The gantries are lighting up, the bulkheads are grinding open and blood is already being spilled in the locker rooms. It must be Knockramundout Time!
It's me, your host Jarribix Klabbs, coming to you live from the ventilation ducts over sector MP46-Gamma, and have we got a show for you!
I sure hope so, Jarri!
That was a statement, not a question - with me is Blaargh, the boil with all the blether. Hope you'll stay with us tonight folks, we've got a pair of real contenders going at it hammer and tongs on the arena floor. Let's meet them!
Gotta say, Jarri, House Orlock has to be one of my favourites for the competition! Dunno if it's their hipster style or just the beefy size of them all, but they make me quiver all over!
The House of Iron has sent some tough teamsters, right enough. Maybe some of them are a little light on armour, but that's made up for by some chunky guns, rocket packs and a man wielding the biggest hammer I've seen all month. Give it up for Watchtower!
Wowee, Jarri, they can sure spit out a lot of lead!
Bolts and harpoons too, Blaargh, plus some big dogs to go with their big names. Davey Harlesson, their Road Captain, is known for a fifty-yard stare so intimidating, gangers have been known to leave their thug life, up sticks to the uphive and take up macrame rather than shoot at him.
Quivers, I tell you, Jarr! Quivivivivivivivers!
Who's the nail the Orlocks will be hitting tonight? Well, we mentioned blood in the changing rooms and we weren't kidding - fresh from their pre-game ritual sacrifice, it's the Chaos Helots from Stairway to Heathen!
How many of them, Jarri?
Certainly more than you can count, Blaargh - nearly twenty of these unwashed and unwanted heretics. Who knew the dark gods had so many followers down here in the Underhive?
They're really catching on round my way, Jarr. I had a great chat with one of their door-to-door representatives. Sure, their church tithes are kind of off-putting, but they have a weekly barn dance and potluck night! We should go!
Keep your religious views off-air, Blaargh, this is an all-sports channel. Whoever Stairway worship, they've clearly made the right offerings. Most of the team might be dreck, but they've got a pair of aces in the Warp Horror and the Chaos Spawn - two nearly-unstoppable and fairly indescribable brutes. It's going to take all the firepower Watchtower can bring to bear to put those down.
Can't wait to see them try!
Let's see where they'll be taking their shots. Tonight's arena floor is what we've come to know and love - the three-lane death highway. Scoring zones in the centre of each, but as ever, there's a twist!
The doors! Jarri, those doors are open!
That's... well, I guess that's a twist of sorts, Blaargh, the side doors are indeed open between the lanes at the start of tonight's match. On easy lock-down, though - once shut, they'll likely stay so, and that's good news for the Orlocks if those monsters start causing problems.
Yeah, no way can Spawn operate code panels!
They have that in common with most underhivers at the very least, Blaargh. I'm also seeing a couple of access balconies along the right-hand wall there, a central raised ammo stash and a massive hole over on the left. Structural damage?
They put it in with saws last night, Jarri, the crowds have been pining for some good dead drops!
Well, the objective is right in the middle of that narrow bridge, so let's cross our fingers. If the gangers are plummeting, our ratings won't be!
Ooo-ee, Jarr - that's the starting klaxon!
The teams are in place, the safeties are off - let's see some death!
Turn 1
And straight away, we've got an absolute dog-pile of mad-eyed zealots pounding across the decking. Stairway have sent their murderous hentai blobs out front in two of the lanes.
Guess they ran short for the left side, Jarr!
Yes, that entirely naked and unarmed lunatic is Timmy Grant-Song, clearly hoping to curry favour with Staarkers, God of Streakers. Cover your eyes, kids, that's not a package for home delivery!
There's the gunfire! This is what I live for!
We're seeing the heavy cargo Servitor, Jugga, lumbering downfield whilst pumping out some wildly inaccurate heavy stub fire - and he's down!
Powzer! Right in the belly!
It's not going to stop him, he's just sprung a couple of leaks. The Helots have a heavy stubber of their own, disciple Jean-Paul Bones laying down some withering cover there, it's taken the spring out of the servitor's already heavy step.
I hear bolters! Chugga chugga chugga!
Speculative shots more than anything, the Orlocks hoping to put some early hits into that oncoming spawn, and that's already causing them problems! Carla Saki, the Orlock Road Sergeant, is struggling to keep that heavy bolter firing. They're not easy guns to maintain, it looks like a feedbelt problem, and she's pulling out volume three of the operator's manual and flicking through it. Could be a while before we hear that heartening thunder again, Blaargh!
That's going to be a real problem for her team, Jarr, they were really counting on keeping the air full of lead!
Scores: Nil all
Turn 2
The heretics are powering straight up the middle, where a grotesque mound of shuddering tendrils is rolling right on to the scoring zone. I can barely stand to look at it, and it seems the Orlocks are struggling too - Duke Atti, their shotgun arms master, is just standing and gawping in abject dismay, whilst Jugga is moaning and singing a half-remembered nursery rhyme. This is a huge set-back for the Orlocks, their vaunted wall of lead just isn't happening!
At least they've moved up on the left zone, Jarr. They've sent their new kid out by himself, Sidecar. Look at him standing on the bridge and waving his pistols about!
Timmy is running straight at him, it's not a daunting sight. I'd be more worried about the four armed cultists right behind the streaker.
Genestealer cults? Wasn't that a couple of weeks ago?
No, four armed, not... never mind, Blaargh, there's no time to explain. They're opening fire!
Two of them have already spent their loads with nothing to show except holes in the ceiling!
Sidecar has copped a shotgun blast, though - he's teetering on the edge! Could this be a first fall?
Aw, no fair! He's hanging on to the edge by his fingernails!
Plucky stuff from the young Orlock. And look at that! Not to be outdone, his youthful compatriot Bee Emmex on the far side has just boosted his wrecker pack and gone hell-for-leather, right into the chaos spawn!
He's got balls for days, Jarri!
Well, he certainly had, Blaargh - in the last brief seconds of his life, he's hacked a good chunk off that amorphous quarterback. Just as you'd expect, though, he's not going to be coming home. Right down the horror's gullet, it barely even had to chew!
What a way to go!
It's already looking difficult for the Orlocks, the Helots have flooded the centre field and are starting to rack up scores, but there's still time for this to change! Hold on to your seats, things are only just getting interesting!
Scores: Helots 4 (centre and right zones), Orlocks 0
Turn 3
I can hear Captain Harlesson cracking his knuckles from here - he's looking Tough as Nails today, I can't think the cult will find him an easy target. Just as well, he's looking to hold that entire right flank by himself. Meanwhile, Carla has switched back to the middle lane, she's opened hatch D on her big gun, and looks to be moving sliding bolt E into position R (see fig. iii). And disaster! Rotary flange 4 has slipped out of her grasp, looks like she'll be working on that reload for some time to come!
Sidecar is surely going off the edge any second! Here comes the naked guy to stamp on his fingers!
But! Look! At! That!
Fla-bloof! What a reversal! Sidecar must've taped that sawn-off to the underside of the bridge just in case - Timmy never saw it coming! That's a face full of buckshot!
Face and, well, let's just say other delicate areas. A couple of branches off the family tree, and he's off the bridge and out of the match!
Wha-chack! Kebab time!
Oh yes - Sue Zuki, the Orlock specialist, has just pulled off a beautiful shot and some long pork with it. A harpoon right through one helot, and she's dragged his buddy into him from behind! It's only clutching the high-tensile cable with blood-stained fingers that's stopped them taking Newton's Elevator to the ground floor. The surviving helots are panicking, running for cover and screaming. It's a stampede!
Music to my ears, Jarr!
If only the helots were doing the same!
No such luck there. In a new low even for their wretched kind, we've just seen Disciple Jean-Paul train his heavy stubber on the hapless hounds of Duke Atti. Destroyer is out, and Barbarian is on the floor. Is there no depth to which they won't stoop?
Scores: Helots 8 (2 each from right and centre), Orlocks 3 (2 from the left plus 1 from two gangers taken out)
And he's just too ornery to drop!
One ray of hope for the Orlocks - their sarge has finally got her ammo drum in the right socket on that heavy bolter. Can Carla Saki pull out some last minute scores?
Scores: Helots 14 (4 right and middle, 1 from a pair of gangers downed , 1 from a champion out), Orlocks 4 (1 from a pair of gangers)
Turn 4
The pain train is pulling into the station! Jarri, I am loving this!
Look at them go, Blaargh - that's Captain Davey and the spawn battering away at each other. His servo claw is punching nasty holes in it, but it keeps growing back.
Yes, nobody's going anywhere fast in that match-up! Robert Factory, the chaos Demagogue, is actually gathering his cronies round to watch the fight, and if I'm not mistaken, credits are changing hands as they bet on which combatant will run out of energy and fall asleep first!
Orlocks for the win on the left, though, Jarr!
All the way, Blaargh - the cultists are still cowering at the back, although one of them has managed to put a las-shot through Sidecar. Even though hammer boss Quad Mike and harpoonist Sue Zuki have the left tied up, they're not staying in the scoring zone - I think they're shifting towards the middle to try and stem the tide there!
Yeah, it ain't looking pretty for the Orlocks in the middle!
Reacting to the chance of Orlock reinforcements, the cult have sent Dash Mere, a credulous blasphemer, on an intercept course. He's clutching not one, not two but three demolition charges - it's the classic Grenade Bouquet tactic, and it looks like Quad Mike is destined to be the recipient!
Boo-boo-boo-booom! Devastating!
In all the right ways for those of us watching, Blaargh, that's our favourite sort of direct hit. A Necromundan Bullseye!
Love it, Jarri - Mike barely even felt that, but I can see bits of Dash still pattering to earth!
A tremendous own goal! But it's balanced by the shift of power in the middle - another Orlock just bit the dirt under a hail of heavy stubber fire, there's a flamer being brought to bear on Duke Atti and his surviving dog - and he's in trouble there!
I really feel for him, Jarri, he'd finally given up trying to shoot the horror, he'd gone right past it with an eye for the middle. Now he's on fire, and the warp thing has got him!
He's being shaken like a brainleaf in a grav-field, Blaargh, I don't think he's getting up from that!
One ray of hope for the Orlocks - their sarge has finally got her ammo drum in the right socket on that heavy bolter. Can Carla Saki pull out some last minute scores?
Scores: Helots 14 (4 right and middle, 1 from a pair of gangers downed , 1 from a champion out), Orlocks 4 (1 from a pair of gangers)
Turn 5
Seconds away from full-time, and the Orlocks are on the back foot!
It's a big foot, though!
That's right - the helots have Road Captain Harlesson outnumbered and pinned down, but they just can't finish him off. He's just taken a chainsaw to the side from the cult's Demagogue, and it's just made him madder. If only he wasn't fighting a virtually unkillable mound of fanged and shapeless meat!
Not a problem Quad Mike's got - he just charged the Witch!
Talk about your hexenhammer - that's an arc sledge to the brainpan, and I don't think they'll be hammering out that dint in the shop any time soon.
Thwop - right behind him, Gunner Zuki just slammed another harpoon home. Cultist on a stick, get it while it's hot!
That was flamer-wielder Joe Quarter, tagged and bagged!
Yes! I knew we'd hear it again before the end! It's a heavy bolter!
Singing a song of death and fury, Carla's got her big gun trained on the Warp Horror. And that's spectacular! A true Bullet Lord, she's emptied the entire magazine into the shambling vileness, and that's more burned and splattered meat than the entire H. Gorbu Sunday Surprise Buffet! What a takeout!
I'm hungry just looking at it, Jarr! Too little too late, though - look at that swarm of cultists!
Like rats up a flared trouser, Blaargh. Hell of a show from the Orlocks, but they've lost control of this match, and that's another of the great Houses out of the running!
Scores: Helots 19 (right and middle plus another brace of gangers), Orlocks 6 (2 from a champion and a brute downed)
The House of Iron got steamrolled!
You said it, Blaargh - early disappointment from their shooting left them overrun by the end, and hemmed in to their own lines.
They really Orlucked out!
The helots were undeniably terrible, but numbers, unlike you, Blaargh, really count. Shored up by those bullet sponge beasties, they've brought an unlikely contender through to the quarter finals. Tune in as we power through the last few qualifiers, folks, there's plenty more blood to shed!
Blimey! Did those Helots bring enough guys?
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