War of the Relics; Combat is Joined

Captain Aelius wiped his hand across the lenses of his helmet. He recognized those unit markings. They belonged to Sergeant Decimus, but he had been pulled away from the chapter for a secret mission. What was he doing here?

No matter, it cheered Aelius to have the assistance of his compatriots. He advanced towards the Berzerkers, firing his Storm Bolter.

Commander Bau looked on in astonishment. His science officer was outside the Hammerhead searching for whatever had brought them here so he was unable to leave his post. However, he was tempted to by the sudden arrival of Terminators. 

He had seen them tear hammerheads to bits with those blasted Power Fists they packed. He was not going to allow that to happen to his tank. He fired his rail gun and both gun drones shot at the Terminators. 

A curse escaped his lips as every shot whistled harmlessly past their intended targets. Could his men do nothing right?

So far the Rail Gun has fired twice, scoring a 1 each time, and the twin linked gun drones effectively fired 4 times and have yet to exceed a 3. No need to beware the Tau if they are going to shoot like that...

Ganzoric looked longingly at the lone Marine coming off the hill ahead of him. He would like almost nothing better than to tear him

apart in hand to hand combat, reaping glory for himself.

Fortunately, one of the few things he would enjoy more had arrived, and that was a solid target for hand to hand. Waving his men to follow him, he led them towards the Terminators, firing his bolt pistol as he went. He was not surprised to see the bullets plink harmlessly off the tough armor of the terminators but he did not care, he wanted to tear them apart with his bare hands.

With gleeful screams his men charged the Terminators who snapped off a volley of shots, all but one missing. Ganzoric saw one of his men stumble and fall under the hail of bolts, never to rise again but it mattered not. He raised his sword and began hacking at the Terminator in front of him.

His men demonstrated the fury they were famed for, unleashing a massive hail of attacks against the Terminators. Unfortunately, they were just a bit slower than normal having had to fight through the terrain they had charged out of and only one Terminator fell under the initial flurry of blows, while 6 of his own men fell under the pounding of the massive Power fists wielded by the Terminators. 

The terminators demonstrated the power of a 2+ save, making 10 of 11 saves. The berzerkers were massively helped by the Furious Charge rule giving them 3 attacks apiece on the charge and needing a 3 to hit, but the armor save was too much to overcome. They are down to half their original unit size, while the terminators have lost 25%. 

sadly, they out-point the Terminators nearly 2-1 and do not look to have much chance against them in this combat...although, to be fair, this round the Berzerkers fought at Initiative step one because they charged out of the difficult terrain. That meant they struck at the same time as the Terminators. Next round they strike first.

Decimus found himself surrounded by two enemies. His power sword glowed as he tried to keep them at bay, yet they penetrated his defenses three times. They could not penetrate his armor, fortunately.

Meanwhile the three men he had remaining withstood another flurry of attacks by their enemies. Decimus had to admit he was impressed by their skill with weapons. He was more impressed at the power of the fist as his men bludgeoned three more of the Berzerkers into the ground, bringing their numbers down to a manageable level.

War of the Relics; Going berzerk

Commander Bau moved forward confidently. He gave brief consideration to scanning that life form he had registered but dismissed the idea. His task was to locate the signal and find out what it was. Any life here was too small and insignificant to matter. He advanced steadily, ignoring whatever it was moving slowly behind him.

Captain Aelius crested the hill and stared off to the left. He had been right. There was a Tau Hammerhead with its' massive, destructive Railgun slowly tracking back and forth in front of it. 

He breathed a sigh of relief. What he was feeling could not truly be called fear but neither was he a stupid man. He was a very capable warrior, but taking on a mainline tau battletank single-handedly was nothing he wanted to attempt.

He paused to consider whether he should return to his craft and call in his chapter to deal with the tank. Ahead of him however, almost within reach, was his goal. If he did return and call down the Ultramarines, the Tau would doubtless respond in kind and in the battle that would rage over this planet, he might lose for all time whatever it was his father wanted him to find. Grimly he pressed on towards his goal.



Ganzorig rolled his shoulders and gestured his men forward. It was an unfortunate path they had landed on, but that mattered little. Ahead of him was the siren song of a fallen warrior whose spirit was rumored to inhabit this planet.

Ganzorig could not recall the name of the fallen hero, but stories told of his stand in battle had called his acts and example of "steel courage". Since that was the meaning of Ganzorig's name he had decided to lead his band of Berzerkers in search of the final resting place of this fallen hero in order to see if he could enhance his own power in battle.

Backed by another 19 Berzerkers of his platoon, he worked his way through the rather difficult terrain, heading towards where he believed the fallen hero to be.


Army three was Chaos Space Marines, Elites, Berzerkers. They rolled objective 4 which was a foot or so behind Captain Aelius and came in on edge 6. An interesting situation is developing that sees 20 khornic Berzerkers advancing towards a single Chapter Captain of the Ultramarines while the Tau Hammerhead sits unchallenged since as yet nothing is on the battlefield that can touch the Hammerhead...