Years ago the Grostiche Mountains seemed to swallow up an entire detachment of the Cadian 101^st who dared to walk its haunted crevasse and fog layered valleys. To this day farmers and Grox Herders still speak of hearing disembodied screams and seeing phantoms on the mountainside. Nothing of the dead guardsmen was ever found save for blood stained patches of snow and wrecked Chimeras.

These stories did little to impress or restrain the Sisters of the Order of the Exalted Heart, the so-called Ladies of Pain, as the civilians of Cygnus knew them. They heard tale of heretical shrines and antediluvian cities buried in the snow and ice. The idea that such blasphemous sites could exist on world belonging to the divine and beneficent Emperor of Mankind was abhorrent to them. It could not be allowed and it was by holy edict that the Canoness Preceptor of the Order dispatched her most zealous and hateful battle sisters to carry out the will of the Emperor.

Deep within the mountain range where travel became nearly impossible and all signs of distant civilization were lost to the horizon is where they found their destination. A temple complex that rested beside a frozen lake. Some evidence still stood of more recent human civilization. The Logi of the Order dated the remains of the bunker to a time before the Light of the Emperor graced this world, when men and women lived in ignorance of the Imperium.

It took the Expedition’s Canoness only a few moments to realize what must be done, that this place must be cleansed with Holy Promethium and sanctified Exorcist Missiles. She prepared her battle sisters and tanks to roll into the darkness within the temple complex.

As they neared the dark arch of the entrance the ground behind them quivered and seized from below. The ice spilt and the snow was pushed aside. Frost covered metal specters rose from an age old slumber, each one carrying abominable weapons that cast their sickly emerald glare on the snow drifts around them.

The Canoness rallied her sisterhood and ministered the hymns of battle and gave praise to the Emperor for allow them to serve his holiness. With shouts of holy hatred and cruel spite the sisters mounted their Repressors and sped toward the enemy as fast as their blessed engines would carry them. The night flickered brightly with the flash of Exorcist Missiles and the organ music of those vehicles played by organists who were oblivious to the battle unfolding around them. Only their music occupied their thoughts now.

The enemy was not impressed by the blind zealotry of their opponent. They felt no fear, they felt nothing at all. Most were barely self-aware and even the rare few that had some sense of self only knew rage and jealousy. The living mocked them with every breath, with every sensation and experience. They advanced as a solid block, each one moving without issuing so much as a single sound let alone a battle cry. The only evidence of their presence at all was he crunch of snow beneath their metal bulk and the pale light of the moons reflecting off their living metal. Beside their implacable advance a ghostly image crawled into sight from he depths of the void. A pyramid of blackish stone with veins of glowing jade that ran its faces. The zenith of the monolith burst into baleful life and unleashed a whip of energy that brought silence to the battlefield. The organ of the Exorcist was destroyed and with it the musician.

The Canoness ordered her mounted warriors on while she and her Retributors took shelter behind the damaged Exorcist. With a defiant scream she ordered her Immolator forward as well but as it reached the edge of the frozen lake the ice gave way and the tracks were jammed with freezing water and snow. Her once strong position had become nothing but a series of road blocks and places to conceal herself. She spat litanies of defiance and condemnation but her prayers halted as her eyes fixed on the conductor of the silent Necron advance.

Clothed in a black shroud and tabard that moved more like smoke then cloth, the Lord stood with his hulking Immortals. One hand clutched an orb that pulsed with wicked energy and each burst of light would awaken another fallen warrior. In one smooth motion it raised its icon of office, staff made of elegant metal and light. As it did so the rest of its army followed suit in jerky mechanical fashion. By its silent command the enemy fired and anything its weapons touched was rent down to ash, stripped layer by layer… flayed alive. Within the death mask of the Lord there were glints of witch fire that burned with a hate more ancient then any mortal could conjure. The Canoness was humbled by its fiery gaze. She knew that even in death it held more rage then she could ever muster in her living years.

The mounted sisters rolled into a flanking position and leapt from their Repressors with bolters blazing and litanies of faith on their lips. The Canoness ordered her Seraphim to descend upon the enemy’s other flank and her own Retributors to stab into the core of the enemy with blessed Heavy Bolters.

The sisters never faltered or fled in the face of the enemy but their fire power was futile. Every shot was shrugged off or repelled by the alien armor and those that did succumb to fire would soon stand, willed back to unlife by their grim master. Their only victory came when a burst of heavy fire forced silent gliding Necron weapon platforms to retreat into the depths. Beside the retreat of these five their weapons could only manage to put down another four of the Necron. By that time enemy had destroyed all resistance on both flanks and its indestructible Monolith drifted forward to block the view of the Retributors.

All was lost to them. The Canoness gave the command to fall back, though her options for escape were all cut off save for one, the depths of the benighted temple-city they came to destroy. Her and the survivors walked willingly into the blackness of the archways. None of them had any illusions about surviving the night. Their only hope now was to die well in His service.

Game Type: Annihilation

Deployment Pitched Battle

Game Size: 1500

Result: Cygnus Tomb Victory 4KP to 2KP

Necrons V Grey Knights

Game Size: 1530

Game Type: Capture and Control

Deployment: Pitched Battle

Results: 2 Objectives taken by the Necrons. 0 For the Grey Knights. 0 Contested on either side.

Battle brother Reicheim plunges his Nemesis spear through the crawling relentless remains of a Necron warrior staking it to the ground and finally ending the machine’s resistance.

“Damn these things. You have to disassemble them before they quit. There’s more fight in these Machines then in a rampaging ork. Just none of the guttural choir of the Green skin.” Reichheim comments with the same levity his squad mates have come to know of him. Though today they have no patience for it. Today they are part of the retinue of the Grand Master. If he disapproves of Reicheim’s comments then he hasn’t said a word of it.

They survey the old ruin site. A still and desolate place loomed over by a massive eroded statue of some nameless entity. A few of the mechanical things scramble about the site, less then a dozen of them and they are easy pickings for the Grey Knights. The locals spoke of demons and diablerie here. Such stories were the firelight that made moths of the Grey Knights. What the locals of Cipella spoke of were not demons, at least not the warp spawned kind anyway.

The Necron, even to the Grey Knight little is known. There is far more myth and theory then actual fact. All that is known is that they sleep in places long forgotten by other races. That and they have an unyielding hatred for life.

Reicheim surveys the half buried site and then looks into the cold lifeless eyes of the Necron at his feet. How many hundreds of thousands of years have those eyes surveyed death and suffering he wonders. He’s satisfied they’ll see no more.

“Should we be on our way? There is nothing left here for us to…” Reicheim begins to address his brothers and the Grand Master but a static burst in his helmet’s Vox unit distracts him. Mixed with that static is something else, a low hidden groan and whispers… none of them knowable.

Through the static comes the voice of Hector Nevares, the Justicar in charge of security in western edge of the ruins. “approaching…. Fr… they….taking cas…”

“Repeat Hector. You’re breaking up. Repeat!” Reicheim orders into his mouthpiece.

“They approach from… we’ve tak…” Reicheim listens through a few seconds of dead silence and static bursts. “By his throne… Run!” The final words of Hector Nevares are heard loud and clear. All Reicheim sees from the west is a blinding flash of green light and a deafening crack of sound that follows several long seconds afterward.

Reicheim looks toward his fellow battle brothers all clad in the impenetrable armor of a Terminator. He knows no fear but still feels remorse. He knows the Justicar and his squad met an ignoble end against and already he can see their murderer crest the top of the hill in the west. A pyramid like structure that floats on phantom energy and whose zenith is alight with green witch fire. His brothers had no hope of harming such a war machine and would have been pressed up against the banks of the western river and annihilated.

“Mount up Grey Knights. We take the battle to the enemy!” The words of the Grand Master are heard by each of the Terminators but the Tech crews of the blessed machine have already denied that plan. Reicheim listens to them speak of the techno-curses of the Necron and that the machine spirit of the Land Raider refuses their commands to move. Just as the Grand Master is about to protest the port side Las Cannon Batter erupts in flames. A squadron of Necrons mounted upon odd hovering platforms races past. The Land Raider was just an easy target on their way to more vulnerable enemies, Justicar Gavlin’s Squad. The men of that squad are out ranged and out gunned by weapons that strip them of their armor, flesh and bones. They are flayed apart with no chance of reprisal.

“We meet them on foot then!” Reicheim screams. Knowing full well there is little hope of catching the phantoms unless they allow themselves to be caught. His fears are affirmed as a haze of shadows swallow up an advancing Necron unit only for them to reappear on the far banks of the river and well into the Grey Knight position. He can see something moving with the warriors. Something with more grace and motion. Veiled in darkness and carrying a scythe of some kind inscribed with all manner of debased runes. It holds high some strange orb that pulses with green light and sends waves of energy across the battlefield.

Reicheim is stirred from his thoughts by the sound of clattering metal on metal. The lifeless thing at his feet now moves, crawls up and drags itself on his armor scraping metal claws and reaching to grip his neck. Again he smashes the thing from him and scatters it to debris on the ground. Again darkness claims the green fire in its eye sockets. With a final flickering pulse it fades from sight completely.

“Justicar Tembol take your men across that river and hold our position. The cruiser in orbit will be targeting the Necron deployment. We need only deny them their ground and hold our own do you hear me?” The Grand Master calmly speaks into his Vox. Reicheim cannot fathom the will of a man who remains so calm under this sort of pressure. With such a figure on the field of war this day surely will not belong to the dead.

Reicheim watches Tembol and his men make way across the river but a feint haze slowly starts to block his vision of them. At first he considers fog but the temperature is not right for such a weather condition. The haze takes on a greenish pitch and the silhouette of something massive stirs within. “No!” Reichheim screams and desperately tries to reach Tembol before the second Necron Monolith phases into reality. He finds the channel and shouts into the unit with none of the Grand Master’s serenity. “Tembol take cover! Take cover now!” Already the eastern side of the ruin glows as a green sun briefly bursts into being and dies away… seconds later a crack of thunder and then silence. None of Tembol’s men register on his internal monitors. The Monolith continues its ponderous advance into the Grey Knights staging area.

The ground shakes as the cruiser in high orbit unleashes its lance salvos on the Necron position but too few of the machine things are felled to make a difference. Reicheim knows enough of these things to know that they will deny him even the satisfaction of morning their own losses. They’ll never feel the sting of death as he does.

The Terminators watch as the last of their staging grounds’ defenders is felled. Brother Ambrosio, long since interred in the holy sarcophagus of a Dreadnought. His weapons shorn from his body and legs cut out beneath him by the blade of the Necron’s master. It cuts through him as if he was but mere flesh and bone not adamantium and piston.

It takes him a few seconds to realize that he and his fellow Terminators are alone. Every other brother on the field is dead or wounded.

“Let the dead have their ruin!” The Grand Master orders “We can scour this menace from orbit.” He orders what men are left that can hear to quit the field and collect the injured. Reicheim knows the ship’s gunners will soon find no trace of the Necrons to fire upon. The Phantoms will return to their limbo taking with them any Astartes they can wrap their cold fingers around. The new priority is to take every man still alive and retreat. He knows the Necrons hate the living and the longer they linger the more they risk all they have left. Their lives.

To: The Office of the Governor Militant
From: Selusia Continental Command, Col Markus Cochrane of the Cadian 101st
Regarding: Selusia Security Reports
Classification: Crimson

Since the time of last months Security Report we have little new to offer Cygnus Command with regard to credible threats. As you well know the Selusian Continent is mostly a frozen waste with ice pack so thick and temperatures so cold that no enemy could mount any feasible threat. Selusia Command remains at the ready and are ever diligent regardless.

I have little else to offer and would end this transmission here if not for the urgings of some of the field command who insist I make note of what they have dubbed the “Grostiche Incident”

Grostiche is a range of mountains that crosses the northern plains of Selusia and dotted with pits of rock but mostly flat plains and coniferous forests. An Armored Detachment from Lt Col Brunwaldt’s tank company had been out searching the Grostiche mountains that pass through sector seven looking for a lost Chimera full of tech adepts and auxiliary support staff that had been lost in a white out. Their homing beacons had seemed to malfunction as well. The Armored Detachment traced them to the point where their homing beacon failed.

The detachment found the Chimera nestled between some large rocky outcroppings to shelter it from the blizzard. As they neared within several kilometers of the Chimera their own beacon systems began to fail and Vox Casters supposedly began to broadcast Xenos whispers and odd noises. I mark up most of what I’ve said and what I will follow with as superstitious hysteria from local conscripts within the 101st Selusian Imperial Guard.

They say they spotted shapes moving in the snow storm that were draped in flayed skin that had belonged to some of the Tech adepts. They say these shapes had knives for fingers and a relentless desire to coat their skeletal forms in more wet flesh.
A survivor from the Basilisk crew mentions that specters rose up from the ice, their bodies immaterial and ghastly, and that they flew across the ground and ripped through metal bulkheads with a might that even Ogren cannot muster.

The few remaining Tech Adepts were loaded onto a Hellhound that had managed to penetrate the snow and were rescued. The Hellhound crew relates a fantastic tail of ice covered and snow packed skeletons carrying weapons that would strip the layers away from Imperial armor and that these weapons were no larger then a las rifle. One of them reports a pair of ponderous pyramids that phased onto the ice fields in a dim flash of green light.

They say hideous mechanical undead marched from the swirling vortex within these idols while throwing bursts of explosive green power around the battlefield. They say no amount of ordinance could penetrate their hides and any superficial damage done to it was reknits by this fantastical living metal.

The local population have many colorful stories about such odd and unbelievable enemies. It most likely is resultant from unconfirmed and unreliable Imperial reports of robotic Xenos found on dead worlds. Such outrageous stories may have found their way into the culture of the local population via the loose lips of drunk officers and naval adepts during the first days of the garrison construction.

What is confirmed is that something prevented the return of all but one tank from the detachment. It is more likely that the cause for this is revolutionist traitors from extremist groups found here in Selusia and all around Cygnus. These ignorant fools believe the gracious hand of the Emperor and his forces is to oppressive for their little world. They may have clothed and armed themselves in a manner similar to these restless dead that are part of the local color in order to shake the spirits of the Selusian guard. I assure you it has not weakened our resolve any. This is far more likely a scenario then ice phantoms.

Thought for the Day: The Loyal Servant Learns to Love the Lash

+++End Transmission+++

Cygnus Tomb Necrons Vs Armored Company of the Cadian 101st
Game Size: 1440
Mission Type: Take and Hold
Result: Solid Victory for the Cygnus Tomb