"Certainly!" Ogami replied enthusiatically. "Let's get started!"
He clambered into Okami and started the Knight Preceptor immediately. While the Encarmine Angels went into position, with a tactical squad and a Relic Contemptor Dreadnought scrambling into the Stormraven, along with Nosferato and a librarian who was totally not named Mephiston. The other two tactical squads scrambled elsewhere, searching for archeotech and aiming to fulfil their agendas. Meanwhile, the Terminator squads deployed, the Assault Terminator squad staying in Telepotarium and the Relic Tartaros Terminators marching inexorably across the battlefield.
That turned out to be a mistake.
Whoops, best not to get too ahead of ourselves, shall we? Tanaka cleared his throat and opened his vox.
"Um, lords of the Encarmine Angels Chapter, please go first. We'll allow you to take the first turn."
"Sure. Thank you very much. That's very much appreciated, Sir Tanaka." Nosferato didn't hesitate. He had the Stormraven zoom forward and open fire on Kanda's Armiger Moirax, and despite the latter's best attempts to rotate his ion shields, the Knight armor took severe damage from plasma, melta and hurricane bolter shots. The plasma washed over the ion shields and the missiles detonated harmlessly against the shimmering barrier, but the melta burned a hole through the Armiger Moirax and sent it reeling. Kanda swore when the bolts from the hurricane bolters detonated within damaged circuits, further knocking the Armiger Moirax over.
But he survived somehow.
"Time to counterattack," Tanaka muttered, noting the multiple targeting reticules that danced all over the visual auspex in his Throne Mechanicum. Squeezing the trigger, he blasted the Stormraven apart with his siegebreaker cannons and volcano lance, turning the bird into molten slag. The tactical squad, Nosferato and Not Mesphiston grav-chuted out, but two of the tactical marines were vaporized by the explosion, unable to escape in time. Fortunately, the Relic Contemptor Dreadnought bailed out without difficulty, allowing his grav-chute to slow his descent.
Tanaka left them be and instead targeted the slow moving Tartaros Terminators with his souped up plasma decimator. Nicknamed Cawl's Wrath, the enhanced plasma decimator wiped out the entire Tartaros Terminator squad in a single volley.
"...that was unexpected," he muttered, his eyes wide.
Chiba fired with the grav pulsars mounted upon his Armiger Moirax and finished off the tactical squad. Meanwhile, Suzuki maneuvered his Armiger Warglaive, Hebi, toward the idol and sanctified it, just like the Encarmine Angels tactical squad opposite the battlefield.
As long as they continued doing that, they should be able to score some points for the exercise.
"Charge!" Ogami shouted as he charged his Knight Preceptor toward the Contemptor Dreadnought. The las-impulsor fired, glancing through the atomantic shielding of the venerable, but the war machine endured stoically. Unfortunately, Okami didn't make the charge and stopped just short of the Contemptor Dreadnought, who then counterattacked ferociously with his fists.
Tanaka tried to move forward to help, but he found his position under threat when five Asssault Terminators teleported almost on top of him and charged Kazan. Their thunder hammers smashed apart joints and pistons, causing his mount to sway.
"Ugh!"
While fighting Okami, the Contemptor Dreadnought was able to fire at Kanda's Armiger Moirax, further damaging it. Urielt Nosferato joined in, smashing his relic thunder hammer against Okami and sent the Knight Preceptor reeling.
Despite being on his last legs, Ogami swung back with his reaper chainsword defiantly, cleaving the Contemptor Dreadnought in two.
"Yes!" He cheered. He then turned and blasted Nosferato apart with his las-impulsor, wiping the Chapter Master from existence. Well, given that this was a training exercise, Nosferato survived, but he was still severely injured. Given time, he would recover, so the Daimyo was not too worried about that.
Rather, Tanaka was more worried about his Knight. He triggered the twin meltaguns and fired at the Assault Terminators, but wasn't able to kill them. They survived the onslaught, weathering even the wrath of plasma decimator because of their storm shields. By the time he finished firing, only one Assault Terminator was left, and he was very, very angry.
On the other side, Kanda fired and slew Not Mephiston with his grav pulsars. Chiba followed his example and took out about four or so tactical marines with his grav pulsars, but the sergeant ducked into cover, even as he continued to sanctify the idol to score more points. Suzuki mirrored his tactic, choosing to sanctify the idol instead of shooting with his thermal spear.
The angry Assault Terminator hammered Kazan, almost sending the titanic machine to its knees. Tanaka gritted his teeth and tried to stomp back, but he wasn't able to kick the Assault Terminator away. Fortunately, he was able to finish the guy off with his twin meltaguns.
The surviving tactical squads decided to hide out of sight and away from the big guns of the Knights.
"You know what?" Tanaka sighed. "Let's call it a day. There's no need to wipe you out."
"Thanks," the sergeant of the Encarmine Angels said in relief. "We owe you."
"No problem." Tanaka was just pleased that the training exercise ended without any bad blood. On the other side, Ogami was celebrating even as his Knight Preceptor advanced toward one of the objectives.
"I survived! This is the first time I actually survived a battle! WOOHOO! Good job, Okami!"
"Yeah, that's a good reason to celebrate," Suzuki agreed with a sigh of relief. "Hebi survived this time too."
"Well, it's a nice little training exercise," Tanaka replied. "Let's hope we have more of this in the future."