OK, I've renamed this, as it's no longer a planned campaign, it's an actual campaign
That said, I thought I'd regale you with a report (in the form of pictureless prose. We took a few [EXCOMMUNICATE]ty pictures to start with, and then got so caught up in the actual game that we... Forgot to take pictures...) of our first battle. Before I start, I want to note that I suck at writing battle reports, both in story form and as raw statistical data, but it was still sufficiently awesome and cinematic that I want to try!
The Conclave had not gone well.
Kailaib Jaxx had been one of the minority who had wanted to stay the Exterminatus on New Messicca – if they destroyed the planet only to discover that the Silent Child had been something imprisoned under the surface, then that would have been worse than simply letting it be. Also, it could be argued that while getting rid of the Orks on the planet’s surface would be a good idea, luring more there to keep them out of Imperial space would be a better idea. When the Vostroyan man who had refused to give his name, only showing his seal at the door, stormed in and declared that he was going to wipe all life from the planet’s surface, Jaxx knew in his gut that he’d have to be stopped. He was a Catachan, and knew to trust his gut in situations like this.
It had been several hours since he’d managed to sneak away, and the shuttle to the planet’s surface had managed to come down seemingly undetected. He’d brought his two most capable and trusted fighters – “Bonecrusher” McKenzie, a ganger from some backwater planet that was built like a Grox and wielding a Heavy Stubber he’d called Valerie, and Khylia, an Exodite Knight that had pledged her life to him after he had saved her from a Manusaur stampede almost a decade ago. The man had almost a full platoon of Firstborn with him, but the three of them had managed to sneak past to within eyeshot of the Vostroyan Inquisitor.
Jaxx’s heart skipped a beat when he realised what he was standing in – the wreckage of an ancient Imperial cruiser’s cargo hold – full of stripped tanks and broken weapons and, at the far end, across a valley of dust and pools of filthy water, there was the Vostroyan in the remains of a command Rhino with what looked like a Vostroyan technician, fixing the interface and getting ready to signal to some form of Imperial forces. If they arrived, the Vostroyan could take command and destroy the planet without the other Inquisitor’s approval.
Keeping out of sight of the two Vostroyan guardsmen keeping watch over the valley, Jaxx and Khylia ran to the back of what looked like a massive control centre while McKenzie lugged Valerie round the other side of a pile of nearly decomposed girders. The two faster members of the team stopped for breath behind the vehicle as they heard the unmistakable sound of a las bolt issuing from the direction of the Vostroyan camp. Khylia turned fast enough to see the blast hit McKenzie square in the face – the Vostroyans knew they weren’t alone, and the two standing fighters knew they didn’t have fire support.
With that in mind, they split up, with Khylia sprinting around the left hand side of the building, and Jaxx taking the right – a move that left Jaxx unopposed, and Khylia in the face of a sniper and a guardsman armed with a Flamer. Breaking cover, she sprinted at the Flamer-armed guardsman, leaping over a pool of foetid water and screaming her ululating war cry, bringing her spear down in a heavy arc that proved slow enough for the human to dodge it. After several quick dodges, the Guardsman managed to throw himself out of combat and hit the dirt – the better to give the sniper a clear shot to the Eldar woman’s chest, knocking her to the floor.
McKenzie, spitting blood and blinking away the temporary blindness that had resulted from the laser blast to the face, got to his feet to see the Eldar being shot. Grimly, he started walking towards the battle, unleashing a hail of fire which, predictably, hit nothing but air at the extreme range he was shooting at, as Jaxx got up to the makeshift barricades the guardsmen had been using.
Eventually incensed enough to come out, the Vostroyan Inquisitor nonchalantly attempted to Choke Jaxx, only to have his warp-spawned power revoked and his mind ravaged. As the Inquisitor reeled from his own failure, Jaxx jumped over the barricade, shooting the technician in the chest and charging the Inquisitor, the power fist he’d “modified” from a Tau Commander’s battlesuit pounding into the mysterious man’s chest and, to make sure, head, keeping him down for a good long while.
While this was going on behind them, McKenzie and the sniper kept exchanging shots – an exchange that wasn’t shared with the flamer-armed guardsman, who took it upon himself to burn the Eldar into blissful unconsciousness.
Without a second thought, Jaxx put his bionic fist through the transmitter, putting it past repair and jumping out to put his shotgun in the back of the sniper.
“It’s over. Take your wounded and go.” The sniper yelled at the guardsman with the flamer to comply and ran for his life. The guardsman with the flamer looked up at the victorious Catachan Inquisitor and saluted. As he walked off, he kicked down, breaking the Eldar’s neck.
Jaxx was angered beyond normal rage, and especially beyond the detachment he knew any Inquisitor had to keep up at all times, but the guardsman’s action had lit a fire inside him. If she had been killed in action, he could have handled it, he would have been fine if she had died of her injuries, but to see one of his soldiers so ruthlessly killed in cold blood made something snap.
He didn’t talk, he didn’t think, he never moved faster than a gentle stroll as he levelled his shotgun and fired a single solid round to the back of the man’s knee, bringing him to the floor. He walked over casually and looked down for a moment before he knelt at his side, ignoring the man’s cries of pain. He put his fist behind the man’s head and slowly pushed into the ground, making sure the man felt every second as his skull was slowly crushed against the rusted metal floor.
Jaxx rose again to see the technician carrying the unconscious Inquisitor off. As he walked over to join McKenzie at Khylia’s broken, burnt body, he could hear the Vostroyan’s accusations of conspiring with Xenos, of impeding another Inquisitor’s work, and of heresy of various kinds.
The next Conclave would not go well.
