Renegade Spring Up GT

The second day of the Renegade Spring up GT was just as fun as the first. As I said yesterday, the fourth mission was Tear Down their Idols, and so...yeah. My opponent this time was Dark Angels. He had 3 Relic Contemptor Dreadnoughts with volkite culverins, a Talonmaster, Azrael, 5 Bladeguard Veterans, an Apocethary, 6 Eradicators divided into 2 squad, several squads of Infiltrators, a squad of Assault Intercessors, and more. I can't remember what else he had.

Um, it was quite the brutal game. I think he managed to drop my Knight Preceptor to 8 wounds in a single round of shooting just from the Volkite Contemptor Dreadnoughts alone. Despite doing my best, I was only able to destroy one Contemptor Dreadnought and reduce the other 2 to 4 wounds each. Yikes. My Knight Preceptor, despite his best efforts, only killed 1 or 2 Infiltrators.

The Dark Angels then proceeded to kill 3 Knights in the second turn with the 6 Eradicators. With most of them hiding out of view, I couldn't do much, despite shooting whatever I could. I eventually killed 1 squad of Infiltrators, but was unable to finish off the Eradicators because they had a 4++ invulnerable save from Azrael. The Eradicators took out more of my Knights, including my Knight Castellan, who failed all of his invulnerable saves and took tons of damage from both the volkite Contemptor Dreadnoughts and Eradicators. Eventually, I was left with 2 Armiger Knights, and despite finishing off the Eradicators and holding the center objective for most of the game, I lost. The score was 86-77 in my opponent's favor, with me scoring only a single point for Bring It Down. If only we had better secondary objectives for Knights. Oh, well. Still, the only reason why I scored so many points (77!) was because I attained a lot of primary objective points. I think I almost maxed it out, with 44. Unfortunately, I was unable to capitalize on it, and scoring only 1 point for Bring It Down was one of the major reasons why I lost. Assassinate would have been worse - I didn't kill any Characters, so I would have gotten 0 for that. Maybe I should have taken Grind Them Down. Would have scored 3 from killing the Contemptor Dreadnought in the first turn alone. Oh, well. It is what it is. In contrast, my opponent maxed out on To The Last, with the Talonmaster, Azreal and the Bladeguard Veterans surviving. Yikes.

The second game was Data Scry-Salgave. This time my opponent was T'au! Unlike most T'au players, he chose the T'au sept that gives a re-roll for shooting or wounding (just one), and Kauyon instead of Montka. Cool! He also had a Stormsurge, which made me really excited. I always wanted to play Knights versus Stormsurge, so yeah! Um, his list had Commander Shadowsun, a Coldstar Commander, Darkstrider, an Ethereal, 3 squads of 10 Breachers, 10 Pathfinders, 2 Devilfishes, 9 Crisis Suits (3 squads of 3), 6 Stealth Suits (2 squads of 3) and the Stormsurge. Nice.

For the first time ever in this tournament, I got first turn. Not that it did much for me because my opponent simply hid his Stormsurge in reserves and hid all of his infantry behind cover. Yikes. So I literally only killed a single Devilfish and 10 Pathfinders in the first turn, and that was it. The Crisis Suits ran up and nuked my Knight Preceptor into oblivion. Ouch. At least he didn't blow up next to my Armigers. Fortunately, I was able to lead on Primary objectives once again, with my Armigers just grabbing whatever objectives they could. My opponent attempted to deny me my objectives by piling his Breachers into the objectives, but I simply killed them with my Armiger Warglaives and my Armiger Knight Moirax. With nothing to shoot at, my Knight Castellan did Data Intercept (yeah, it was hilarious).

The Stormsurge arrived and...didn't do much, I think he did like 6 or so damage to my Knight Castellan despite firing everything at him? Honestly, it was also because I used Rotate Ion Shields and made awesome invulnerable saves. One of my three Armiger Moiraxes wasn't as lucky and died to Crisis Suit fire. Ouch. I wasn't able to kill the Stormsurge, though, and despite my Knight Castellan using Order of Companions to re-roll all ones, I only reduced him to 3 wounds. I did kill 2 Stealth Suits, the Devilfish, and maybe 1 or 2 Crisis Suits (more like killed one and wounded the other, only for him to die from a mortal wound when he supercharged his cyclin ion blaster and rolled a 1 twice). I wasn't able to do much...well, I did have my Armiger Warglaive advance, fire, and used Full Tilt to charge the Breachers and steal the objective right from them. On the other side, I lost my remaining Armiger Moiraxes to Crisis Suit fire, and the Stormsurge finally reduced my Knight Castellan to 2 wounds. On the other side, my Armiger Warglaive survived fire and charges from 3 Crisis Battlesuits and Stealth Suits, and he cut down one or two Stealth Suits. I think. Phew.

Finally I killed the Stormsurge with my Knight Castellan, as well as the Stealth suit (by charging him), while my Armiger Warglaive continued to hack away and kill another Stealth Suit in combat. Another Armiger Warglaive came up the board, charged and killed the remaining Breachers (though melta helped a lot too). Unfortunately, my Knight Castellan - despite suffering a lot of fire from 4 Crisis Suits, survived...only to finally die to Shadowsun's fire. He didn't blow up, sadly enough. Would be great if he did, but oh well. The Crisis Suits killed 1 Armiger Warglaive. The other one charged and killed the last remaining Stealth Suit while my last Armiger Warglaive went in and charged the 3 Crisis Suits. I wasn't able to do anything, unfortunately, and my opponent proceeded to kill the Armiger Warglaive in his deployment zone, but my last Armiger Warglaive survived, taking like 6 or so wounds from plasma rifles. Yes! I didn't get tabled!

It was brutal, and I was almost tabled, with only a single Armiger Warglaive remianing at the end of the game, while my opponent still had all of his Characters and 7 Crisis Suits. And the Shield Drones, because I realized it would be impossible for my Knights to kill the damned Crisis Suits, so I gave up on shooting them or the Coldstar Commander. Sigh.

Fortunately, thanks to me holding objectives and playing to the mission, I scored 39 for primary while denying him (I think he had 17 for primary). The final score was 74 to 60, with me somehow pulling a win out of the bag despite losing almost my entire army (a single Armiger Warglaive being the only survivor) and almost getting tabled. Whoa. That was unexpected. I had expected the Tau to win because of how many models he had left on the table and how he almost tabled me, but...wow. Good going, Knights.

Somehow, my Knights - in this tournament, at least - end up being unable to kill anything, but score big on primary objectives. The Objective Secured Armigers and their count as 5 models (10 for Titanic) are really important. Without those, I would have lost all my games. Thank you, Games Workshop, for giving us back Objective Secured and count as 5/10 models in the Balance Dataslate before the new codex came out. Otherwise I would have been screwed. Ugh.

In any event, I finished the tournament with 2 losses, 2 wins and a tie. Not bad, if you ask me. That gave me 20th place out of 39 with 382 battle points. Phew! I enjoyed myself tremendously, and many thanks to the Renegade people for organizing this! It was fun as hell, and there were a few unexpected results, but all in all, it was an amazing experience. Looking forward to another tournament in the near future, though I doubt I'll be participating in the summer GT. I'll be returning to Singapore for the summer to visit my folks, so yeah. No summer tournaments for me, no Waaaghfest. That's fine. I really need to visit my parents and brother after 3 years stuck in the US because of covid. It's time to return!

Hopefully the Renegade GT in November will be just as fun! I can't wait! Oh, and Horus Heresy too!

Renegade Spring Up GT

I'm exhausted, so I'm going to keep the battle report brief today. Basically I participated in the Renegade Wargaming Spring Up Grand Tournament for Warhammer 40,000 today. I'll be going to bed early because I need to go for the last 2 rounds tomorrow, so yeah, best to keep this short. Not like I can remember much anyway.

As you all know, I play Imperial Knights. There was a scare when Games Workshop released the balance dataslate 2 weeks ago, which removed the Objective Secured for Armigers and the "count as 5 models, 10 for Titanic" rules. Apparently, we're getting them in the codex, so Games Workshop or whoever thought they could just take out those rules, never mind that it'll screw Knights over during the 1 or 2 months before their codex arrived, even though we have tournaments like the Renegade Open Spring Up GT and stuff. I changed my list and added Thousand Sons (so Rubric Marines and Scarab Occult Terminators) to "Chaos" Knights because I needed infantry with Objective Secured to grab objectives. Thankfully, Games Workshop had a change of heart and gave Knights back their "count as 5/10 if Titanic models" and Armigers' objective Secured back last Wednesday, and the Tournament organizer, Ben Cherwien, was kind enough to allow me to change my list back to pure Knights even though the cutoff submission date for lists was Monday. Thank you, Ben.

After getting advice from the Imperial Knight discord group (which I left after having some disagreement regarding the Tyranid codex - basically everyone was whining about how overpowered the Tyranid codex was, and they attacked me and talked down to me in a very condescending manner when I suggested that we wait for the meta to settle and players to actually play games first before coming to a conclusion), I went with House Raven. I used the same old Imperial Knight list that you guys are probably familiar with by now. You know, my Knight Castellan with Cawl's Wrath and Cold Eradication, Knight Preceptor with stormspear rocket pod and Ion Bulwark, 3 Armiger Knights Moirax - 2 with grav pulsars and 1 with lightning locks, and 3 Armiger Warglaives with meltaguns.

The first mission was Conversion and my opponent played Harlequins. He had 6 Voidweavers, went first, and...yeah. Needless to say, I was utterly destroyed. Funnily enough, my Knight Preceptor tanked 6 Voidweavers' fire like a boss, surviving the first turn with just a single wound remaining. Unfortunately, I failed to capitalize on that. The Harlequins' -1 to hit, no re-rolls allowed and army-wide 4++ invulnerable saves were just atrocious to play against - unable to pop off Order of Companions (which was the whole reason why I used House Raven in the first place), I was unable to do much except watch my Knights get deleted by a mixture of fusion pistols, sheer weight from shuriken cannons and the prismatic cannons. I was only able to destroy 4 Voidweavers and a couple more Starweavers, and a bunch of Troupes (eventually). At least I killed the Warlord and Characters, but I took Bring it Down, which on hindsight was not a good idea. In any event, my Knight Castellan survived, and I denied him To The Last once, so he scored 95 points to my 53. Well, considering that I didn't get tabled and my Knight Castellan survived, I'd call that a win in my book. Heh.

Random Taunar. I so wanted to play against Tau and see how my Knights would fare against the Taunar Supremancy Suit, but...oh, well. It is what it is.

The second mission was Tide of Conviction, and I ended up playing against Salamanders this time. This time, my opponent wasn't able to maximize his use of melta, or I somehow made all my invulnerable saves. It was a brutal back and forth game, with me losing my Knight Preceptor and all of my Knight Armiger Moiraxes. Funnily enough, my Armiger Warglaives all survived this game and helped me secure the objectives. I had the 3 of them run around to grab objectives. Instead, my Knight Castellan bore the brunt of the Captain on bike and Primaris Chaplain on bike, being reduced to 5 or 6 wounds (I can't remember, but fortunately I had Machine Spirit Resurgent). This time, I used Order of Companions 2 or 3 times and wiped out most of the Salamanders, killing 9 Vanguard Veterans (though the Armiger Warglaives helped with that), annihilating the Terminators and quite a few Bladeguard Veterans, the Eradicators (again, the Warglaives helped with that), and a bunch of other infantry that included 4 Aggressors. My Castellan eventually killed both the Chaplain and Captain on bikes after being smashed about, but I succeded in tabling my opponent on turn 5. My poor Knight Castellan was practically on his last legs, but the Armiger Warglaives did a lot of work, killing the last of the Eradicators, an attack bike, company Veterans and Assault Intercessors. Wow. I didn't think that would go that well.

I eventually won the game 94-66. Phew. That was a hard fought battle. Don't let the tabling fool you, the match was closer than the score or the last turn made it seem. A lot of it came down to me denying my opponent objectives while making use of Objective Secured Armigers to secure objectives. If Games Workshop hadn't given us back our Objective Secured Armigers and counts as 10 models Titanic Knights in the updated balance dataslate last Wednesday, I would have lost that game. Badly, I might add. That rule is a lifesaver. It changes everything. Don't underestimate Objective Secured Armigers and Titanic Knights counting as 10 models.

The third and last mission for the day was Secure Missing Artifacts. This time, my opponent was Space Wolves. He used the Whirlwind of Rage and Master Artisans successor Chapter Tactics, and it was quite brutal. In the first turn (in all three games, I went second, which suited me fine - I prefer to be the defender and go second, let my opponent come to me), his Longfangs and 2 Dreadnoughts with their Helfrost cannons killed my Knight Preceptor. Ouch. This time I failed all my invulnerable saves, and he was melted to slag by multimeltas.

From there I knew it was going to be an uphill task, and I did my best to grab objectives, with my Armiger Warglaives killing the Eliminators. I used Order of Companions three times - and I'm telling you, that Stratagem is absolutely amazing. Without it, I would have lost the two games (not including the Harlequin one). The Venerable Dreadnoughts survived volcano lances with their 6+++ Feel No Pain (ugh), and his Wulfen, Chaplain with jetpack and Assault Interecessors proceeded to wipe out my Armiger Warglaives. Oh, and the Longfangs too, though I killed one squad of Longfangs with my Knight Castellan. The game was pretty back and forth, with me losing all my Knights except the Castellan and a single Armiger Moirax by the end of the game. Funnily enough, my Knight Castellan survived a charge from Terminators with lightning claws and proceeded to both stomp and shoot them to death afterward. Despite losing so many models, I was surprised that I was able to all but table my opponent, with his Phobos Librarian being the sole survivor by the end of the game, hiding from my Knight Castellan (and surviving through Transhuman Physiology Stratagem). Eventually, I pulled back on primary objectives and a couple of secondaries (except Assassinate), with No Prisoners and Yield No Ground yielding lots of points. My Armiger Moirax also killed a bunch of Intercessors and the Cyber Wolves by themselves.

Unexpectedly, the game ended in a tie! Both my opponent and I scored 84 points each. That was hilarous and awesome. We both had a good laugh out of it. Honestly, ties are the best because nobody loses. What matters most is having fun!

Tomorrow, we'll be having Tear Down their Icons and Data Scry-Salvage. I don't know how I'll fare tomorrow, but I do know I'm exhausted as f. So I'll just sign off right now and continue writing more after the tournament ends tomorrow. Till then!

Knight Orders

Remember when I posted a few weeks ago about rumors regarding Titanic Knights giving orders? Well, here we go. A Knight Preceptor giving Armigers orders, as stipulated in the Warhammer Community article today.

Well, rather than orders, it's more like litanies. Which kind of sucks because of how unreliable they are. Like Chaplains' litanies, you roll a D6 for each of 2 different litanies during your command phase, and on a 3+, they go off.

First one, Folly of Mercy, allows your Armigers to move and shoot while performing actions. Yay, I guess?

The next, Warrior's Hope, gives your Armiger a third Code Chivalric Oath, so maybe +1 to hit rolls in melee and even reroll advance and charge rolls if you have 5 or 6 Honor Points.

Finally, you have an aura that, if it goes off on that 3+, gives your Armigers extra hits on 6s. Cool, I guess?

I don't know whether I should be impressed by them or if they are underwhelming. They seem a little too unreliable to go off, and sticking Armigers close to my Knight Preceptor when I need to spread them out to grab objectives seems...yeah. I'm suspecting this so-called "Knightly Teachings" or Mentor stuff replaces the re-rolls of hit rolls of 1 aura that the Knight Preceptor currently has. We'll see, I guess?

Imperial Knight Code Chivalric

Warhammer Community has a new article on Imperial Knights!

Basically our mono faction bonus for Imperial Knights is Code Chivalric. We start off with 1 Honor Point, and then work our way up to hopefully gain 5 Honor Points to unlock Virtuous.

But to gain these Honor Points, you need to swear an Oath. It can be a double-edged sword because if you do something or fail, you lose an Honor Point, which is...bad.

So here's an example of an Oath - Refuse no Challenge. To gain 1 Honor Point, you need to destroy 2 enemy units during a battle round. But if you fall back, you lose 1 Honor Point. So be careful.

On the other hand, if you get your Honor Points, you get +1 to your hit rolls in melee. Get 5 or more Honor Points and you unlock the ability to re-roll Advance and Charge rolls. Yay?

There's also Defend the Realm, which looks really cool - especially in Matched Play.

With Objective Secured Armigers counting as 5 models, this is pretty cool! Might not be difficult to get, especially if you move your Armigers forward.

This unlocks pretty strong abilities - with Armigers counting as 8 models when contesting objective markers in the later stage! And counts as 10 models Titanic Knights sitting in your backline! Cool!

Looking forward for more stuff...I hope to see more bonuses and stuff for Imperial Knights, and soon! Knights of the Imperium, we march!

Imperial Knights weapon upgrades

Warhammer Community posted an article on newly revamped Knight weapons today!

We know the codex is coming out soon, and after seeing all the juicy upgrades that Tyrands, T'au and other factions received, I'm sure you're all looking forward to seeing what Knights will get too. I know I am, especially since Knights are my primary faction!

First up, we have the plasma decimator. As you can see, it's basically Cawl's Wrath now. The article also says that Cawl's Wrath will be receiving its own new refit, so I wonder what it would be. It does concern me that supercharging does 2 mortal wounds on hit rolls of 1s now, which is just painful, but I guess we'll have ways to mitigate that. We really need the rerolls (Glorified History!), or hopefully there's more stuff in the new codex that grants rerolls or Feel No Pain. We'll see.

Muahahaha! This is why I run hybrid Questoris Knights instead of Crusaders! Knights Errant and Knights Preceptor! Okay, I still have a single Knight Crusader, but I think I can swap his weapons anyway. I magnetized everything, so yeah. Anyway, we are getting a sweep profile that's better than Titanic Feet, and our Reaper Chainsword now has an extra AP! Yes!

Apparently Thunderstrike Gauntlets will have their own sweep profile as well, so looking forward to that too!

I'm not really a Chaos guy, but I'll just throw this in. So we have 2 shots for the laser destructor at longer ranges, with better AP and much better damage. No more D3 mortal wounds on 6+, but I think the improved damage of D3+6 is much better than before.

Unfortunately, the Knight Preceptor doesn't seem as good.

On one hand, I appreciate the more consistent damage. 2 and 4 as opposed to D3 and D6. I've screwed up rolls on the D6 damage, rolling 1s and 2s when I really need better damage, so Damage 4 is great for me. And while blast is good and all, I don't know how to feel about the still inconsistent number of shots. Like, I wouldn't be firing High Intensity at mobs or infantry, but vehicles, so blast just doesn't really work for me. Even if I fire high intensity on elite infantry like Custodes, they usually number less than 6 (like 3 Custodians), so the blast rule is all but useless on the High Intensity anyway. Wouldn't it be better to keep Low Intensity as blast, but then make High intensity Heavy 4? I don't know.

Hopefully the rules will help us distinguish between Imperial Knights and Chaos Knights. Right now, it seems that Chaos Knights are just better in every way. They have more variants (especially with Knight Abominants and the new War Dogs), the laser destructor is better than the las-impulsor, and now they even have access to psychic powers. Hopefully the Loyalist versions will have rules to make up for having less variants. Otherwise why would anyone play Loyalist over Chaos unless they are a fluff person like me?

Then again, the Questoris Imperialis (better charge rolls and movement) and Questoris Mechanicus (gain health) versus the whole Infernal and Iconoclast Households (which have some Chaos Boons) was pretty cool back in 8th edition, so I look forward to seeing how they would differentiate their rules further. Just...don't make the Loyalist Knights the perpetual punching bag for Chaos Knights like you did for the trailer for the Knight Abominant, all right? At least let us win once in a while.

Yeah, House Devine was...a painful memory (not saying it was bad, but Chaos won that one). The loss of Kolossi was...ouch. Poor House Raven. Getting our asses handed to us in the Damocles Gulf War (Kauyon and Mont'ka) was another blow. I don't know, man, I don't think I've ever seen anything in the lore where the Imperial Knights actually win, except in Kingsblade and Knightsblade. Even House Cadmus had to evacuate a forge world because they couldn't beat the Tyranids. And then House Taranis barely survived during the Schism of Mars. That's not even counting the poor guy getting thrashed by the Litany of Hate or whatever that Renegade Knight was in the Renegade Knight boxset, which was why the House Taranis guy was sent in his place to pursue it. Yikes...and in Mortis, where entire Loyalist Knight households get decimated by Traitor Titan Legions and Traitor Knight houses. Ugh. We can't catch a break.

...so hopefully the Imperial Knights get a chance to shine - not on the tabletop, but in the lore as well. It feels like, "hey, the Chaos Knights are always coming up with new stuff to f us over!" But we should at least have a way to fight back, otherwise it's...just weird. With all these new tools, daemonic stuff and whatever, how have the Imperial Knights not been wiped out by their traitorous counterparts already? At least give us something lore-wise. Faith, maybe? I dunno. Or maybe there's just so many more Loyalist Knights than Traitor Knights...so we have better numbers and can afford to lose more. Heh. I dunno.

Imperial Guard leaks from playtesters?

Thanks to Valrak, I heard that Simply Warhammer posted a video on Imperial Guard leaks from playtesters. I don't know how reliable the rumors are, but as always, it's more fun to speculate and talk about rumors than to worry if they are true or false. So let's get to it.

1. Rogal Dorn Tank is confirmed, it has less than 18 wounds and is Toughness 9.

2. Hopefully Baneblades and variants are also Toughness 9, but he didn't hear anything about them, so fingers crossed.

3. Tank Commanders are nerfed to BS 4+. Ouch. Turret weapons no longer fire twice, but they have a +1 to hit and they can now shoot out of combat (as in, if you're locked in combat with a melee unit, you can still shoot your turret weapon at another unit not within engagement range with your tank, hence allowing you to still shoot blast weapons even though you're locked in combat). Sponson and hull weapons remain the same, so they are probably still BS 4+ and have to shoot into combat with a -1 penalty.

4. Probably get a bunch of tokens (like Genestealer Cultists? Crossfire markers and whatever).

5. Deathstrike now can take 3 missiles, seems like its weapon has improved, and firing mechanism has also been changed. Main explosion does lots of damage to the primary target, then 3D3 mortal wounds to units within 6" of the primary target.

6. Death Korps of Krieg are in the book as their own new regiment, will have a new Regimental Doctrine, Stratagems, Relics, Warlord Traits and stuff.

7. Rough Riders are back in the codex, no longer shunted to Legends and having a new model.

Take the rumors however you want, but I think this looks great (except the Tank Commander nerf, which makes me sad). But hey, if they drop the points and allow us to take multiple Tank Commanders, I'll be fine. I hope they have a plasma variant for the Rogal Dorn tank so that I can create an all plasma Tank regiment with my Leman Russ Executioner tanks and Stormblade!

Damnation

"It's time to test out my new Knight suit!"

Tanaka lounged in his Throne Mechanicum, feeling contented. After the destruction of his Armiger Warglaive during the battle against the Thousand Sons, he was promoted to a full-blown Bushi and was now bestowed a Dominus-class Knight armor. In honor of his former Armiger armor, he decided to name the Knight Castellan Kazan as well. Which sort of fits, seeing that the new Kazan had a volcano lance (Kazan is Japanese for volcano).

"Ugh...I can't believe we're heeding the word of those perfidous xenos." Ogami sounded displeased as he looked out at the other end of the battlefield. An Aeldari Farseer had shown up moments earlier, requesting that the Imperium lend their aid to their Craftworld in ridding the world of Chaos. Apparently the Thousand Sons were conducting a ritual to summon Daemons into realspace or something.

The Lord Commander Roboute Guilliman, in his infinite wisdom, had agreed to dispatch a small Imperial force to destroy the heretics. And thus a Lance of House Yato lumbered forward, their guns trained on the Cult of Magic forces who had taken shelter in the temple they had constructed.

Unfortunately...

"WAAAGH!"

"Holy Emperor, nobody told us there would be Orks here as well!" Suzuki complained.

"That can't be good," Kanda muttered.

Within moments, the Speedwaagh of the Orks ran over the Knights' lines. Thankfully, the brutes had decided to travel uphill, which allowed the Knights free reign to shoot. A gunwagon went up in smoke, and several bikers crashed and burned. The large Bonebreaka or whatever massiive truck it was charged at Kazan, but Tanaka squeezed the triggers of his two twin meltaguns and the volcano lance, blowing the damned thing up.

Unfortunately, the bikers and Nobs on bikers swarmed the Armigers, hacking them down. The greenskins laughed raucously, enjoying their vicious swings as they slashed with their choppas. Suzuki shrieked when his Armiger Warglaive went up in smoke.

"Not again!"

"Frak this!" Ogami shouted. Okami swung its reaper chainsword, as if in response to his rage, but the warboss on a bike simply tanked it like...well, a boss.

"Ha ha! Iz dat the best yer can do, humie?"

With a throaty chuckle, the warboss eviscerated the Knight Preceptor with its power klaw.

"Bring it down, boyz!"

Meanwhile, the Howling Banshees charged into the Scarab Occult Terminators, sending them realing. The Avatar of Khaine howled, its molten form barreling into Aku and slicing him slightly. Aku merely laughed as his form rippled and he reformed elsewhere, completely unscathed. Unfortunately for the Exalted Sorcerer by his side, he was...cleaved in half by the Avatar of Khaine's fury. Nearby, a Mutalith Vortex Beast lay low, having been felled by the Wailing Doom.

The Wraithguard and Dark Reapers continued their inexorable advance, firing into both Rubricae and Ork buggies alike, but one heroic Ork biker dashed through the explosions and fire, bellowing gleefully as he courageously charged the Wraith constructs by itself.

"I'm gonna hack yer pointy heads off!"

"And I'm gonna show you the Thousand Sons are better than the Eldar in the psychic phase!" Aku sneered, gathering empheral energies in his hands and blasting the Avatar of Khaine. The Rubric Marines and Scarab Occult Terminators joined in, their psionic blasts joining with the Daemon Prince and engulfing the Avatar of Khaine, turning the shard of an ancient god into dust.

The Avatar of Khaine wasn't going out with a fight, however. With a defiant roar, he exploded, taking Aku by surprise and obliterating his stick body. Aku yelled in dismay before he found his physical form torn from reality and his essence banished into the warp once more.

"...what the hell?! I'm the only survivor left!?"

Tanaka's jaw dropped after he saw how his forces were completely overrun. He gritted his teeth and fired several more volleys. Good thing his Knight Castellan came loaded for bear...Orks. His siegebreaker cannons boomed, breaking the back of bikers, while his meltaguns melted a buggy into slag. The other twin meltaguns disintegrated the triumphantly celebrating warboss, who was holding Okami's helm in its power klaw. The poor guy didn't know what hit him.

Then sorcery slammed into him. Tanaka blinked and consulted his auspex.

"You've got to be kidding me..."

The Eldar had been massacred. Only the Wraithguard were left, and they were busily tied up in combat with Scarab Occult Terminators. An Exalted Sorcerer and his Rubric Marines were marching toward Kazan, determined to blow him up once and for all. Empyrean energies swirled around them as they battered the poor Knight, dealing massive amounts of mortal wounds.

"Ouch."

Tanaka fought to right his Knight Castellan. Kazan's machine spirit bellowed defiantly and the plasma decimator howled, obliterating an entire column of Rubricae. The shieldbreaker missiles spiraled forward and detonated against the Exalted Sorcerer. It didn't matter what unworldly barrier the traitor conjured, the shieldbreaker missile punched through the telekine shield and engulfed the warlock in flames.

The surviving Wraithguard, having taken care of the heroic Ork biker - who had lasted at least two rounds of combat with them, retreated from the Scarab Occult Terminators, allowing Tanaka to blow them up. And then...

...there was silence.

"Oh, hey, we won!"

Tanaka couldn't believe it. Despite taking tremendous casualties, the human-Eldar alliance had somehow annihilated both the Thousand Sons and the Orks. Breathing a sigh of relief, he then proceeded to the task of fouling the idols that the Thousand Sons had constructed, kicking them over spitefully to ruin the Ritual.

He had only managed to topple three when...

"...ha ha ha! I'm back!"

"What the...?!"

Tanaka looked up, and watched in horror as a portal opened. Aku strolled out, spreading his skinny arms to the skies and crowing.

"You weren't able to stop the ritual in time, suckers! Too bad!"

"...hey, but we tabled you."

"You still lost."

"At least we got a moral victory. You know what, I'll let you win this one." He then showed Aku the finger, though he didn't know if the Daemon Prince could see him when he was inside his Throne Mechanicum. Then again, the Thousand Sons had all sorts of warp powers, so he probably could. In any case, he decided to yell like the sore loser he was. "I'll be back!"

Seeing that there were Daemons and fresh reinforcements pouring out of the warp, Tanaka thought he had best beat it while he still could. Live and fight another day, or so they said. Coaxing the fiery spirit of Kazan, he led his battered Knight armor to a dignified retreat. Even though Aku had succeeded, it still didn't feel like a loss. Actually, it felt more like a technicality, but Tanaka was never one to dwell in the details.

Plus there was always another chance for revenge.

Aku laughed as he watched the Imperium and Aeldari attackers retreat. He turned back to his Daemons gleefully, but...they were vanishing back to the warp.

"Hey! What are you doing!?"

"Going home. There's nothing to kill." One of the Daemons shrugged. "But hey, at least you get a free battle honor."

"What?! But we already get to choose our battle honors! This victory doesn't do anything for us!"

"You got the bragging rights, though."

"Ugh...!" Aku stomped on the ground and folded his arms. Then he nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, I guess you can say that. I survived against an Avatar of Khaine and blew him up with magic. I wonder how many people can say that."

And so, with a laugh, he retreated back to the warp, planning another insidious scheme to sow the poor Imperium into Chaos once more.