Poking the Bear
With the Imperial assets in Rylstone firmly suppressed under twin waves of Tyranid infestations and a resurgent T'Pau Sept, the commander of the Xenos turned his attention elsewhere. Haemonculus Guraqore moved her fleet to the neighbouring system of Gauntlegun, an independent hive world.
Here, she continued her plan of sowing discord by manipulating the Tyranid threat. Seeding genestealers into several of the orbital communication satellites, she hoped that the ensuing cults would begin the slow process of infiltrating the planet.
The first part of the plan worked like a charm. Numerous groups of cultists sprang up in the wake of the passing Drukharii ships, and before long, they'd made planetfall and were attempting to make their way inside the sealed hive of Fistol City.
Here, however, the plan came unstuck. Guraqore had made no attempt to study the social setup of Gauntlegun, seeing the lives of meaningless chattels entirely beneath her. Had she done so, she'd have realised the importance the Gauntlegian city families made of belonging and following complex social codes.
Any conceivable shibboleth marked you out as an outsider, from the wrong shade of colour on an shoulder strap to the nuance of a greeting. The fact that the crews of the satellites were descended from criminals exiled for breaching these codes made any attempt to infiltrate a short-lived exercise in futility. Most of the would-be cultists were executed; the rest, trying to make a forced entrance through ventilation shafts on the hive wall, were executed by vigilant guards.
Gauntlegun was not blind to this wave of illegal immigrants. Ever paranoid of Imperial attempts on their security, their enormous planetary defense array was activated. Within moments, the Drukharii fleet was identified and targeted, and only a swift escape prevented its destruction. The prevailing solar winds took them to Drawbridge, but left them scattered and disordered.
Death Guard Resurgent
At the same time, the Chaos fleet under Lord Servillus was still lurking in the warp-riven reaches of the Vulnus Infernii. Infighting amongst the many warlords and sorcerers commanding the ships was still intense, and Servillus ground his teeth as he was forced to bargain and haggle with his underlings over their ultimate aims.
None of them seemed willing to risk another fiasco like the invasion of Alebus, and many had exhausted their ranks of infiltrators, spies and cultists in their spreading of heresy in Drawbridge. Sorcerers wished to commune with their patrons in the safety of the rift; champions wished to build lairs and fortify their positions. For the most part, Servillus allowed them to do so, and the Vulnus quickly became a maze of defence platforms, minefields and hidden strike fleets.
At the same time, he made contact with the Death Guard on Bagot Prime.
On the back foot against the Necrons surging into their fortresses from below, he found them willing to take any devil's bargain for aid. Sending a tiny strike team of his most loyal servants and bodyguards, Servillus instructed the remaining Death Guard to attack the very heart of the Necron necropolis.
It was a dangerous gamble, but it paid off. Sevillus's team infected the command network of the deathless cyborgs with a daemonic code virus. Tormented and broken by warp visions, the Necrons concerted assault collapsed. The Deathguard emerged from their battered defence line and took the fight against the Ultramarines once more. They discovered the Astartes had left no more than token forces on planet, and the remaining Imperial troops were quickly forced back in a frantic retreat. Bagot Prime had once more fallen to Chaos.
The Sparing
But where were the Ultramarines? Epistolary Astralhand had indeed withdrawn troops from Bagot, taking advantage of the relative calm his Necron gambit had achieved. Drawbridge, still the most vital asset in the vicinity, was once more under threat by heretics. He couldn't stand by and allow this to continue.
Taking the strike cruiser Inexorable Remonstrance, he made rendezvous with the Imperial fleet around Drawbridge, docking with the Mantis Warrior Battle Barge Millstone of Guilt still in orbit. His strategy was as brutally pragmatic as ever - turn the guns of the fleet on the very world it was there to protect. Cutting out the rampant infection of chaos, whatever the damage caused, was better than letting it fester. He gave his commands to the Mantis Warriors, who relayed them to the local Navy.
Mercy frustrated them. Admiral Lieter Dronzmann refused to enact the firing patterns, perhaps out of an overwhelming sense of horror at the death toll they would have inflicted. The massed ships of the fleet all fired on command, but their munitions fell far wide of their targets, hitting empty wilderness or splashing down in the middle of oceans. Some even fired blindly into the void, missing the planet altogether.
Dronzmann refused to comply with Astralhand's subsequent courtmarshal order, insisting the Ultramarines had overstepped the mark. He would only appear at an Inquisitorial court, he claimed, and had already made appeals to such. Astralhand fumed, but on hearing that the Inquisitor nominated as judge was already en route, could do little but kick his heels.
Plans Awry
Inquisitor Vodiis was indeed already on his way to Drawbridge. Astralhand was indeed out of order, he felt. Destroying Drawbridge, even parts turning towards the darker powers, was too extreme a cure. Better that the system dealt with the heresy itself - an innoculation that could lead to an immunity, rather than a crippling excision.
Before his ship had even left warp, he'd made his verdict. Drawing on the very limit of his authority, he summoned local Adeptus Custodes and sent them to arrest Epistolary Astralhand. Restraint was to be the order of the day. A slap on the wrist, rather than more severe punishment.
Almost simultaneously, he received word that Zamaroon was under attack. The chaos cults he'd tried to seed there had grown first unruly, then outright defiant against his attempt to manipulate them there. They were attacking Imperial outposts across the planet in a rampage, and it took all his attention to coordinate the defense and see them off. Distracted, he was unable to prevent his Custodians walking straight into a trap set by the Mantis Warriors. No sooner had the Guardians arrived, they were surrounded and obliterated.
Worse, the cultists had somehow managed to counter-infiltrate the Inquisitor's entourage. An navigator revealed his true colours as they neared the Drawbridge orbital highways, plunging Vodiis's vessel back into the warp. When it emerged, mere seconds later, they were an entire system away, lost in the whelming darkness of the Vulnis Infernii.
A Million Bullets
The Sparing of Drawbridge might have been ill-advised, but it certainly galvanised the local population to their own defense. Grateful continental governors, realising how close they'd come to extermination, redoubled their preparations to destroy the Chaos insurgents. Countless munitions were released and put in the hands of the Imperial Navy, as well as being re-routed to Bagot Prime and Rylstone. Inadvertently, Astralhand had perhaps begun to tip the war in his own favour.
Elsewhere, on Rylstone, an altogether different breed of Astartes were about to enter the campaign…
Round Three Campaign Results
We had an Easter bonanza of games here, five actions played out across the Operations phase.
- Inquisition-backed Chaos vs Imperium (Instigate Insurrection, 40K battle on Zamaroon): Imperial Win, no effect
- Imperial Bombardment of Chaos forces (settled by controversial Dice Roll on Drawbridge): Fail, no effect
- Xenos vs Chaos (Assert Dominance on Bagot Prime, settled by MCP): Chaos win, Chaos Dominance up by two
- Xenos vs Imperium (Planetary Assault on Gauntletgun, settled by Necromunda): Imperium wins, Chaos Fleet bounced in disarray to Drawbridge
- Imperium vs Inquisitorial Imperium (Planetary Assault, 40K): Imperium wins, Inquisitorial fleet bounced in disarray to Vulnus Infernii
- Chaos built a Defence Network in Vulnis Infernii. Their fleet kept on lurking there in disarray
- The Imperium used a 'something else' move to seize control of the Supply Depot on Drawbridge, meaning they now score double there as long as they maintain dominance
- The Inquisition rallied their fleet
- The Xenos rallied their fleet
- The Crypt Angels entered the fray
Yes, there's a fifth side to this campaign now! The Crypt Angels aren't going to let the Xenos run amok through their home system any longer, and their Fleet and Stronghold have been placed on the map in Rylstone.
This doesn't change the current Dominance, and how they score or what they're up to (being three turns behind) hasn't quite been figured out yet. Expect violence, though!
Which leads us to the scores:
- Imperium: Holds Alebus, Zamaroon and Drawbridge. And Drawbridge is worth double, thanks to them holding the Supply Depots there, so they score 4 for a total of 10.
- Chaos: Have Bagot Prime, Vulnus Infernii, and the SDF, scoring 3 for a total of 7.
- Xenos: Are masters of Haga, the Transcaridian Docks and Rylstone, scoring 3 and bringing them to 9.
- Inquisition: Maintain the tension in Mombassa, Gauntletgun and Drawbridge, scoring 3 for a total of 8.
- Crypt Angels: TBC
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