Third Phase of Gydisk Sigma Campaign

The third phase of the Gydisk Sigma campaign has officially begun! We are moving from Strike Force games to Onslaught, which means Power level 150 for each player! This will be one hell of a mess, or so I hope.

Currently, the Imperium holds Gydisk Sigma. The Tyranids have been slaughtered, their hordes going dormant (well, because our only Tyranids player was out of town today) after the brutal massacre last campaign. The Adeptus Mechanicus unHoly Convocation under Magos Cecile has gone rogue after experimenting on Tyranids, turning to Chaos and heretek. Turning his back on the Imperum and on holy Mars, Magos Cecile led his Skitarii and combat-servitor forces on a daring raid against the belegauered imperial forces in the hive city of Gaia. Faced with betrayal that could overturn the already precarious predicament that the imperal defenders were currently embroiled in, Marshal Mowbray led his Black Templars Crusade - the Gydisk Crusade - on a counterattack to take the hive city back from the treacherous Dark Mechanicum forces before they could unleash mutant horrors and Tyranid gene-spliced cyborg servitors on the unsuspecting population.

Meanwhile, the Death Guard under Rhegorn, Chosen of the Seventh, invaded the anterior gate of Hive City Gaia, sowing all sorts of plague. Bringing a plaguehost of daemon engines that included Plagueburst Crawlers and Foetid Bloat Drones, as well as hulking Blightlord Terminators to escort them, they attacked the deeply entrenched Argent Imperial Guard regiment. Arrayed with a dozen tanks, including the venerable Baneblade Traitor's Bane and accompanied by a subservient Knight lance from Argent, the Knight Valiant Valiance stood tall, ready to empty his inferno cannon into the diseased hordes of shambling poxwalkers. By his side were Mechanicus enslaved bondsmen piloting Armigers Helverin.

The Death Guard hit fast and hard, smashing through the Imperial Guard forces before the mortal defenders realized what had struck. Diseases had rendered many guardsmen unable to fight, their swollen bodies dripping with pus and blood from their orifices. The few Guardsmen who were able to survive the myriad infections packed themselves in the safety of their tanks, but to their horror, they realized that the thick armor was no protection against the howling Nurgle daemons and Blightlord Terminators that ripped them apart. Tearing armored plates off and crushing the Leman Russ tanks, Hellhounds and even the Baneblade Traitor's Bane like cans, the inexorable Death Guard massacred the few surviving Imperial Guardsmen and wiped the Argents out from Hive City Gaia. Of a few thousand strong regiment, only a tenth of that number escaped alive, their tanks fuming and crumbling from corrosive rust.

On the other hand, their Black Templars allies fared better. Dispatching Terminator and Bladeguard units through the narrow confines of Magos Cecile's labyrinthine laboratories, the ceramite corridors dripping with heretek and foul magicks, they fought their way through cyborg abominations that fused human genetics with that of Tyranids. Magos Cecile himself had crafted armor from xenotech plundered from Necron tombs and wandered out to face the Emperor's Champion in combat...only to be laid low. Fortunately, his accompanying Enginseer were able to distract the Emperor's Champion with a vicious servo-arm and axe blow to pull his stricken master to safety. Elsewhere, the Redemptor and Contemptor Dreadnoughts set to work, wiping out Genestealer infected Kataphron Destroyers, but losing one of their ancients to the grinding combat.

The Terminators and Bladeguard Veterans suffered heavy casualties against the Kataphron Breachers, their hydraulic claws abominable amalgamations of Carnifex scythes and Dark Mechanicum machinery. Their thunder hammers had little effect against the accursed armor plate of the daemonic cyborgs, which had a layer of Tyranid chitin growing over it. Fortunately, the arrival of the Repulsor Executioner Sigismund's Fury prevented the melee from turning into a rout, rescuing only two Assault Terminators from the ferocious claws of the hybrid combat servitors.

At present, the Death Guard might have prevailed, but the Dark Mechanicum forces have been defeated, Magos Cecile's insidious schemes forcibly halted...for now, anyway. Hive City Gaia is still hotly contested by both Imperial forces and the servants of Chaos. Unbeknownst to both sides, the broods of Hive Fleet Leviathan have not been idle. Having retreated to lick their wounds, they have devoured more biomass to replenish their savaged hordes...and once they have rebuilt their numbers, the Hive Mind intends to strike.

For all of the organisms living on Gydisk Sigma, whether Imperial or Traitor, will be consumed by Hive Fleet Leviathan in the end...