Before the Demolisher Commanders could even say ‘Hey, guys, wake up!’ the Chaos Predators had opened fire with their turret-mounted lascannons At the same time, three Red Corsair bikes roared up on the left, two of the bikers opening fire with meltaguns. While the heavy armour of the two Demolishers held up under the punishment, both crews were left dazed from the concussion…
The crews of the tanks at the rear had by this point swung into action. The rearmost Russ moved off along behind the dried-up reservoir, heading out towards the flank. In the centre, the second Russ rumbled up behind the objective swinging its battle cannon around to draw a bead on the Death Guard Terminators in the centre of the enemy line. The shell hit home, but the shrapnel glanced harmlessly off the ancient armour. A shot from the third Russ over on the left fell wide of the Corsair bikers.
Most of the Chaos forces held firm behind cover, with the Terminators advancing up the centre towards the objective. On the right flank, the Chaos Predator fired through the ruins at the rearmost Russ, the shot going wide and blasting a furrow along a nearby wall. The Bikers and the Missile Launchers on the hill all fired on the Demolisher behind the sludge pit, with the hail of fire ripping the turret from the vehicle and leaving the crew a little woozy.
Gargling a largely incoherent battle cry, the Death Guard Lieutenant flapped his way across the battlefield, landing directly in front of the right-hand Demolisher, swinging his Dark blade with wanton abandon and doing any number of other manly, warrior-like things.
At this point, the complex mathematics of the situation (S4+2+D6 does not equal at least 14) caught up with me, and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Needless to say, the Demolisher was rather unaffected by this whole process…
With some slightly shaky reserves rolls, only three of the Guard’s reserve Tanks caught up to the battle, with the Commander’s Vanquisher and a Leman Russ rumbling on opposite the Chaos force’s right flank, and a second Vanquisher swinging up onto the hill behind the landing pad.
Both Vanquishers lined up Predators in their sights, with crews muttering sacred litanies and ramming Anti-tank rounds into their breaches. Both shells landed on target, punching through the slim-encrusted armour of the Traitor tanks. The Predator on the right flank emerged from the smoke unscathed, but with it’s crew temporarily incapacitated. The Predator up on the hill was not so lucky, erupting in a massive fireball which engulfed the two nearby Marine squads.
Apparently, the marines were doing a better job of looking after their armour, as every one of them survived the blast.
