"Time for another training exercise!"
Nosferato led a bigger army of his Encarmine Angels to challenge the Knights of House Yato, primarily because he wanted to avenge their last defeat. However, he also had another motive.
"We're training to fight against Aku's Thousand Sons thrallband! We got crushed by them a couple of times before, so now we're determined to beat them!"
"Um...aren't we the worst practice partners then?" Tanaka asked. Ensconced within his Throne Mechanicum of the venerable Knight Castellan, Kazan, he wasn't worried about facing the Encarmine Angels once more. The Thousand Sons thrallband, on the other hand... "We're not warp magick wielding sorcerers. We are dudes in Knight armor suits."
"That's fine. I've called in a few more Terminators, a host of Sanguinary Guard and a Leviathan Dreadnought. I'm sure we'll do better this time!"
Tanaka noticed that the Stormraven was missing. I guess Sir Nosfetaru is trying a new strategy this time.
"By the way," Suzuki said. "I think Aku and his thrallband ran off somewhere. Apparently, they were recalled to the Planet of the Sorcerers by the daemon primarch, Magnus, so we won't see them again."
"That sucks," Ogami complained. He turned his Knight Preceptor, Okami, toward the Encarmine Angels. "Well, we'll just practice, in case a Tyranid horde or another Thousand Sons thrallband attacks tomorrow."
"Sounds good to me. You guys can go first."
Tanaka was feeling generous, so he had everyone sit back while the Encarmine Angels played out their opening moves. According to Nosferato's instructions, the Encarmine Angels advanced, while the Devastator squad hung behind to search for Archeotech. The rest ran forward.
"Seriously?"
Tanaka opened fire with his volcano lance and obliterated the poor Leviathan Dreadnought from existence. Meanwhile, the three Armiger Warglaives rushed forward, with Suzuki and Sato attacking. A tactical squad fell, reduced heavily by the melta shots. Ogami also pressed forward, firing into the Assault Intercessor squad and cutting one of them down. Meanwhile, Kanda and Chiba took out a tactical squad with their grav pulsars and Sendo simultaneously performed an action to raise an idol on an objective marker. Watanabe followed his example, Tsurugi guarding a second objective marker while constructing an idol.
In contrast, only a single Encarmine Angels squad had managed to successfully raised an idol.
"We'll demonstrate our superiority in combat!" Ogami vowed as he charged into the surviving Assault Intercessors with Okami. Swinging his chainsword, he scythed them down. Not a single one survived.
Unfortunately, the Encarmine Angels turned the tables on the Knights of House Yato. Pummeling Okami with a combination of melta shots, grav pulses from grav cannons, and boltguns, they blasted past his ion shield and sent him staggering. The Librarian, enhanced by Quickening, rushed in and destroyed Okami with his force weapon.
"For our honored gene-father, Sanguinius!" He yelled, raising his force sword in triumph.
"UGH!" Ogami howled. "I died again! Why am I always the first to die?!"
"Hey, you were the only one who survived against the Tyranids the last time," Suzuki pointed out, rotating his ion shields to keep out the Terminators' storm bolter onslaught. "I guess we're returning to normal now."
Terminators appeared everywhere, showing up in the Knights' backline as well as in the front. The Sanguinary Guard also descended right behind Kazan and fired a mixture of plasma and Angelus boltguns. Fortunately, they didn't do too much damage. The Captain and Sanguinary Ancient then charged in and did some damage to Kazan, causing the Knight Castellan to reel. The Contemptor Dreadnought also fired and did some damange to Kanda's Knight Moirax.
"Yikes!"
Kanda and Chiba spun about to fire at the Terminators with storm shields, but only 3 of them were crushed by the gravitic weapons, their storm shields holding strong.
Falling back from the two angry Marines, Tanaka annihilated the Sanguinary Captain with meltaguns, as well as took out the surviving Terminators and Contemptor Dreadnought with a bunch of his weapons. On the other side, Suzuki vaporized a single Terminator with his melta weapons, and then charged in. Meanwhile, Watanabe moved on to construct a third idol on the center objective, while Sato took out the remaining tactical squad in front of the Devastators, who just barely survived the last onslaught.
Sendo opened fire with his paired lightning locks, but the third tactical squad were dug in cover deeply, and the electric currents bounced off most of their armor without much effect. At least he succeeded in killing two of them.
Then Tanaka attempted to stomp the Sanguinary Ancient, but failed to kill the dude with his nerfed stomps (Titanic Feet).
"What happened to the 12 attacks?" He complained.
Suzuki had better luck, killing another couple of Terminators with his reaper chain-cleaver. The Terminator sergeant swung back, rocking Hebi, but the Armiger Warglaive withstood the Space Marine's assault.
The Sanguinary Guard retaliated ferociously against Tanaka, almost destroying his Knight Castellan. Kazan suffered horrible damage from inferno pistols and was almost laid low by their Encarmine blades, swaying unsteadily. Fortunately, the Paragon trait allowed Kazan to shrug off damage from a single strike.
"Phew, that was close." Tanaka sighed in relief. Unfortunately, Chiba saw his Armiger Moirax Knight smashed halfway by Nosferatu, who was determined to at least gain some honor for his crumbling Chapter. He also locked Kanda in combat, preventing the two Armigers Moirax from firing their blast weapons.
"This sucks!" Kanda complained.
Sendo continued to fire, but this time, only one tactical marine went down from his lightning locks. On the other hand, the Librarian fought against Sato's Armiger Warglaive and wounded him, while taking three damage.
Tanaka retreated and vaporized the Sanguinary Guard with his two twin meltaguns. Suzuki finished off the last Terminator with a meltagun shot, as did Sato, and the two of them tried to charge the Devastators. Suzuki's Hebi almost went down to their overwatch, and he only killed their sergeant in combat. Sato was too far away to succeed.
Watanabe toppled the idol that the first tactical squad had set up and put up House Yato's own.
"We're winning on objectives!" he cheered.
"Let's hope we survive as well," Tanaka grumbled as he charged and finally stomped the annoying Sanguinary Ancient to death. "Damn the nerfs to Titanic Feet."
The Chapter Master, Nosferatu, finally wrecked Chiba's Armiger Moirax with his relic hammer.
"Hah! That's two vehicles down! We're raking in the experience points!"
He then proceeded to smash Kanda's Armiger Moirax, but fortunately the latter survived with barely a few wounds remaining. The Devastators also fell back to search for more archeotech, realizing there was little point in staying locked in combat with an Armiger Warglaive. Hebi strained to chase after them.
"Don't worry, we'll charge again!" Suzuki growled. But he allowed Hebi to fire a melta shot...only to miss.
Kanda had his Knight Moirax fall back, and Tanaka was finally able to get a clear shot. All the guns went into Nosferatu, and the Chapter Master fell, his body annihilated (fortunately, this was just a training exercise, so he didn't die). The wounded tactical marine was taken out by another volley from Sendo's lightning locks, and only the guy with the multimelta was left.
Suzuki and Sato charged, and this time the overwatch did nothing to Suzuki's heavily damaged Hebi. Kaen got the first swing, and Sato was able to claim two kills, leaving just two Devastators on the battlefield.
"All right, we surrender."
With just three guys left, the Encarmine Angels surrendered, realizing there was little point in continuing the exercise. They had prepared to fight Thousand Sons, but the Knights were a completely different army.
"Well, it's always a learning experience," the wounded Nosferatu said, looking on the bright side. "At least Aku and his thrallband are gone, so there's that."
"Don't worry, we'll accompany you on as many training exercises as you want," Tanaka assured them with a friendly smile. "The more experience you get, the better you'll become!"