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.

Jovin Kiel scrambles past the cadre of Sceptis’ rot claimed terminator bodyguards as they drag down a squealing thrashing dreadnought to the ground. Its mechanical howls of defiance are drowned out by the gurgling liquidly laughter of the Death Guard Terminators.

He rolls beneath a final swipe of the belligerent machine and takes his position near old warp gate. Its frame made of something its builder’s call “wraith bone” and that frame has been sparking with unnatural energies ever since they arrived. He can feel the familiar throb of the empyrean pulsing just beyond the veil of reality.

There is a quick respite from the trials of this conflict as he watches the dreadnought that injured and killed so many of his battle brothers fall, its hull rotted and molded by the infectious touch of the monsters that he has worked beside. Even this bit of pleasure is filled with a hidden sting. The death of the walker did not belong to the Iron Warriors but slaves to the Dark Gods.

There is a flash of movement out the corner of Jovin’s damaged visor. More Grey Knights round the forest bend. Only by the grace of the warp did he notice them and what dark fortune spared him from every shot in his hasty attempt to find cover he cannot say.

His hearts both race with adrenalin and flare with pride as a shout echoes from the Grey Knight’s firebase.

“Iron Within! Iron Without!” The war cry shouted by some of his brothers as they open fire on the servants of the corpse god of Terra felling many of their number but not enough to dislodge them from their makeshift base.

Jovin snaps from his reminiscence to reality. The ruins of Jholinheim are still loud and the city still trembles as shots from the heavens rain down. Lance strikes from the Grey Knight’s strike cruisers pound the remains of the Iron Warrior’s fortified position. He wonders if any relief from their own fleet will be coming.

“Curse these Corpse Slaves!” He groans. This is not a war to be proud of. This isn’t even war anymore. This is a chaotic melee with no purpose or direction. Under the command of that plague ridden Septis Kohl all fell apart. Had one of the Iron Warrior commanders been present to lead the charge and purge the Grey Knights from the ruins they would have succeeded. The Iron Warriors would have become the rocks of an eternal shore and all that crashed against it would have been broken. Instead they waged war the Death Guard way, wade into fire and spill into the enemy until death or victory are all that remain.

Now the city is in chaos. No side having gained anything but a butcher’s bill. Jovin takes a final moment to soak in the nonsense that has become the field of war. He looks down and reloads his Melta gun while whispering a silent prayer to the infernal forges that crafted it. He reloads the power cell, checks the stability of the muzzle and rises back to his feet.

“Iron Within… Iron Without” he mutters to himself and marches out to the battle field again. His purpose bred into him since birth. It’s kept him company these long years. In the name of the Emperor. As a soldier for his Primarch and a servant of the Warmaster Horus and the Dark Gods of the Aether. that simple purpose, endure.

In the center of the room, an even older man sits. His hair is long and white, he is mumbling to himself as his finger follows the words etched into the massive tome before him. Looking up he replys, “Ah yes, Grand Master Leantes.” He stands, his old bones creaking under the pressure. “I need you to take care of a little problem we have. It appears Inquisitor Alphenis has lost control of a detachment of Adeptes Sororitus. You see, on the ice planet Trina the villagers started resisting the control of their governor. The populace eventually defeated the guard regiments stationed there and took control of the planet themselves. Of course the Ordo Hereticus was sent to put down this uprising, and they did. First leveling the planet with orbital bombardment, and then killing every person upon the surface.”

“Things went well, in just under a week the resistance was…exterminated. It was then that the sisters, checking for anyone or thing still alive, discovered the source of the rebellion. Hiding in the ruins of a village was a small boy, not just an ordinary boy but a psycher of immense potency. Of course, without the protection of the ministry this boy had been corrupted by the warp and the forces of chaos. It was this adorable little boy that had been possessed, and this adorable little boy had corrupted that entire planet.”

“The sisters however, do not fully understand the power of this boy. Even now, they have been taken in by his cute boyish charm. Even now they are giving him medical attention, healing his wounds and getting to know him.”

“The Adpetus Soritus are loathe to kill their bretheren, and refuse to see this boy as the threat he is. I need you to go now, and eliminate everyone who has come into contact with hellien before he brought into contact with anyone else. Wait, not for his influence grows every moment.”

Without hesitation, the Grand Master replies, “We will not fail the Emperor.” Turning to gather his brothers.

***

“We have arrived in orbit over the system. The Soritus ships have not noticed our presence.”

“Good, move to the far side of the planet and keep out of range. We need not take on the entire Convent. Prepare the brothers for deployment. My men and I will take the Land Raider, along with Brother Dreadnaught Denatis and land clear outside of view. We use to night to cloak our entry.” The voice is strong and stern, speaking without uncertainty. “Instruct the Knights to teleport in just outside the ruins and take up cover within. We will strike once I arrive.” 

***

On the planet’s surface the sisters rest, a few sentries are watching the perimeter but there are no signs of life here. None save a young boy who they have managed to save. A streak of light crashes into the mountains in the distance, followed by a crack of thunder. The sentries spring to life, notifying their canoness.

“Hmm, are you sure it was a drop pod? We have the situation completely under control, there is no need for Marines. I want you to double the sentries and send a unit of Sisters Seraphim to investigate..” 

With that a young dark haired boy starts screaming, “No! No! Its them, they’ve come for me.”

“Shh, Shh, its ok.” The woman consoles the young boy, holding her close to him.

“No, they’ve come to kill us…all of us.”

“Who has come?”

“Great Silver Daemons, they’ve here to kill me and you as well”

The Canoness gets up abruptly, hitting an alarm. “Sisters to Battle! The forces of Chaos approach!”

***

The Land Raider moves into position, and with a quick glance the Captain sees his brother nights ready to move in. As hes about to command the assualt, it begins a rain of bolter fire erupts from the ruins as Sisters Seraphim scream towards their position. The knights know just want to do, from their ranks you begin to hear a feint chant growing ever louder. Their emperor will keep them hidden, and they will strike with force of his name.

***

The sisters fire blindly into the night, where they once thought there were marines there is now nothing. All they can hear is the incessant chanting, growing ever louder and closer. Then it comes, a hail of storm bolter fire from every direction. They try to respond, but they simply cannot find their targets. Sisters are cut down to nothing, even the mighty seraphim are lost.

With a flash their enemies have made it into the camp, might warriors in tactical dreadnaught armor cut through their lines. Finally, the sisters can see their enemy it is not a daemonic force of the warp but their brothers in the Ordo Malleus, the emperor’s finest Grey Knights. The canoness turns to the boy, but he is gone.

Grey Knights vs. Sisters of Battle

2,000 Points

Mission: Seize Ground

Deployment: Dawn of War

Result: Knights 2, Sisters 0