only stare dumbly before its head was sliced neatly into two, both halves of its body flopping downward and being obliterated by the power field that wreathed the Reaper chainsword. Ogami let out a laugh and raised the Reaper chainsword to the air triumphantly. "See that!? Hah! You ain't gonna beat the Imperium! Long live the Emperor!"

Those were his last words for the day. A gout of prometium flared from a flamer and struck the Knight before Okami went down, its systems failing.

"...damn." Tanaka shook his head in disbelief. The noble had taken down the terrifying Patriarch, only to be brought low by a...flamer from an Acolyte. To be fair, the Jackal Alpha riding on the bike had exposed a weakpoint with unerring accuracy, her sniper round having widened the chink in Okami's armor so that the flamer could trigger a chain reaction. "It's just us now, huh?"

Though Kazan's melta weapons were deadly against tanks and vehicles, they did frak all against infantry. Tanaka tried to fire upon the Acolytes, but he missed. Kanda fired at the Kelermorph who emerged from the shadows, but his graviton pulses seemed to shimmer and peel away from the xenos. Apparently the guy had some sort of barrier that protected him from the devastating beam.

Chiba had better luck. His graviton pulse caught the biophagus and annihilated him before he could reach the idol of the Emperor. Unfortunately for them, the Kelermorph had withstood whatever they fired at him, and he proceeded to desecrate the idol of the Emperor on his side.

"Ugh! That's it! You'll pay for that!"

Ignoring the infantry, Tanaka had Kazan sprint to the other side of the town, barreling through a wall and into the cathedral. With a swipe of his Reaper chain-cleaver, he brought down the statue of the four-armed Emperor, wrecking it.

"You're not the only one who can desecrate idols! Hah!"

Unfortuantely, that left him open to the Kelermorph's shots. Kazan staggered, despite the ion shield deflecting a few of the hits. Damn. But he was determined to achieve the objective no matter what, so he paid the four-armed gunslinger no attention. For now.

Kanda fired on the Acoltyes and took out a few, but they simply replenished their numbers endlessly. On the other hand, Chiba's salvo took out the Jackal Alpha, crushing her bike like a can and turning the xenos sniper into a pulp of meat and lake of blood.

"Finally," Chiba huffed. "She was getting on my nerves."

Explosions billowed underneath Kazan's feet as the Reductor Saboteur detonated more of her mines. No longer occupied with demolishing a blasphemous idol, Tanaka was free to rush forward. Kanda joined him in a pincer attack, but the Acolytes from before had hidden behind the shadows. Not that it mattered, his objective was the second four-armed idol at the other side of the tainted cathedral.

For what it was worth, they were going to wipe out all unholy presences on Hayworth. That would deliver a huge blow against the Genestealer Cult presence here.

With a melta shot, Tanaka annihilated the shrieking Reductor Saboteur from existence. He brought the barrel of the thermal spear near his Armiger Warglaive's helm, but wasn't able to blow it. Oh, well. The pose still worked.

While he took care of the mine-setter, Kanda's Knight Moirax stumbled upon the idol and began smashing it to the ground.

That was when the Acolytes struck.

They hadn't disappeared into the shadows to run away like cowards...no, they had planned to spring an ambush. Yelling and bellowing, they set upon Kanda's Knight Moirax with autoguns, mining lasers, seismic cannons and picks. Kanda ignored them for now, forcing his Knight Moirax to focus solely on the objective. As long as he could survive, that was all he needed. He just needed to survive to complete the action.

"Damn it!" A xenos cultist snapped. "He's almost dead! We almost got him!"

"Don't worry!" His comrade said with a grin, pulling out a detonater from his pocket. "We have booby trapped this place. That should blow him up."

Kanda's eyes widened. "Oh, God-Emperor of Man, no! No! Holy Omnissiah, please protect me from the foul powers..."

Ignoring his prayers, the acolyte pressed the button.

...

...nothing happened.

"Huh?!"

"What do you mean, huh?! Why didn't the trap go off?!"

"Um...well, you know how these things go..." The Genestealer cultist gulped and avoided his comrade's glare. "There's like, a 16.5% change of these booby traps failing."

"What in the Star-gods' name are we supposed to do now?!"

"For one thing, you could just die," Tanaka said, his Armiger Warglaive charging them and cleaving a couple of them apart with a Reaper chain-cleaver.

Needless to say, the Genestealer Cultist presence was erased from Hayworth shortly after that.

Imperial Knight rumors

Uh, so I was speaking to somebody from a group online, and she claims to have heard leaks. I don't think she intends for us to take it as fact, and personally I'm not sure as to the credibility of the source, so - and she literally says this herself - "don't quote me on this."

But me being me, and this being a primarily Imperial Knight blog, I just have to post about this. You know, the fun in rumors isn't about how true or accurate they are, but just to speculate and get people talking. Get people excited. I know Valrak is feeling burned out by Games Workshop's actions, and more than a few people are upset, but in times like this, it's kind of necessary to have something to look forward to, to be enthusiatic about, or excited about, you know? If you don't agree, that's fine too. I understand the burn out and exhaustion. Me, I just like playing with Knights, so I don't really care. Crusade, RTTs, GTs, as long as I get a game with my big boys, I'm happy. I'm more into the fluff and narrative aspect anyway. Ended up finished reading my Black Libary collection, and will be waiting for that Imperial Knight Assassin novel, waiting for the digital releases of Sigismund and Ahriman: Eternal (I sure as hell am not able to afford limited collections). Anyway, the rumors.

From someone in some Imperial Knight group (Damn, I just realized I should have asked her for permission to post about this, sorry...):

No leaks on durability, so we don't know if we're getting -1 damage reduction or invulnerable saves in melee, which is worrying.

Titanic Knights can give orders in the Command phase (?) to Armigers. Stuff like advance and charge.

More movement or more base attacks?

Titanic Feet to lose sweep profile, these will be going to chainswords and gauntlets like the Forge World variants. Titanic Feet probably be just base attacks, making Crusaders and Castellans weaker in melee. Maybe Valiant gets a melee attack with Thundercoil harpoon.

Melee platforms get more attacks - apparently possible to get up to 20 attacks with the Reaper chainsword by stacking with Stratagems, Traits, etc.

Probably get a damage buff to all the guns just like the Wraithknight did. Crusaders and Castellans' melee get weaker because of Titanic Feet nerf, but compensated with buffed damage to their weapons.

Again, I don't know the credibility of this source, but it's still fun to speculate and talk about them. Even if they aren't true, well...it is what it is. Knights of the Imperium, we march!

RTT at Dreamers Hiawatha

Despite the devastating loss against Adeptus Custodes about 2 weeks ago, I brought my same Imperial Knight list for a Rogue Trader Tournament today! It was the same Glorified History and Hounds of War House Yato list that I brought to Chaska. So something like this:

Imperial Knights Super-heavy Detachment, Questor Mechanicus, Glorified History, Hounds of War

Knight Castellan with Cawl's Wrath and Cold Eradication

Knight Prreceptor with Ion bulwark and stormspear rocket pod

3 Armiger Knights Moirax, 2 with graviton pulsars, 1 with lightning locks

3 Armiger Warglaives with meltaguns

With the new Objective Secured abilities for my Armigers, let's see how they fared today!

The first game was the Scouring, and my opponent was Aeldari. I think it was a mixed Harlequins and Drukhari detachment. I initially thought it would be pretty bad for me, but he didn't bring any Voidweavers or whatever those jets were. You know, the ones with either the haywire stuff or the prismatic cannons. Instead, I got first turn, blew up his Raider, killed a Talos with my Armiger Warglaive, and took out all but one Troupe clowns in a squad. I think I took out a few jetbikes too. The surviving 3 Talos moved up, but I used Counteroffensive to kill one with an Armiger Warglaive before it could swing, and that was after I rolled a 6 on my invulnerable save to survive a melta shot from the dude. Phew. Unfortunately, Drazhar and the Archon and the jetbikes killed an Armiger Warglaive. Ouch. The Knight Preceptor maybe did like 6 or so wounds to one of Talos, but shooting from both him and the Knight Castellan killed the rest of the Talos. With the Talos dead, my Knight Preceptor stomped on the Wracks to claim the center objective.

My opponent fought back, with Drazhar and the Incubi killing my Knight Preceptor. I think I lost an Armiger Warglaive earlier to the Talos's heat lances, not the one who fought back. Another one. I can't remember. Then the Troupe dudes came over and killed my triumphant Armiger Warglaive with their fusion pistols. My Knight Castellan would not be denied and I eventually whittled down his army, but before that...well, I spent 2 CP on Noble Sacrifice and nuked the middle of the table, dealing 4 mortal wounds to my Armiger Knight Moirax before 5 mortal wounds killed the Incubi, 6 took out Drazhar and 5 took out the Archon. That's why you blow up your Knight! Heh!

Even though I only had 4 Knights left, having lost half of my army, I was able to slowly shoot down the rest of the army. My opponent got unlucky, unable to kill my Knight Moirax who ate 4 wounds from the catastrophic explosion, so I continued to shoot and hold objectives somehow with Objective Secured Armigers. Heh. I couldn't kill his jetbike, who sped to my deployment zone to deny me Yield No Ground, but I already scored quite a few points for that, so it wasn't too bad.

Eventually I won the game 84 to 36. That was quite the...game. It was less one-sided than the score made it seem because I had half of my army dead, with one of my surviving Knights half-dead (he took 4 mortal wounds, ouch).

The second game was Death and Zeal, and I was up against Genestealer Cultists. My opponent brought 9 Ridgerunners with blast mining lasers, and a whole boatload of Goliath Trucks, each crammed with 10 Genestealer Cultists. Acolytes? Sorry, I'm not familiar with Genestealer Cultists and I probably annoyed my opponent with all sorts of mistaken assumptions. I thought Crossfire was the same as Exposed and assumed all of them had a +1 to wound against my poor Knights. Whatever the case, he had first turn and killed 3 of my Armigers and wounded my Knight Preceptor to 8 wounds before I could do a single thing. From there, it was a downhill battle for me, and I simply didn't have the firepower or numbers to claim objectives.

I could only watch as his Ridgerunners and bikes (Atalan Jackals?) zip about and get exposed or whatever on my Knights. That just hurt. I did my best and killed 8 Ridgerunners, all the bikers and 10 Cultists, but that was all. Oh, and a single Goliath Truck. It made no difference. By turn 4, I was completely tabled. Just like when playing against Adeptus Custodes, I didn't get to play my turn 4 (though against Custodes I didn't play my turn 3 and was tabled). It was...uh, brutal.

Oh well. It is what it is. In any event, I was relieved I didn't score 22 points this time. I lost heavily, but it was 39 to my opponent's 96. It hurts, yeah, but...I already expected this when I saw the amount of mining lasers in his list, as well as the whole Exposed and Crossfire thing. Imperial Guard needs something like that, that's for sure. It'll help us out tremendously.

The third game was Abandoned Sanctuaries. I was up against an Iron Hands player, which was intriguing because I've never actually played against Iron Hands before. This was fun. I actually wanted to play against Crusher Stampede because...robots versus kaiju in Pacific Rim style, but Iron Hands had its own charm. In any event, my opponent had 2 Leviathan Dreadnoughts and a Character Relic Contemptor Dreadnought with dual volkites. Apparently the volkites are still worth it even with the points increase.

He had a lot of infantry, though, which was strange considering that he was playing Iron Hands. I thought he would have a lot more vehicles, but no, it was a drop pod and those 3 Relic Dreadnoughts (or Martial Legacy Dreadnoughts). 2 Techmarrines, a Judicar, 4 Bladeguard Veterans, 2 Company Veterans, 5 Infiltrators, 15 Intercessors, 10 Devastators (4 multimeltas and 4 gravs), and...Inquisitor Cotaez, who he brought for psychic interrogation. I guess the 6+++ Feel No Pain for Iron Hands infantry should help a lot?

He had first turn and he proceeded to destroy my Knight Castellan with a Leviathan Dreadnought's shooting, along with the multimeltas and grav from the Devastators who drop podded in front of him. He also killed an Armiger Warglaive with his other Leviathan Dreadnought. At that point, I thought I had lost the game because he took out almost half my army in the first turn alone, before I could do anything. It was brutal. I was...utterly deflated, and things looked pretty bad. My Knight Preeptor survived with 15 wounds, though, so it wasn't too bad, but still...ugh.

Despite shooting everything I had with my Knight Preceptor, I only did a few wounds to the Leviathan Dreadnought. Ugh. The grav pulsar Armigers managed to kill a bunch of Bladeguard, along with the Armiger Warglaive...maybe only 3. It was pretty horrible shooting. The one bright spot was that my Knight Moirax with lightning locks killed a couple of grav devastators, and my Knight Preceptor charged and killed 2 of them, locking them in combat. Not enough...not nearly enough. That was just awful shooting on my part. Worse, the multimelta Devastators killed my Armiger Warglaive in overwatch, so I lost 3 Knights, including the Castellan in the first turn alone. That was worse than in the Genestealer Cultists game.

The Judicar charged my Armiger Warglaive, but I somehow managed to survive and kill the remaining Bladeguard Veteran. Hah! Huh, that was about it. The Leviathan and Contemptor Dreadnought tried to shoot my Knight Preceptor and I think he was left with 4 wounds. Yikes! On the other hand, my Knight Preceptor performed a Heroic Intervention to ensnare the 3 multimelta Devastators and this time, I finally killed them with Titanic Feet. Phew. My other Knights survived shooting from the Leviathan Dreadnought, thankfully, but they had like 6 or so wounds. Fortunately, the Mechanicus trait allows them to regenerate a wound, so my Knight Moirax went back up to 7 wounds, top bracket, and proceeded to blow 4 Infiltrators or so off the table. The other guy failed to hit anyone with his grav pulsars, I think? Meanwhile the Knight Moirax finished off the grav Devastators with Lightning locks and then the Knight Preceptor charged and destroyed the Contemptor Dreadnought in melee with his Reaper chainsword.

I was leading in primary because I controlled 3 objectives, including the one in the center. This continued onto the third turn because I always controlled more than my opponent, allowing me to score all 12 points each turn...plus 2 for the center objective! That was after my  opponent finally destroyed my Knight Preceptor with his storm cannon and volkite, and I blew him up with Noble Sacrifice. Didn't do much, maybe killed a Company Veteran and a few Intercessors here and there, a couple of mortal wounds to Coatez, the techmarine and the Leviathan Dreadnought. My Knights survived another round of fire from the second Leviathan Dreadnought...somehow.

The Infiltrator finally succumbed to my Armiger Knight Moirax, while my other Knight Moirax deleted another squad of Intercessors off the table. My sole surviving Armiger Warglaive fired and charged the other Leviathan Dreadnought, but didn't do much damage. Instead, he got killed when the Leviathan Dreadnought fired into him pointblank with his storm cannons. Even with the -1 hit penalty, the techmarine just brought it back to 3+, and he died. Oh, well. But I was able to hold objectives and avoid getting shot at by having my Knights Moirax charge into the Intercessors or drop pod, forcing him to fall back and shoot through dense cover. Oh, the guy with Lightning Locks wiped out an Intercessors squad before charging a drop pod, who couldn't fall back. Somehow I survived another round of shooting from the Leviathan Dreadnought, and continued to hold more primary while he had basically none in tha turn because my count-as-5-model Armigers stole the objectives out from under his Intercessors or Infiltrators, who had taken losses.

Eventually, I killed Coatez and the Company Veterans by shooting into combat when they charged me, the Lightning Locks just doing amazing amounts of damage. The grav pulsars did kill all the remaining infantry, leaving no Intercessors o the board. Hell, only 2 Techmarines and 2 Leviathan Dreadnoughts were left on the table by the end of the game. My opponent rolled badly and I made my saves for my Knights Moirax against the Leviathan Dreadnoughts, which allowed me to continue to hold objectives. That allowed me to max out primary, and...phew. Even though I lost almost all my Knights, with only 3 Armigers left and completely unable to kill the Leviathan Dreadnoughts, who I just gave up on dealing with and straight up ignoring them in favor of grabbing and holding objectives, I somehow managed to scrap a narrow victory by playing to the mission. The final score was a close one, 79-65, in my favor. A very close match! Holy Omnissiah, I thought I had lost for sure when my opponent destroyed my Knight Castellan in the first turn, but somehow I turned it around by playing to the objectives and focusing on the infantry instead of the Dreadnoughts. Objective Secured Armigers who count as 5 models are so, so, so good. They were what secured the win for me this game. Ave Omnissiah!

The debacle against the Genestealer Cultists meant I finished 5th place out of 11, the 39 points in that game not doing me any favors. Can't complain, though. I won 2 out of 3 games, so that's good enough for me! I wonder if I should bring the same list to Gamezenter next week, or if I should swap out the Armigers for Adeptus Mechanicus. Bring Mars and a single Knight of the Cog. I don't know. I feel like trying out a Mars plus House Taranis combo, but the objective secured Armigers have been working so well for me. I guess we'll see. I have a week to decide, so until then!

Ork Knights and Grey Knights

"Are...are those supposed to be Knights?"

"Well...they have been salvaged and transformed by the Orks."

The poor Knights of House Yato could only watch the weird contraptions swagger toward them, a couple of greenskins hanging off one of them. The biggest didn't seem like a salvaged Knight at all, but rather...

"Why is it in the shape of a crescent?"

"I think they salvaged one of those Necron aircrafts...what was it called? A Nightscythe?"

"So now it's a Knightscythe," Tanaka joked. The other bondsmen glared at him, and he shrugged. "What? The name fits."

"Whatever they are, they must die! Death to heretics and the xenos!" Ogami yelled and advanced his Knight Preceptor forward. Unfortunately, Okami took a few hits from a load of dakka from the howling greenskins, staggering as its ion shield flared. One of the Ork walkers, an upsized Deff Dread that held an equally gigantic autocannon, was spitting out streams of shells. "Curse you, foul greenskins!"

His Knight Preceptor continued to stumble as a melta shot from an Ork walker carrying a gigantic broadsword moved forward, along with anothe scrap Knight sporting some sort of exotic weapon that fired a ruby beam. The Crescent-shaped Knight did most of the damage, explosive shells detonating against Okami and tearing away chunks of adamantium and ceramite.

"We've got to help him!" Suzuki yelled. Tanaka sighed and rolled his eyes, wondering if they should leave the reckless noble to his death. The guy was getting their lance into more trouble than they could handle.

He then fired a melta shot into the closest Knight, the scrap-walker holding an exotic weapon. He didn't like the look of that thing, and furthermore it sported a massive power klaw that looked as if it could crush his Knight in a single swipe.

To his relief, the scrap walker exploded under the superheated thermal rays. The other Ork knight with the broadsword stepped in, its pilot bellowing in a guttural tone, but for all of his flaws, Ogami was a competent swordsman. He stepped in and cleaved the charging Ork walker into several pieces with two swipes of his whirring Reaper chainsword.

Tanaka didn't have time to celebrate because the crescent-shaped Knight was charging at him. It bowled him over in a single blow and stomped on his Armiger Warglaive with its feet, crushing him underfoot.

"...ouch." Tanaka sighed. That meant he was out of the fight.

The rest of the battle went on as he expected. The titanic walker blew Ogami's Knight Preceptor up with a salvo of missiles and gatling cannon shots, and continued onward to meet Suzuki's Armiger Warglaive in battle. Despite Hebi getting a few hits in, it was trampled underfoot, much like Tanaka's.

Chiba's Knight Moirax was then blown up by the combined onslaught of firepower from the two remaining Ork Knights. Kanda wisely retreated, firing pulses of gravity, but he knew he would not be able to defeat either of the Knights.

Tanaka watched the Ork Knights pursue Kanda's Knight Moirax into the distance before he slumped over and exhaled wearily.

"I knew this wouldn't end well..."

The five pilots next woke up aboard the cruiser, Fires of Piety.

"Huh? How did we get here?"

"Weren't we supposed to be fighting Orks?"

"Yeah, except that we got our asses kicked," Tanaka muttered to Suzuki's question.

"I was pretty sure I got away from them," Kanda remarked, scratching his head. He frowned. "But I don't remember what happened after that."

None of them did. Unbeknownst to them, another imperial ship sailed away into the void. The Strike Cruiser, Miles Engraved, surged into the warp with its thrusters burning, the Grey Knights complement within feeling as if they had just wasted their time.

After a brief clash with the downed Knights, they decided to mindwipe the poor pilots and then leave. The Knights of House Yato stood no chance against the Imperium's finest Daemonhunters. The Dreadknights basically destroyed the entire Knight Lance, with Strike squads finishing off weakened Armigers with their Nemesis weapons. The only squad they lost was three Paladins who were squashed to death by Kanda's grav weapons, and maybe three dudes who got stomped on, but other than that, they were virtually unscathed.

"I think it's time for me to leave," Castellan Crowe said, staring at his daemon sword and shrugging when the Grand Master confronted him. "Your Dreadknights can deal with whatever comes next. I fear that I'm kind of...overpowered in this Crusade. Besides, it's not as if I can gain any more experience or battle honors. So I'll leave it to you guys. I'm going to join another daemon hunting expedition that actually needs someone of my caliber."

"Uh...okay?" The Grand Master looked bewildered, but he didn't protest. "If that's what you think..."

Crowe turned and left him to his own thoughts, staring upon the shielded windows as the Miles Engraved plunged through the Empyrean and traveled to whatever world that was unfortunate enough to be infested with Daemons.

...except that there didn't seem to be any Daemons in the sector, only Thousand Sons and xenos...

Genestealer Cultists Uprising

"They say the forge world Chaska has fallen. Apparently there was a day of ascension there and now the world has fallen to xenos-worshipping cultists and heretics."

"Huh," Suzuki grunted, not at all interested in Tanaka's conversation. Tanaka sighed and shook his head.

"According to intelligence, this world, Haysworth, is next."

Haysworth was an agri-world...or at least it was supposed to be before it would inevitably fall to the Genestealer Cults. The Cult of the Twisted Helix was far too strong, crushing both Imperial defenders and xenos alike. Already they had defeated the Sisters of the Sacred Ashes and Mechanicus forces on Chaska, and now they were hading for Haysworth to prepare the agri-world for being devoured by the Star Gods. Aka the Tyranids.

That...sucked.

"Our job is to crush them," Ogami snapped irritably, his Knight Preceptor lumbering forward. "So stop talking and start hunting!"

"Yes, sir!" Tanaka straightened up in his Helm Mechanicum and followed in his Armiger Warglaive. Kazan tracked the surroundings with its thermal spear, looking for...stuff to kill. Then he blinked. "What the hell is that over there?"

Across the fields and in the center of the Administratum town that served as the world's hub, he could see gigantic effigies. Statues of four-armed warriors rose proudly from bedrock, distorted variations of the Holy Emperor.

"False idols..." Ogami growled. "Topple them!"

"Wait," Tanaka began. "It might be a trap..."

He was too late. The Genestealer Cultists sprang the ambush. Mining lasers and heavy Punisher Gatling cannon shots rang against Okami, the Questoris Knight reeling from the heavy blows. Caught in the crossfire from all sorts of heavy weapons, Ogami attempted to adjust his ion shields to deflect the flaring energy beams and solid shots, but the adamantium armor was buckling.

Then Chiba screamed. Tanaka whirled around, only to see the Knight Moirax get knocked over by a monstrous creature. It resembled a Genestealer, but it was much larger. A Patriarch? He could feel hynoptic waves emanating from the foul xenos, a power that had dulled Chiba's senses and left him open to attack. The Patriarch tore into his Knight Moirax viciously, ripping out armor and cabling.

"Get away from him, you freak!" Tanaka shouted, his words reminsicent of that super famous warrant officer from the star freighter Nostromo who survived hostile contact with a black xenomorph. The Patriach turned toward him and lunged, but Tanaka swung his reaper chain-cleaver and cut a gruesome wound into the Patriarch. It hissed and reeled, only for Tanaka to vaporize the monstrosity with a shot from his carapace meltagun. The incandescent beam roared, cooking the shrieking xenos and turning it into ash.

Tanaka's eyes widened. "Whoa, that was a lucky shot...and he got super unlucky too."

"It's not over yet!" Ogami snapped. Okami was stepping forward, his las-impulsor thundering. Low intensity beams cut through a squad of Acolytes before he charged into a second horde, stomping on them with the Knight Preceptor's titanic feet. On the other side, Kanda's Knight Moirax fired, the graviton pulsars crushing a squad of cultist bikers into pulp. Suzuki's Armiger Warglaive then sliced apart the jeep with Hebi's reaper chain-cleaver, reducing the light vehicle to wreckage and sending severed pieces of the riders flying into the air in a mist of blood.

The stolen Leman Russ tank reversed and spatt projectiles and las-beams at the approaching Knight Preceptor, but Okami would not be denied. With a determined yell, Ogami swung the Reaper chainsword and cut the Leman Russ tank apart, the halves of the armored vehicle spinning away from each other and its occupants obliterated by the shimmering power field that enveloped the whirring blade.

The Atalan Jackal recklessly charged Suzuki's wounded Hebi, which had taken a few shots from the cultists' seismic cannons and mining lasers, but he cut her down before she could drill a hole into his cockpit with her sniper rifle. While he kicked the broken bike down, Tanaka finished off the Cultists with a sweep from his Reaper chain-cleaver. Whatever remnants broke and ran were finished off by graviton pulses from Kanda's Knight Moirax.

"Hey! It's not over yet!" Ogami warned. The bondsmen looked up, only to see Okami squish a reductor saboteur under its titanic feet. A few of the mines went off, exploding under the Knight Preceptor, but miraculously it shrugged off the damage with what appeared to be nothing but faith.

The benevolence of the Omnissiah, indeed.

"We won!" Ogami crowed. Tanakan frowned.

"That felt a little too easy," he warned. "I think the Cult has more forces hidden somewhere. Best to be more cautious."

"Don't be such a debbie downer!" Ogami snapped. "I say we press on and continue to drive the xenos filth from the planet!"

Tanaka had a bad feeling about this...

...that feeling manifested hours later when he lay in the cockpit of Kazan, watching helplessly as the Patriarch tore through his forces. An obliterated Leman Russ tank lay several dozen meters away, having been fried by the high intensity laser of Ogami's las-impulsor, and cultist bikers lay strewn about, corpses entwined with wrecked vehicles. Despite their best efforts, the Genestealer Cultists had pushed on, with the Patriarch a literal one-man army that smashed through the entire Lance.

"How the hell did the Patriarch survive so many melta shots pointblank?!" He demanded. He had watched the Patriarch eat a couple of thermal beams...only to shrug them off as if they were nothing. Instead, the Acolytes next to him suddenly died, as if they were the ones shot by the meltagun instead. The same thing happened when he cut the Patriarch apart with his Reaper chain-cleaver...only for the injuries to somehow transfer to the Acolytes not far from him instead. Tanaka shook his head in disbelief. "That's bullshit."

As the Genestealer Cultists ran rampant over the Knights' lines, Ogami gave a final order.

"Retreat! Get out of here!"

"We're trying to," Tanaka grumbled, fumbling with the hatch. Then he noticed something in the distance. A cloud of dust billowing upward and surrounding a horde of...squigs?

"WAAAGH!"

"Oh...things just keep getting better and better," he moaned. "God-Emperor, why must You do this to us?"

"Actually, this is a chance," Kanda said suddenly, halting his attempts to scramble free from his Helm Mechanicum.

"What do you mean?" Ogami demanded.

"The Orks and xenos cultists are going to fight each other. While the greenskins and mutants battle, we'll take the chance to get out of here."

"Already on it."

Everyone jolted when Magos Decimar spoke up, his cold, mechanical voice blaring through their cockpits. He had a bunch of salvage vehicles at the ready, including Atlas recovery tanks. Servitors were swarming over the downed Knights, hooking them up and pulling them away from the battlefield as the Genestealer Cultists turned to meet the Orks in combat.

"We calculated a 98.6% probahility that this would happen, and thus had the salvage vehicles on standby. You are lucky."

"Hmph." Ogami scoffed. Meanwhile, Tanaka breathed a sigh of relief.

"Looks like we live to fight another day." He then stared at the Orks and shuddered. "I sure hope we don't run into their walkers...I heard rumors that they scavenged fallen Knight armors from other Houses to build a bunch of their own walkers."

"Don't jinx us!" Suzuki whined. "You always have to jinx us, don't you?"

Personally, Tanaka would call it being a realist, but he decided to stay silent and wait for the Atlas tank to tow Kazan to safety while praying fervently to the Emperor that they wouldn't get massacred one-sidedly again like they did today.

It's Time...to face the Cult of Time!

"After the last few battles, which has been far too close for comfort, the Shogun has decided to dispatch me to whip you guys into shape!"

Ogami, the grizzled veteran noble who piloted the Questoris Knight Preceptor, Okami, growled sternly as he surveyed the cowering bondsmen from a holo-pict fizzling in their respective Helm Mechanicum. He tapped his fingers, clad as they were in haptic gloves, against his console impatiently.

"They have also seen fit to reinforce you with a second Armiger Knight Moirax. Chiba, get into position with the rest."

"Yes, my lord."

The fourth and newest bondsman had his Armiger Knight Moirax amble toward the rest. Tanaka grimaced as he watched the two newcomers, a sinking feeling in his stomach.

"Sir Ogami," he ventured boldly. "What's our mission this time? Command has yet to brief us."

"Our lord Shogun has, in his infinite wisdom, assigned us to protect the Aquilian Shrine." Ogami gestured toward the gigantic temple where five gigantic statues loomed over even his towering Questoris Knight. They represented five of the Loyalist Primarchs who fought as the Holy Emperor's right hand. The Praetorian, Rogal Dorn. The Angel, Sanguinius. The Warhawk, Jaghatai Khan. The Lord of the First, Lion El'Jonson. And last of all, the current Lord Commander of the Imperium and the savior upon whose shoulders the fate of the Imperium rested on, Roboute Guilliman.

Granted, the magnificent statue of the Lord Commander had been sculpted long before he had woken up from his millennia old coma, and Tanaka personally thought it didn't resemble the actual Primarch who was now leading the Indomitus Crusade, but he decided to keep his opinion to himself.

"Um, we're to protect the Aquilian Shrine, sir?"

"That's right. Intelligence has received reports that heretics are planning to raze the sacred statues of the Loyal Primarchs. If they are allowed to freely desecrate these magnificent idols, they would be able to conduct a foul ritual that might call forth nightmarish horrors on par with those our ancestors faced during Old Night and engulf this world in calamity."

Tanaka tried not to scoff at his superior's pretentious tone. Instead, he kept a straight face and nodded.

"Understood, Sir Ogami. We'll do our best to defend this shrine from the heretics."

"Uh...heretics as in traitor Astartes?" Suzuki asked nervously.

Turning around, Tanaka caught sight of Suzuki's Armiger Warglaive, Hebi, tottering in front of the statue of Sanguinius. For some reason, it looked as if Hebi was sparkling under the moonlight, but then Tanaka realized that those minute flashes were malicious volleys of gunfire cascading against Hebi's failing ion shield.

"Yeah...those look like legionnaires of the Thousand Sons to me," Suzuki said, his eyes wide. Inferno bolts were detonating viciously against his flickering ion shield. Silent rows of Rubricae marched, their inferno boltguns leveled and firing hails of ensorcelled rounds. They were joined by the elite Scarab Occult Terminators, their inferno combi-bolters and soulreaper cannons roaring violently, empyrean flames wreathing the streaking shells.

Then Hebi exploded.

"Not again!" Suzuki howled as he was ejected from his Helm Mechanicum. Chiba's Knight Moirax rocked from the resulting inferno, though his ion shield protected him from the worst. On the opposite end, a single Rubric Marine was engulfed by the expanding plasma, its power armor melting from the sheer heat. The Sorcerer leading the squad didn't spare his fallen automata a second glance, leading his Rubric Marines toward the statue of Sanguinius.

"Take out those Traitors!" Ogami bellowed. "Follow my lead!"

His Knight Preceptor, Okami, surged ahead, its multilaser and las-impulsor spitting lethal rays of superheated light at the two squads of Rubric Marines before him. They...missed, and the few lasers that hit only grazed a Rubric Marine. Tanaka buried his face in his palm, only to realize that a third squad of Rubric Marines bearing warpflamers were advancing upon his position. He triggered his meltagun and thermal cannon, but only one of them was vaporized.

I guess I can't fault Sir Ogami when my own aim is so terrible...

Kanda and Chiba wisely hung back, aiming their paired graviton pulsars at the massive squad of Scarab Occult Terminators. Distorted waves of gravity hammered them, crushing the immense tactical dreadnought armor and warping them. Tanaka had an impression of crushed cans before more than half of the squad were wiped out. The Scarab Occult Terminator leading them performed some mantra with his hands, and time appeared to shimmer, collapsing upon itself and rewinding. To Tanaka's astonishment, one of the Scarab Occult Terminators was restored, his heavy armor unfolding itself and returning to its original shape.

"What on Holy Terra...?"

"Charge! Destroy all the Heretics!"

Ogami was yelling zealously, his Knight Preceptor smashing into the ranks of Rubric Marines. Okami swung its reaper Chainsword and stomped on the silent, fearless squad, trampling them under its feet.

However, the Exalted Sorcerer had other plans. Reinforced by the surviving Scarab Occult Terminators, they courageously faced down the towering Knight Preceptor. Glowing energies lanced out of their gauntlets and struck Okami, causing the Knight to stumble backward. Not at all daunted by their losses, the Scarab Occult Terminators proceeded to strike and slash with their curved kopesh swords, their eyelenses glowing eerily in the dark.

Tanaka had troubles of his own. He had followed Ogami's lead and was charging the squad of Rubric Marines. They calmly opened up with their warpflamers, the mutagenic flames washing over his ion shield. Fortunately, Kazan's defenses held strong and he was able to fend off the flames. With a resolved shout, Tanaka had his Armiger Warglaive swing its reaper chain-cleaver and cleaved the formidable automata apart.

Then he heard Ogami's cry of despair. Whirling around, he saw the mighty Knight Preceptor fall, its chassis wracked by shimmering energies of warpcraft. The Exalted Sorcerer held up a clenched fist in triumph, crushing the titanic engine with sheer will alone. As if to rub salt into wounds, the Scarab Occult Terminators began the work of hacking the Knight Preceptor apart, cutting their way to the stricken Ogami's Throne Mechanicum.

"Oh no, you don't!" Chiba growled and unleashed gravitational pulses from his Knight Moirax's arm weapons. The Scarab Occult Terminators were obliterated in a single merciless volley as the new bondsman sought to avenge his mentor.

Whoa...remind me not to piss the new guy off, Tanaka thought to himself as he accelerated his Armiger Warglaive toward the reeling Exalted Sorcerer.

There was a loud crash and all three surviving bondsmen turned to stare as the statue of Sanguinius toppled. The squad of Rubric Marines that had survived Hebi's explosion had managed to reach the holy idol while everyone was distracted by the combat and razed it to the ground. Tanaka watched in dismay as the once magnificent sculpture was demolished to little more than dust.

"Uh oh..."

"Frak this!" Kanda snapped and triggered his graviton pulsars with a vengeance, annihilating the trio of Rubric Marines before they could get clear of the falling debris.

The Exalted Sorcerer appeared to hiss furiously at the loss of his Rubricae, but he wasn't given time to mourn. Kazan struck him like a ramming Retributor-class battleship...or tried to, but the Exalted Sorcerer halted the Armiger Warglaive's charge with a raised hand.

"Bloody warlock," Tanaka grumbled and shook his head. The Exalted Sorcerer appeared to sneer and was about to flex his hand to do the same warp trick he used to wreck Ogami's Okami earlier. But Tanaka had enough and triggered the carapace meltagun. "Eat this, you frakker!"

The incadescent beam lanced through the Exalted Sorcerer, catching him by surprise and punching through his shimmering forcefield. Tanaka's jaw dropped in surprise because he didn't think that would work, though he watched with no small amount of satisfaction as the thermal blast disintegrated the poor heretic into nothing more than ashes.

"Not this time, Cult of Time dude!"

"That should have done it," Chiba remarked.

"Not yet!" Kanda warned, red holo-picts of warning popping all over his Helm Mechanicum when telekinetic bolts slammed into his Armiger Knight Moirax. A Sorcerer in Terminator Armor had snuck into the back, conjuring spells to smite Kanda's machine. The guy seemed desperate after seeing his thrallband fall to the Imperial Knights and he was drawing upon the empyrean far too recklessly - to the point where he imploded from his own warp magicks. He convulsed as his body broke out in uncontrollable mutations, one of his hands turning into tentacles and the chest plate of his formidable Terminator Armor denting as something pressed against it from within.

Not one to waste an opportunity, Kanda swung his damaged Knight Moirax about and wiped the Sorcerer from existence with a direct hit from his graviton pulsar. With the servos damaged, most of his shots went wide, but enough of the gravitational pulse struck the already mortally wounded Sorcerer and squished his mutating flesh into a bloody pulp.

"Phew...now we are done." Kanda sighed in relief.

"For now," Tanaka muttered and leaned against his seat. Swiveling toward the downed wreckage of Okami, he wondered if old Ogami was still alive amidst that pile of scrap. It was only the noble's first mission with them and already he got his Knight totalled.

That did not bode well for the future at all...

Thousand Sons' Crusade!

Would have posted this earlier, but I was sick (stomach problems) so I spent the afternoon in bed in hopes that I would recover in time for tomorrow (I have a class in university tomorrow). Anyway, I played Thousand Sons in the Crusade league this time, the first time in a long while. I thought it would be fun, and it really was fun! My opponent said he would bring Adepta Sororitas, and I just played Imperial Knights against him last week, so I thought I would go Chaos to make the lore more logical (like, why would two Imperium sides fight against each other? And we already did it last week). So yeah. Anyway, let's go! Story mode once more!

Ignatius watched the temple from orbit, his brow furrowed. The Temple of the Holy Emperor was currently guarded by a small mission of Adepta Sororitas from the Order of Sacred Ashes, the zealous warriors standing sentry over its entrance with their boltguns held tightly to their chest. Though they were far from matching the transhuman Astartes in physical combat, their faith made them dangerous. Ignatius was not going to make the same mistake as his arrogant brothers and rush in recklessly, thinking he could crush them just because the enemy was mere mortals.

Even so, he had no choice but to launch a raid. He found it distasteful, but the relic in the Temple of the Holy Emperor held immense value for him, especially the arcane lore within the grimoire. As a member of the Cult of Magic, Ignatius was always looking for ways to improve his sorcery. It was the only way to survive amidst the sinister politicking within his legion. His father was not who he once had been, Magnus brooding constantly as he schemed vengeance against the Imperium who had betrayed them. Ignatius held no hatred against the Imperium, but there would be other sorcerers amongst his brothers who would question his loyalty.

Thus he needed to act.

"Let's go," he murmured to Makhat, who nodded grimly. The Scarab Occult Terminator was leading a squad of automata clad in tactical dreadnought armor. They proceeded toward the teleportarium chamber aboard Ignatius's battle barge, Honor of Tizca and readied for the combat.

Below, Ulysses ducked instinctively as a shell screamed overhead, crashing into the lines of Cultists. Traitor Guardsmen who had thrown in their lot with the Thousand Sons and Tzeentchian cults after the psychic awakening, Ulysses Uriel, formerly of the Stygian Fourth Imperial Guard, had defected when he realized to his horror the burgeoning psychic potential within him. It started with the mutations, and aware that the Imperium did not take too kindly to witches and mutants appearing within their ranks, he made a run for it before the Commissar learned of his newly found...abilities.

However, being sent to the worst battlefields the galaxy had to offer meant that his defection to the Thousand Sons was little better. Nonetheless, it at least provided a slim chance of survival. He knew that if he had stayed with the Astra Militarum, he would definitely be dead, executed by a bolt round from Commissar Holt.

That hope of survival seemed ever more distant now as the shell exploded above their heads. Ulysses heard the stricken screams of his comrades even as he dove for cover. Scrambling to his feet and rushing toward a small ruin that used to be part of the previously glorious temple, he risked a glance over his shoulder and saw that his squad had been reduced to two men. Six of them had been instantly pulped to blood and viscera by the detonation, and two more were fleeing in the other direction. Ulysses cursed their cowardice but didn't blame them. He glanced back at the Castigator tank rolling up to his position. He could only hope that the Adepta Sororitas sister didn't spot him or Belial as they hid inside the broken block.

To his relief, the Castigator tank turned away. In the distance, five giants lumbered out of the fog, their eyes glowing eerily. Ulysses recognized his masters. What did they call them? Yes, the Rubricae. He had heard the rumors even as the cultists and traitor guardsmen gathered in the lower decks of the traitor Astartes's battle barge...how these silent giants were little more than dust sealed within power armor. Their strength could not be denied, however. He watched as the battle sisters unloaded a volley of bolt rounds, the harsh bark and thunderous roar of detonations against the shimmering field of energy that shrouded the Rubric Marines.

For a moment, the Rubric Marines didn't fire back. Ulysses didn't understand why. They certainly were shrugging off the exploding bolts as if they were nothing more than harmless sparks. Was it to strike fear in the hearts of the enemy? Even so, the tactic wasn't working. The Sisters remained stoic, holding their ground as they continued to shoot their devastating bolt rounds.

Against any other enemy infantry, such firepower would lay them low, but the Rubric Marines remained totally unscathed.

Then they opened fire.

Ulysses finally understood why they took so long. They were trying to close the gap, to get within range of their warpflamers. The five Rubric Marines opened up with a sheen of roaring, luminous flame that engulfed the Sisters. The renegade guardsman shuddered when he heard the shrieks that he didn't think could possibly come from such stalwart, zealous warriors. Their power armor melted and sloughed off their shifting flesh. Ulysses watched in horror as the Sisters didn't just die...they mutated, their flesh writhing and taking on nightmarish forms. One of them turned into a fuming blob of flesh and tendrils, smoking on the ground. Another was a hideous mound of putrefying liquid.

The surviving Sisters retreated, even as the Rubric Marines smashed into their lines, clobbering them with gauntlets. One Sister went down, her helm caved in, while another fell, the breastplate of her power armor dented before a Rubricae callously stomped on her. If the first blow didn't kill her, then the second certainly did. The sorcerer who led them twirled his force stave about, trading blows with the Canoness who was trying to rally them, and though she parried his long weapon with her power sword, she knew that they couldn't prevail in close combat. With a shout, she ordered her surviving Sisters to survive.

Of the ten battle sisters who guarded the Temple of the Holy Emperor, only three remained.

The Seraphim swooped down on them from behind, intent on unleashing bolt rounds upon the Rubric Marines who so tormented their Sisters. However, as if forewarned, the Aspiring Sorcerer controlling the automata had his Rubricae immediately spin around. Gouts of mutagenic flames snarled and wrapped around the descending Seraphim. Still in midair, none of the Seraphim were able to dodge and all five of them were reduced into mutating husks of immolated flesh that strained and broke through semi-molten armor. The jet packs spluttered and coughed before the falling Seraphim crashed, their ow monstrous forms mercifully consumed by the explosions.

The Sisters were not without teeth, however. The Castigator tank rolled up, ignoring the remaining Cultists for now, and opened fire. The heavy bolters scythed down the Rubric Marines. Ulysses watched, fascinated, as one of them fell, his power armor split open. Glimmering dust spilled out from the broken shell, drifting on the hot wind that swept across the battlefield. The turret barked and the rest of the Rubric Marines were enveloped in explosions.

No matter how durable they were, they wouldn't have survived that. Ulysses felt his heart sink. The surviving Sisters and a group of Sisters Repentia were converging on his position now. He clutched his lasgun tightly, wondering if he should flee.

But where would he go?

Before he could make a move, however, there was a bright spark. Ulysses felt his heart lift at the dazzling sight, knowing what it meant.

His new lord had finally made his appearance.

Ignatius looked around grimly, noting the wrecked armor of Rubricae sprawled over the ruins of the temple. The Castigator tank was turning around to face the new threat, but he was quickly running several calculations. With a telepathic order, he coordinated their strike. Fullisades of inferno bolts streamed from their combi-bolters, crashing against the reeling Sisters and destroying them. One Sister was cut down by the roaring shells from the Soul Reaper cannon borne by Tiowatt. The Scarab Occult Terminators then charged the Canoness, who defiantly met their charge with her power sword. Her power armor sparked from the shots she had taken, but she refused to let her injuries slow her down. Limping forward with a determined cry, she swung her power sword.

It did little against the nigh impenetrable terminator plate, and the return blow from Hedoran took her head off. The Scarab Occult Terminators continued trudging forward, neither gloating nor honoring their opponent. The mindless automata were almost dismissive of their foe, their ghostly attention now directed toward the Castigator tank who opened fire on them.

Makhat raised a hand and conjured a psychic barrrier that deflected most of the shots. Even so, one of the Terminators went down, his sapphire plate broken apart by a high explosive shell fired from the Castigator tank. The Scarab Occult Terminators didn't have much time to engage, though, for the howling Sisters Repentia sprinted toward them, their eviscerators screeching with rage. Their Sister Superior goaded them on, her neural whip lashing out incessantly as she also tried to close the gap.

As one, the remaining Scarab Occult Terminators raised their inferno combi-bolters and fired with near prescient accuracy. Three of the screaming Sisters Repentia were mowed down by the ensorcelled rounds, but the last survivor close in, swinging her massive eviscerator. Tiowatt deflected it before cleaving her in half with his power sword. Beside him, Hedoran sent the Sister Superior staggering with a slash, even as her neural whips struck ineffectually against his formidable terminator plate.

Ignatius reached out with his mind and crushed her with a spell, imploding her body from within. Before her corpse hit the ground, he turned around and blasted the approaching Castigator tank with empyrean energies. The large vehicle shuddered, reeling from the sorcerous blow, its hull quivering. The astral blast must have done some damage, for his Scarab Occult Terminators opened up, pounding its weakened plating with inferno rounds and punching holes through its hull. The smoking Castigator tank tried to turn around, but Ignatius charged, his force stave ramming into the driver's compartment and leaving a dent.

The Sister driving the tank snarled in defiance, her helm cracked and blood streaming down her face. She tried to turn the heavy bolters about to pummel Ignatius, but with a grace that belied his heavy Tartaros Terminator armor, he dodged the streams of devastating shells. Spinning his force stave about, he struck the weakened front plating of the Castigator tank. This time, it collapsed and he ran his weapon through the driver's chest, the length of his force stave crackling with arcane energies. The Sister convulsed, a curse on her bloodied lips before she expired.

Ignatius studied her form and the broken tank, a tinge of sorrow crossing over his features. Straightening up, he then turned to regard the temple he had seized from the Order of Sacred Ashes. Within, the tome awaited, its esoteric lore finally his.

"Let us go," he told Makhat, striding forward. The Scarab Occult Terminators followed him without hesitation, their eerily glowing eyes piercing through the cloud of dust that swirled around the battlefield. "We'll grab The Treastise on Imperial Psykers and leave this place before more Imperials arrive."