Festerruman Sachiel
The Warmaster
THE CHAOS PACT
Proclaim this among the nations: Prepare for war! Rouse the Warriors! Let all the fighting men draw near and attack.
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Objective II — Mirial
Allies: Marcus Dinn , Xeykard , | Sith Order Forces
Enemies: Gress D'ran , Corazona von Ascania , Konrad Montrose | GADF Forces
Engaging: Gress D'ran | Open
Objective: Pin the Hellstompers
Proclaim this among the nations: Prepare for war! Rouse the Warriors! Let all the fighting men draw near and attack.
x
Objective II — Mirial
Allies: Marcus Dinn , Xeykard , | Sith Order Forces
Enemies: Gress D'ran , Corazona von Ascania , Konrad Montrose | GADF Forces
Engaging: Gress D'ran | Open
Objective: Pin the Hellstompers
Ten minutes.
Twenty tanks and sixty-seven APCs were already burned out husks or badly crippled to the point where their crews had no choice to bail and join the fight with their PDWs.
Archcommanderim Sidrel gritted her teeth as the main cannon of her Mors Ferro spat once more, sending another massive howitzer shell tumbling into the side of an Alliance Cougar Medium Tank. These walkers were tougher than she could have expected. They had been dumping metric tons of high-explosive right at them non-stop, enough to level multiple fortified building blocks, but they couldn't even get past the shields of their lighter bipedal walkers, let alone the super heavies. Every second that passed she would hear the scream of one of her tank crews before they were engulfed by a burst of static.
Most of her anti-tank infantry had been slaughtered. The automatic grenade launchers and mortars had made mincemeat of them. A few got close enough to deploy their short-range anti-tank weapons only to find them fruitlessly bounce off the GADF armor. The few dozen were somehow still alive through the hail of blaster fire and shrapnel was now clambering onto enemy tanks in hopes of ripping open the hatches to hurl their det-packs into.
Another company was searing a burning hole into her rear. No option for retreat. But it wasn't like her tanks were able to given their atrocious reverse speeds.
At the very least their armored charge had managed to preserve the lives of the rest of the retreating troops. It didn't console her very much that her troops were the ones dying in their place instead.
Another ten minutes and her entire armored regiment would be wiped out. But that was their job, wasn't it? Their orders hadn't been to destroy or even drive back the Hellstompers but to keep them pinned in place. Sidrel hoped that her losses were worth it.
"Damn it, all tanks focus fire on their medium-tracked vehicles. We can't penetrate their walkers. Use your speed to get on their sides and rear," she grunted as her tank was directly struck by the Sphinx Cerberus' GATB-13 Thunderer. The impact was enough to lurch all one hundred tonnes of armored machine several meters sideways. The tank's generator flared and died. Spalling erupted from the side of the turret and decapitated her gunner, leaving mists of blood steaming in the air. But it didn't penetrate their thick armored hide.
"Feth this!" Sidrel growled, kicking her gunner's corpse from his seat and taking his place at the sight. She swung the massive howitzer around just in time to see one of her tanks get crushed under Ceberus' giant paw. When that paw lifted again her fellow heavy tank was nothing more than a smear of metal and gore on the ground. Her vehicle was no doubt next.
She was going to take down that quadrupedal beast if that was the last thing she would do. The main gun reached its maximum and she set her sights on the walker's rear left hip joint. "Be not that far from me, my Lord, for trouble is near; haste Thee to help me. Blessed be Father Khaos, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight. O my God, I trust in thee: let me not be ashamed, let not mine enemies triumph over me. Let Khaos reign!"
With a final trigger pull her tank fired the last round it ever would.
The Marines had trained for trench combat but the Chaos Pact had been born in it.
Just over a third of their number reached the trenches, barely five hundred in total, the rest slaughtered on the way by flanking fire from the Thundercats. Steaming piles of gore and blood was all that was left of many of them. The eight-century-long civil war in their home world of Herodor had been defined by trench warfare and grinding sieges that dragged on for decades. Despite another century of recovery, the surface of their planet had been so scarred by this type of warfare that the vast majority of the population was forced to live underground. They were in their element now, their discipline and drilled tactics came kicked into high gear.
While above the trenches assault teams kept the heavy guns of the GADF marines busy, within the trenches themselves the Combat Pioneers went to work. They racked their scatterguns and activated the pilot lights of their flamethrowers. Vibro-blades were prepared. Hatchets, billhooks, and sharpened shovels were gripped by leather-gloved hands. Thermal detonators were passed around so that the frontman of each squad would be carrying a dozen.
"Go." the command was given and columns of Pioneer-Sappers flooded into the trench lines proper in a storm-assault. Several of them ran into the hallway ambushes set up by the auto rifle operators but quickly recovered, blasting away at the defenders with volleys and volleys of scatterguns only to be cut down in turn by Thunderfist under barrels. In some tight trench corridors, the exchange of fire was so great that it appeared as if a horizontal torrential downpour of steel and blaster fire was occurring. Conditions were so tight that men didn't have room to fall, their perforated corpses standing upright.
Flamethrowers spewed napalm around corners. Some Pioneer-Sappers Officers carried Chainswords and where battles became so close quarters it devolved into hand-to-hand, put them to repulsive use.
The trench war had only just began.
The kill team of ten Sagittarius Tank Hunters slowly trundled forward through the wrecked battlefield, passing by old building ruins and the exposed roots of upturned trees. Their silenced engines and padded tracks made sure that their approach was quieter than a child's whisper. Where the Mors Ferros were tall and haughty with their massive howitzer turrets, the Sagittarius was long-hulled, sleek, and lower than a standing man. Their one primary weapon was a supercharged MZ-8 Pulse Cannon fixed on the front designed expressly to kill heavy armor. The Sagittarius were predators who feasted on durasteel, watching and waiting for their prey for hours just to strike at their weakest moment.
Their moment had come. They nestled up in the wreckage of an old warehouse and activated their signature reduction systems. What little emissions their engines produced were strangled and cooling pipes in the armour plating worked overtime to diminish their heat signature. The camo-netting system worked to blend their hulls into the surrounding environment.
The kill team's leader Captain Phen Asmodon, the commander of the Spear of Wrath, watched the battle unfold through his tank's probescope. The strong were devouring the weak. But so preoccupied with their feast that they would make easy targets.
"As much as it pains me to say it, focus our first shots on the bipeds. They're more mobile and easier to spook. Weaker shields too. Heavy ones won't be going anywhere soon. Two of you select a single biped. Quick succession shots. One to disable the shield, and the next one follows up a second later to finish the job. Once that's done, reverse and move to the next position to repeat. Pick your targets and fire on my command," he ordered over the comms as his vehicle's enslaved 88-series mathematical droid installed into the targeting system calculated millions of variables for the gunner. The gunner fixed the tank killer's sights on the legs of a Thundercat.
With a hissing shriek of superheated air, the ten Tank Hunters lanced a bright blue beam of plasma at five Thundercat walkers.
Mere moments before the Tank Hunters bared their fangs, the holographic image of Ennenhim-General Thuen Neraddur appeared on Gress D'ran 's Cerberus. It brute-forced its way into the command walker's Encrypted Communication Array, seeking to send a message instead of intercepting one. The Chaos Pact commander was a faceless creature whose final vestige of humanity was hidden behind a nozzle and a leather gas mask.
"This is Ennenhim-General Neraddur. To the commander of this unit, allow me to congratulate you. It has been an unheard-of occurrence until now for the full might of one of our tank divisions to be stopped dead in its tracks in such a decisive manner. Your Alliance certainly has an arsenal of enviable walkers. I shall look forward to bringing their captured remains back to Herodor for the tech scholars to study over. Do not fret. They shall be treated with the greatest respect. I shall see to it personally," his voice was heavily filtered by his mask, "As for the men of your battalion should you choose to surrender, rest assured they will be treated with dignity and honor. Should they choose to renounce their heretical ways and convert to the Cult of Khaos we shall welcome them with open arms into our crusading armies. Indeed, I would look forward to perhaps fighting alongside you."
"But understand this. Your fight is a hopeless one. You are but a battalion-sized against an entire army. We shall not be fazed by our losses nor suffering, for in death we receive paradise. You shall not find victory if you continue your fruitless endeavor, only death."
Neraddur wasn't a man to boast. But he wasn't above using trickery if he had to. In this case, hopefully distracting the enemy commander long enough that his Tank Hunters could engage multiple walkers before a response could be formulated. A gamble but one with little cost for him.
Besides, it was always nice to know who you were going to kill.
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