This is a narative of a game I played. My opponent, Redemptor40k, is the writer. So all credit goes to him.... fingers crossed he finishes the tale.
The Serpents eyes narrowed as he looked through the half-light towards the ruined chapel where the crippled form of the dreadnought remained.
‘Where are they?’ he thought to himself.
The contingent of marines that had been guarding the relic didn’t stand a chance as his best men descended on them in the darkness – their senses were super heightened from the combat drugs he had given them and the neurotoxins in their splinter rifles were tailored to shut down the marines enhanced biology. He had personally despatched the dreadnought with his blast pistol but not before it had activated its distress signal – that was what he was counting on.
He had fulfilled his part of the bargain.
“SLISCUS!” Shouted the Archon.
The kabal's grav craft skimmed past the landing pad with the Archon stood at the helm of the most ornate raider – he could not see his face but imagined the fury in his eyes behind the leering mask.
Just as he was about to respond there was a scream of thruster jets and the landing pad was licked with flames. Before he even had chance to register the drop pods arrival the space marines were on top of them – before the spent shell casings had hit the ground the bolter rounds were lifting his men off their feet and blowing ragged bloody chunks through their ornate armour, one warrior dived in front of Sliscus as a melta was aimed at him – half the warriors face dissolved as the weapon found its new target.
Such loyalty surprised the Duke, he didn’t know the warriors name but he would remake him if there was enough of him left for the haemonculi.
As he contemplated this he unholstered his blast pistol and in one fluid move aimed it squarely at the helmet of the squad leader – the marine had no time to react and suffered the same fate as the loyal warrior. The rest of Sliscus’s band of warriors opened up on the marines but they could only bring down two more.
Sliscus looked to the distance, Laser Beams cut through the dark sky but found no target, he followed the trajectory back to its source – a Land raider followed by more of the ugly Imperial tanks. The marines had arrived and in force, hopefully the Archon would be happy now.
The bark of bolter fire brought his attention back to the landing pad, nearly half his men were dead or dying and there were still seven marines to kill. He readied his blades as the marines closed in – now it would get interesting….