We pick off where Mogrok activated his tellyport blasta at the end of the last article, where he teleported away from Auspice Savannah and toward the coastlands to deny the human forces reinforcements across the natural bridges that linked Alaric Prime's major islands.
The Knights of House Velemestrin tried to cross the Knight's Causeway, which linked their island to Sacred Isle, so that they could reinforce House Brahmica and the Cadians embroiled in the battle on the savannah. Mogrok, anticipating this, had assigned gretchin to blow up the Knight's Causeway, but they had yet to finish their job, so after throwing a murderous tantrum, Mogrok sought Mek Dagogg, the Mek who flung the orbital defense platforms into each other with his Shokk Amplifier when the Red Waaagh! assaulted the Obsidian Glaives Space Marines. He, with the aid of his Runtherd, Grabber, was also responsible for the Snotling Rain.
Dagogg and Grabber, after Mogrok yelled at the former, gathered the snotling mobs just as the first of the Imperial Knights had reached halfway across the Knight's Causeway. They opened fire on the Orks, who were forced to cower. Unfortunately, Dagogg had a secret weapon that could teleport one of the Knight's legs away, causing it to fall and miss with his battle cannon, and then he teleported the flames of the Burna Boyz right into the Throne Mechanicum of the Knight, incinerating Sire Tormus and causing his Knight to fall to its knees upright and block the causeway. Oh, well.
At Isle Kamata, Mogrok's Blood Axe ally, Tankboss Baddfrag, led an attack with two hundred heavy Ork tanks. He had repurposed Imperial armor, having landed his rust-ship Da Choppa on top of an Imperial tank company in the Kamata Desert, then destroyed the survivors with its kannons.
Though Isle Kamata's knightly defenders were away at war in Sacred Isle, Badfragg's armored company was outranged by the Imperial Guard artillery company stationed around the Great Oasis. Even his Blood Axe air support, the Drop Kommandos, had lost too many of their fighta-bommas to anti-aircraft fire. The Cadians had water, shade and ammunition supply lines, so they were well dug in.
Unfortunately for the Cadians, a mob of Drop Kommandos intercepted a Chimera convoy, with two of them clinging to the undersides of the armored transports at the cost of the rest of the Kommandos. They were eventually shaken free, with one being run over by the next tank while the sole survivor escaped and returned to Badfragg's camp.
This time, the Blood Axe Kommandos camouflaged themselves and waited for the next convoy to the Great Oasis, once again strapping themselves to the undersides of the Chimeras. The Cadian guards, unaware of the stowaways, allowed the supply convoy in, and the Kommandos used this to infiltrate the Imperial Guard base.
There's a random passage of the Frozen Comet, which drifted close to Alaric Prime. I think you can all guess why they brought it up here. Even if I didn't know what's going to happen later, I will be willing to bet my bottom dollar that the Orks will snag the Frozen Comet and hurl it at the Imperial defenders.
After getting inside the Imperial Guard camp, the Kommandos snuck out from under the Chimeras at night and began planting bombs to blow up the artillery company's ammunition. The resulting explosion was the signal for Tankboss Baddfrag to attack, his Battle Fortress and two hundred looted vehicles charging in. The airborne forces of the Drop Kommandos joined in, and despite Hydra flak tanks and aegis interceptor guns of the Cadian defenders destroying Orky aircraft and Deffkoptas, the Cadians ran out of ammunition shortly after that - thanks to the destruction of so much of their supplies - and the Orks annihilated the 1645th Cadian support regiment. Ouch.
Unfortunately, this meant that the Orks had access to more looted tanks, captured transports and even stolen Knights that now roamed all over Isle Kamata.
Due to the war, lots of human vehicles and tanks were wrecked and totalled, which gave the Orks ample scrap to hammer out new contraptions, recycling the husks of Imperial armor into more guns and metal beasts. Da Wheel Steelaz, in particular, built all sorts of Trukks, such as Trukk-treddas, Wagon-walkers and Bigga Kans. However, amidst all of these Orkish innovation, Mogrok was working on his own invention that could destroy an entire island in one blow. Uh oh.
The Cadian 1652nd regiment bore the brunt of the Orks' wrath, but millions lost their lives on Alaric Prime, including Goralan Helmast of House Kestren, Kyrana Calestros, Phyne Degallio, and Rolundus Velemestrin.
The Freeblade known as the Scorched Knight is piloted by Dyros Kamata. After learning of his older brother's murder at the hands of his father, he became a Freeblade, scorching away the symbols of House Kamata in the Damatoi volcano range, only to return to defend Sacred Mountain from the Red Waaagh!
Instead of fighting alongside other Nobles, Dyros struck against rearward units or Ork artillery, accounting for hundreds of greenskin kills and disrupting their forces around the mountain, frequently saving Cadian Guardsmen in the process.
Dyros's brother, Tyras, had left a neural imprint in the Throne Mechanicum that informed him of the deadly malfunction his father had engineered, and the corruption in House Kamata and Hyram's long list of crimes.
Dyros was able to get revenge during the last battle for Sacred Mountain, when Hyram's Knight was toppled by a crashing Dakkajet. Dyros hastened to his fallen father's side and blew his Knight up with his thermal cannon. Though dozens of other Nobles had witnessed Dyros's patricide, no one barred his way because they respected the right of every Noble to settle debts within his own house.
Remember Silas Ovik? He's back! With more background fluff! Rumored to be a bastard son of a noble family who was exiled back in Cadia, he shot dead a pack of slobbering Cultists attacking a local settlement, and was recruited into the Imperial Guard officer corps.
He was known for being patient and composed, which the senior officers thought made him perfectly suited to the tank regiments. Though he is a master of all variants of the Leman Russ, Silas Ovik prefers to command from the cupola of a Vanquisher where he can destroy war engines from afar: one shot, one kill.
Silas Ovik's squadron famously stalked the Daemon Engines that infested Prosan during the Belliger invasions of 988.M41, his pinpoint accuracy taking apart Warpsmith Vutos's monstrous creations one by one, and thus saving the planet. Ovik also assumed command during the Ork incursion of Crisson Vael, after a suicidal air strike took out the Cadian HQ command. He led two squadrons of tanks against three Stompas, outwitting and frustrating his foes long enough for further support to arrive and destroy them outright.
With such achievements, Ovik was promoted to the legendary Steel Host of the Cadian 1652nd, and as its commander, he has repeatedly led Cadia's armies to victory from within his Leman Russ Vanquisher, Ovik's Fist.
Tempestor Prime Salem Whitlock commands the 50th Kappic Eagles. Orphaned at the age of two, he was raised in the Schola Progenium on the Shrine world of Phrell. Though his natural leadership marked him out as officer material, instead of joining the Commissariat, he excelled as a Tempestus Scion cadet, displaying an acumen for tactics and thus was assigned to Militarum Tempestus command.
As Tempestor (basically Sergeant), Whitlock led the drop assault that ended the decade-long siege of Fortress Hellstar. His squad basically gunned down every Cultist inside within 80 minutes. After being promoted to Tempestor Prime (basically Captain), Whitlock orchestrated the strikes that crippled an Eldar warhost at Telvarr Prime, personally leading the assault against the xenos witch-commander and slaying her while simultaneously deploying his Valkyries and Vendettas to cut off the warhost's line of retreat. The Imperial Guard won the resulting aerial duel via attrition.
Oh, remember the Frozen Comet? Cadian high command just got wind that it had altered its course and was now heading straight for Sacred Isle.
How? Well, thirty miles to the southeast of Sacred Mountain, Mogrok had been hammering away at the rust-ship Bad Gob to fashion the Klaw of Mork, a device almost as high as a Stompa. When the Big Mek activated the device, it shot out a green light that grabbed the Frozen Comet and dragged it toward Alaric Prime.
Castellan Stein was presented with reports that the Orks had built some kind of orbital tractor beam that was used to pull the Frozen Comet to slam it against the top of Sacred Mountain. While Stein held an emergency council to discuss what to do next, knowing that artillery was useless against the Orks' kustom force fields and any frontal attack against the Ork rust-ships and their huge guns would be suicide, Tempestor Prime Whitlock proposed a plan.
He and his Tempestus Scions will grav chute through the gap in the field where it allowed the beam for the tractor cannon out, and his men will destroy the force field generator from the inside. Once they took that out, they would aim for the tractor cannon next. Stein agreed.
And so, a few hours later, Whitlock's Valkyrie and two others flew across the plains to drop their squads on the Ork force field dome. All of them, except poor Orrost, made it through the gap - Orrost was vaporized by the tractor beam when he drifted too close to it - and then the rest of Whitlock's men landed safely.
The Tempestus Scions slipped through the Ork encampment, toward a tower, where a cluster of Ork guns that protected both the tractor beam and the force field generator that protected it. Whitlock and his men slaughtered the Orks within, taking them by surprise. Dagogg, however, killed a Tempestus Scion because he's a Named Character and therefore has plot armor. I mean, seriously, the only named characters who died have been humans so far. Lots of Knights, lots of Cadians, but...no named Orks yet.
Whitlock head-shot an Ork Nob and directed his men to set satchel bombs in the top room of the tower, and then they blew up the generator. The moment the force field collapsed, Whitlock's Valkyrie reinforcements arrived. Dagogg, though, swung his Smasha and wrecked a Valkyrie. Whitlock, realizing the danger, tried to take out the Smasha guns, but Dagogg and the Orks were far too numerous and strong.
Fortunately, Whitlock had a spare satchel charge somewhere, which he detonated to cover his Tempestus Scions' retreat. More men grav chuted to his position, but mobs of Orks were charging toward them. It looked grim.
Even as Whitlock braced himself for close combat, the sole surviving Valkyrie swooped in and took out a mob with heavy bolter fire. Another Valkyrie appeared out of nowhere to fall into formation with it as they flew away, and the rust-ship blew up, along with the tractor beam. Yay! A rare win for the Imperial Guard (and Knights) after all the crushing defeats Mogrok heaped upon us recently!
Despite Whitlock's success in destroying the tractor beam, the Frozen Comet was still on course to hit the planet. Oh, well. On the bright side, it was projected to fall into the sea north of the Sacred Isle. However, that didn't stop the Orks from launching a massive attack on Sacred Mountain, and this would be the final battle.
Castellan Stein watched from his command Chimera as it drove toward the center of the Sacred Isle, spotting teeming Ork hordes converging to join this grand battle that would break Alaric Prime once and for all. Even though for every Imperial Guardsmen who had died, a hundred Orks had been cut down, and the Cadians were mathematically victorious, there were far too many Orks - billions - and it wasn't enough.
Stein also realized that there was an Ork with a brain coordinating the whole thing. While he pondered, he scanned readings that showed that something inside the mountain's depths crackled with an insane amount of potential energy, and remembered that the Alarican Nobles had insisted that Sacred Mountain should be defended to the last despite not having a convincing reason. Stein's Astropath, Zeil, also sensed something from the mountain, which was why Stein took them seriously.
Lord Neru of House Degallio had also dispatched a taskforce of Knights to the mountain's easternmost gulch. Neru himself was watching his consort (wife) accompany Gerantius as she offered up one of House Degallio's Greater Keys to the Sacred Gate. The Sacred Gate opened, and both Lady Degallio and Gerantius entered the place. A few hours later, while Lord Neru continued to watch over the great open gate in his Throne Mechanicum in the White Warden, the earth shook.
Sacred Mountain was waking.
Stein and his Imperial Guard armored columns also came to a halt, watching the shaking mountain in awe. They watched as Sacred Mountain transformed into a giant stronghold that dwarfed even the famous Cadian kasrs.
This was what Gerantius had been guarding, and what Degallio's heirloom-keys had unlocked. This was why the knightly houses were so protective of it. Astropath Zeil called it Fortress Alaric.
Stein quickly assigned his men to the various battlements and redoubts ringing the mountainsides and set up his tank companies across a giant drawbridge that had emerged on the eastern side of the vast fortress. The Baneblade Iron Ettin and the Shadowsword Steel Cyclops took up position on either side of the gap. The Knights of House Velemestrin, Terryn and Kamata paced back and forth at the mouth of the bridge. Artillery companies were in position, and the Cadians received unexpected reinforcements from Alaric's criminal elements.
The Frozen Comet, though thrown off course to crash into the ocean north of Sacred Isle instead of the mainland, provided some light. Unfortunately, this was causing poor Astropath Zeil to have nightmarish psychic visions...which we will see later in Hour of the Wolf.
Countless millions of Orks converged upon Fortress Alaric, directed by the cunning of Mogrok. A great horde of Ork walkers led the assault, with the Gargant Gungutz striding at their heart. Its missing head was replaced by a tusked cab of a Battlewagon, and it was escorted by two captured Imperial Knights.
The moment the Orks came into range, Stein signalled his Master of Ordnance to commence bombardment. Unfortunately, the shells slowed and stopped, hanging in the air. The Ork walkers were generating an electromagnetic field that nullified their artillery, robbing the Cadians of their long-range advantage. The Ork vanguard continued forward, and once they were within lascannon range, the Cadians shot the largest clusters of artillery shells hovering high above the Ork walkers, triggering chains of explosions that took out pockets of Ork vehicles, but it wasn't enough. There were too many Orks.
Stein then ordered his Leman Russ battle tanks to fire, but though they killed quite a few, many more shells detonated prematurely.
Apparently, Mogrok had invented the netmagnet to nullify the artillery shells and tank fire of the Imperial Guard. Trukks, Squiggoths, Walkers, Looted vehicles all charged forward. Tankboss Badfragg used the looted Chimeras to cross the moat, because they are amphibious.
Hundreds of Orks swam across the moat to get to the fortress, and though hundreds succumbed, hundreds more made it across improvised scrap bridges. Mob after mob were gunned down by massed Taurox transports the Tempestus Scions had stationed along the inner bank of the boiling moat.
Fortunately, the surviving Knights counterattacked. Three spearheads of Knights from House Degallio and four Knights from House Terryn covered each other and stamped and blasted the Orks back into the boiling waters of the moat.
At the far end of the vast drawbridge, Stein's super-heavy tanks and a scattered contingent of Imperial Knights fanned out to take on the Orks from the plains, with the Scorched Knight being the first to reach them. Hyram, patriarch of House Kamata, followed closely, only to be knocked off its feet by a Dakkajet despite Stein's frantic warning. The Scorched Knight then turned around to murder Hyram, much to Stein's amazement.
Meanwhile, Sylvost Velemestrin's Knight was knee deep in Orks, who were manually detonating charges against the weak spot of his Knight. Despite his pleas for help, mirroring Lord Gualemort Kestren's last moments when he requested that his fellow Nobles hold their fire - only for Sylvost to seal his fate - none of the other Knights helped him, simply watching as he was taken apart limb by limb.
"Thus does the ghost of Gaulemort Kestren find his rest."
Stein was obviously incensed, screaming that the Knights were supposed to be defending the bridge, not settling old scores, but Lord Degallio, the Seablade, ignored him. He knew that they had to decapitate the leadership of the Orks again, to cut off the head of the beast in order to slay its body - and thus seek out Mogrok. While Neru Degallio and his White Warden led the knightly triumvirates he had named the Alabaster Lances, Gerantius took the lead, storming through the Ork ranks.
Degallio and the White Warden provided support, not wanting Gerantius to fight alone. Neru suspected that Gerantius was heading for the mastermind coordinating the Ork assault, and he intended to be around for the kill.
As they plunged further into the Ork horde, Degallio and the Knights encountered the Morkanauts behind the waves of Ork infantry. Degallio destroyed one. A second Morkanaut with a Mek shooting some weird weapon at Gerantius ended up having the green beam turn back upon him, pulling the Mek and half a dozen Gretchin into some weird portal. While Neru watched in fascination, Gerantius ignored the Mek's demise and strode on.
Stein was still coordinating interceptor fire against Ork flyers and Deffkoptas, having expended all his Thunderbolt squadrons against the descending rust-ships earlier. Only Whitlock and his men afforded any kind of air superiority.
Worse, the gates that the Baneblade Iron Ettin and Shadowsword Steel Cyclops were guarding had been blown open by Ork artillery and Mek-walkers, but swarms of servo-skulls swarmed out to claw and shoot lasbiters into the Orks on the drawbridge.
On the slopes, Bullgryns had plugged the breaches with their slabshields, repelling any Ork assault. Unfortunately, flamer boyz burned them, causing them to rush forward and attack, only for the other Orks to run around them and charge into the defense lines behind. Even so, the xenos were caught in disciplined overlapping fields of fire and exterminated.
Unfortunately, Stein's strategy fell to ruin when he saw one of the rust-ships take off and fly toward the Frozen Comet to intercept it. Despite Tempestor Prime Whitlock diverting his Valkyries and Vendettas to intercept, they couldn't damage the massive hulk.
Before they could reach the rust-ship, the unexploded ordnance captured by the greenskin mag-field suddenly shot up in the air and took all of them out in a series of explosions. Ouch. With that last hope of stopping the rust-ship gone, it collided against the inbound comet and blew apart, but with enough force to divert it right back toward the armored flank of Fortress Alaric.
Initially, Stein ordered for his regiments to get inside the mountains and raise whatever shields they could, or retreat, but he realized there was no way his men could survive the meteoric impact of the comet. Even the Knights would be obliterated.
Stein snapped and then cancelled his orders and bellowed for everyone to attack with full force, believing that they were already dead, and they might as well kill as many xenos as they could before they died.
Ten thousand Cadians charged over their defensive positions at the Orks, firing las-bolts and stabbing with bayonets. Meanwhile, the two dozen or so remaining Knights raced to form a half-mile ring around the thickest of Stein's forces. In contrast, the Orks were erecting force-pylons, presumably to protect themselves as the fortress was flattened.
Stein himself rode his command Chimera to the frontlines to fight alongside his men with his power sword. Leaping right into the middle of Ork Kommandos, he used both his power sword and plasma pistol to slaughter them.
Then the comet struck home. Every man, Ork and machine outside the aegis of a power field was instantly disintegrated. A whole flank of Sacred Mountain was torn away, crumbling down into the boiling moat to leave the honeycombed innards of the great peak exposed to air. Roaring triumphantly, the surviving Orks poured forward.
Sacred Mountain had fallen.
By the way, Grukk survived. When several Ork Nobz and a herd of Gretchin teleported into the mountain's southern slopes to salvage Grukk's Battlewagon, the Warlord's power klaw erupted to grab one of them by the throat. The Mekboy hurried forward to secure Grukk and teleport him and the whole group out of there.
Meanwhile, Stein and his command squad - including Astropath Zeil - had survived, aside from his vox officer. The Alarican Knights had united their ion shields in a great aegis dome that shielded hundreds of Cadians from death by incineration at the moment of impact. It did burn out many of the Knights' number, several of the machines now pillars of flame.
However, millions of fighting men and women had also perished alongside Alaric Prime's valiant Nobles, and even the mountain itself was grievously wounded. Many of the Ork tribes had erected their own shields that protected them from the impact of the comet, and thousands of them remained, charging unimpeded into the resulting breach.
Stein felt like he had died inside, despite having survived the blow. However, Zeil coughed and pointed at the skies. Stein looked up and spotted more meteorites that appeared to be the final blow. Then the flame of hope sparked in his chest once more.
They were the contrails of Imperial Drop Pods.
As a bonus, here's several Formations from the book, including the Legendary Steel Host, the Rampart Detachment and the Adamantine Lance!
Man, those were the days. I still remember playing the Adamantine Lance and the Steel Host. I can tell you that the Adamantine Lance was impractical because there was no reason for you to ever keep your Knights within 3" of each other - that's like 3/4 of your army tied up standing next to each other for rerollable ion shield saves on only a single facing while you are unable to score any objectives except maybe one. I mean, I just fielded my Knight army and said the three of them were an Adamantine Lance, but the moment the 7th edition codex dropped a month after, and I had better Formations, I never bothered with Adamantine Lance again.
Um, maybe I did not use the Steel Host because I never got a Hydra (the Onager Dunecrawler was much better for anti-air anyway), but I did end up building an Armored Company from the Mont'ka campaign book a year later. That's an article for another day, but I'll try to finish the Sanctus Reach series. There's Stormclaw and Hour of the Wolf left, but...no guarantees. Do look forward to them, though. Until such a time...okay, I get it, I should stop ripping off Oculus Imperia. Anyway, till then!
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