Refinery Station 057 in Valour System’s asteroid belt is nestled in a relatively safe place. Until now. Ork pirates have been spotted looking for loot. A small Ultramarine task force was dispatched with a regiment of Elysian Drop Troopers, specialists in zero and low gravity combat situations as well as boarding pirate ships. The Lord Inquisitor was called away to deal with a ploy against the Ork Warboss about his roc insurance, resulting in a 2v2 instead of a 2v2v1 game.
Imperial Force Objectives:
Chaos forces have translated in system! Multiple tears in reality. Contingent of a Chapter Master and 5 Intercessors are isolated and cut off! All forces to converge on their location.
Objective 1: The Landing Pad is critical for heavy haulers to get the desperately needed fuel and recycled materials for the Valour Crusade. The weight of the haulers will damage the asteroid’s mantle with their weight otherwise, risking the mantle and the operation.
Objective 2: The Inquisitor’s personal rides are dope and he wants them back. Secure them at all cost!
Objective 3: Xenos Science experiments have been performed in secret regarding Genestealers. Protect the data and subject at all cost!
Objective 4: The latest batch of promethium is needed for the crusade. Secure it and the pipeline.
Objective 5: Unauthorized crates were delivered an hour ago. Investigate contents.
Objective 6: The Vehicle Wreck by the checkpoint was out of the ordinary. Arbites gunned down the terrorists. Investigate what lead them to try and breach the perimeter of the refinery.
Forces of Chaos Objectives:
Objective 1: The Landing Pad. Khorne wants it destroyed! Nurgle wants to pollute its fuel tanks.
Objective 2: The Inquisitor’s Personal Rides. Khorne wants it destroyed! Nurgle wants to plant nurglings in the upholstery.
Objective 3: Xenos Science Experiment. Khorne wants it destroyed! Nurgle wants the bio material to be “polluted”.
Objective 4: Fuel Reserves. Khorne wants it destroyed! Nurgle wants it for the war effort.
Objective 5: Mysterious Containers. Khorne wants it destroyed! Nurgle wants to eat it or pollute it depending on what it is.
Objective 6: Boring Civilian Vehicle. Khorne wants it destroyed! Nurgle wants to plant nurglings in the upholstery.
Chaos rumbled and shambled into the Refinery’s perimeter. Nurgle sent for a fearsome squadron of Plagueburst Crawlers lumbered into the LZ. A pair of Myphetic Blight Haulers stomped in as well, all of them surrounded by 150 Pox Walkers! Some leadership units were spotted goading the shambling zombies along. It appeared the dead and dying workers from the mines were not as lifeless as was once believed! Vashtorr the Arkifane set about overseeing the Mortar’s setup.
Khorne deployed to the flank of Nurgle’s forces. Possibly to get away from their stench. A pair of Rhinos raced along the flank with a stomping Contemptor Dreadnought bringing up the rear. A mighty Deamon Prince held in Reserves with a powerful force of Eightbound and a Master of Possessions.
The Chapter Master and his small retinue got prepared to make a run for the Inquisitor’s special xenos hunting vehicles.
Chaos started forward with a lopsided surge! The Rhino’s barreled forward with a the heavy Contemptor Dreadnought struggling to keep up. Vashtorr held most of the pox walkers back to protect the artillery, but the opposite flank of zombies surged forward!
The Plagueburst Crawlers began a thunderous barrage on the cargo containers hiding the hated Ultramarines! Vashtorr coaxed an extra volley out of on the cannons. The Chapter Master boldly braced his Stormshield against the sky and yelled his men down underneath its powerful forcefield. Multiple Direct hits landed, slaying only one of the marines. The Chapter Master remained unharmed.
Moving quickly, the marines raced to the Inquisitor’s cars and began spraying fire at the incoming Blight Haulers. Despite some excellent hits, they only dinged one of them. Moments later, the fleshy bits regrew themselves! However, they had secured the vehicles as ordered by the Lord Inquisitor.
Chaos surged forward again. Closing in rapidly under the covering barrages from the Plagueburst Crawlers and Blight Haulers, the first of the Pox Walkers got close to the Ultramarines! The shambling horde tripped over itself in their excitement as they attempted to close to Melee range, failing to cover the last distance! Khorne’s Rhinos held back and helped bring down the Ultramarines Cover. Something was amiss. Why were there only 6 marines? And what was that roaring sound growing louder?
In a twist of fate, it was mostly Imperial Guard racing to save the day instead of the Angels of Death! Drop Ships passed overhead, deploying ten various squads of Elysians, and whole bunch of air superiority! From the flanks roared three Taurus variants, Outriders, and a flash of light deposited a unit of Primaris Terminators!
The tides had turned quite drastically! The Rhino carrying the Havoc squad slammed on the breaks as a massive Marauder Heavy Destroyer bore down on it. Slamming hatches shut, it buttoned up a second before six Autocannons and two Hellstrike Missiles slammed a brutal barrage into the light tank. The Havocs Force Disembarked as rounds ripped the tank apart around them, causing it to explode into a massive fireball as they hit the dirt!
The Ultramarine Dreadnought laughed in superiority as it fired missiles into the Rhino, damaging its engine and track!
The Vulture Gunship sighted in on the Pox Walkers closing in on the marines. Twin Punisher Gatling Guns and its Heavy Bolter raked a brutal line of fire through the squad, annihilating half of them!
To its flank, a Valkyrie fired two Multiple Rocket Pods, Heavy Bolters, and a Multilaser, hammering another unit of pox walkers. A moderate amount was slain! The Avenger Strike Fighter and Wing Commander in his Thunderbolt Fighter ganged up on the same unit. The Wing Commander was equipped for destroying armored targets, but with the awesome firepower of the Avenger, the unit was almost entirely eradicated!
Two Tauros Assault buggies raced out together, rapidly firing belt fed Grenade Launchers into more Pox Walkers. The Tauros Annihilator raced along the backside of the Refinery, sighting Vashtorr himself! He was promptly shot twice in the face by its lascannons!
Guardsmen rained from the skies with Grav Chutes. Snipers took prominent high ground with good accuracy, while the Heavy Bolter Squads had less success. One got a moderate placement, but the second one veered off course and got trapped in a fissure, effectively Pinning them. More squads dispersed alongside the Ultramarines to reinforce them. Several landed in the refinery and by the Inquisitor’s vehicles. He had come over the vox demanding his rides be secured, so one squad took over so the Ultramarines could go forward and do what they do best.
The Ultramarines charged into battle! Issuing a Challenge, it was accepted by the Plague Surgeon. The dual left both unharmed, with mostly the Chapter Master boasting his superiority and the Plague Surgeon hammering on his shield in futility. The Ultramarines pounded and stabbed the Pox Walkers with their Combat Knives, but there were still a fair number of them. A marine was torn down to the ground, infected, and got back up as a Pox Walker! Both sides held their ground.
One guard squad accidentally got pinned when they crashed into a platform. They fired blindly over the rails as they got unentangled from each other and their gear. Another squad landed danger close as intended and poured fire into the Pox Walkers. The Terminators did likewise, mowing down about a dozen of them.
Now that the Imperial forces were closer, they could see the Pox Walkers were Festering! Dead bodies on the ground rose up as the plague infected them, breathing in new ragged life! Left untouched, the few had become the many until now an outbreak was upon them!
The populating Pox Walkers collapsed in on the Imperial Forces behind enemy lines! Overwatch was performed in a professional and orderly fashion, but there were simply to many of them! The ground infantry of the guard were killed instantly, becoming infected and joining the ranks. A terminator was slain, but they took out a lot in retaliation! The pinned squad remained trapped on their platform in a sea of zombies!
Meanwhile, the Rhino with the Khorne Berzerkers started shifting for safety at a painful limp. A very angry Primaris Chief Chaplain was riding with six Outriders right in front of them! As they pulled back to towards their Dreadnought, the Daemon Prince arrived! He had carefully orchestrated this conflict, plotting and sewing discord so he could arrive for hundreds of years. But some imperial architect had made some off blueprint changes, causing him to ricochet violently off the building when he emerged from the Warp at a full sprint. Dazed, he and his Eightbound stumbled around in confusion. Pinned, they were at the loyalist’s mercy!
Mercy was not in the official Imperial Dictionary. Aircraft roared overhead and continued to hammer the forces of chaos as their ground forces struggled to hold back the tide of darkness. The Marauder Heavy Fighter swung around in a slow circle, leveling its weapons into Vashtorr. Due to some extremely good luck, he (mostly) survived! The Pox Walkers it passed over were not so lucky. The Cluster Bomb killed 27 of them as it shattered their ranks. A few remained, but hardly any in comparison.
The Vulture closed in, raking a heavily damaged unit of Pox Walkers. Only three remained!
The Valkyrie came forward, hammering another unit of Pox Walkers with rockets and heavy machine guns.
The Wing Commander turned, hammering into the side of the Blight Haulers. They were particularly resilient but sustained heavy damage. His Avenger wingman pulled out to get a better trajectory.
The entire corner collapsed in on the Daemon Prince’s unit! Small arms from every direction struck them. Heavy machine guns, missiles, grenades, and bolter fire slowly began to tear them apart. Despite this, their botched entry left them buried in the shrouding flames that brought them into reality, making it hard to hit them!
The Imperial Guard held back, letting the Ultramarines strike! Bolstered by the Chaplain, the Outriders slammed into the Eightbound and promptly bounced off! The Chaplain issued a Challenge, and was disappointed to have it accepted by the Champion instead of the Daemon Prince. A vicious series of bonkings from his stick resulted in the Champion being YEETed from existence (9 Wounds got through, he failed all of his 3+ saves!). Before the Dreadnought could strike, they Eightbound lashed out! Bolstered by the Herald of Khorne, they smashed the Dreadnought, nearly killing it! Multiple riders were killed as well. Their failed attack meaning they did not remove enough retaliation! The Dreadnought avenged one brutally!
The Outriders, despite being stubborn and lead by the angriest Chaplain, fell back! Both sides were annihilated hard.
Nearly forgotten, the embarrassing Dual of the Fates continued. Finally, a wound was landed on each contestant. Only the Chapter Master didn’t regenerate his!
The Daemon prince was able to finish off the Dreadnought with the help of his meat puppets. His Advisors peeled off, annihilating the Heavy Bolter squad and taking control of the xenos experiement!
Pox Walkers continued to Fester and gather round in their desperate attempt to kill the Terminators. Another fell, but they took at least a dozen down in return!
Vashtorr was the only series threat to the aircraft, so he took to the skies to battle the mighty Marauder! He lifted to face him, flying directly into the Autocannons, where he was turned into chunky salsa.
The battle continued, with aircraft strafing a slowly dwindling tide of zombies. In turn, the Zombies killed one Terminator at a time with great expense to themselves. The Avenger returned, gunning down hapless Khorne Berzerkers as the Vulture Gunship peeled off to circle around. The Outriders Charged the Daemon Prince and the Eightbound. While the Eightbound were slain, the Daemon prince was only moderately wounded! In turn, he slew most of the Outriders, and once again the mighty, angry chaplain left, this time retreating off the battlefield altogether!
Taking the carnage a step further, the Daemon Prince charged and demolished a Tauros Assault!
The dual continued, with some substantial damage finally done to each other! The rolls of the Chapter Master were absolutely terrible.
More guardsmen were slain, and slowly only one Terminator remained. Reinforcements arrived. Proper ground forces, forcing Chaos to leave the field!
Imperials win 12 to 10! A Minor Victory. 200 Pox Walkers were killed, yet only 150 were fielded. And more were still on the field!
The dual never ended.
This game was our first in a very long time! It proved to be an excellent testing point for a rework of Pox Walkers. They have been working, but didn’t feel very zombie like. Now at 8 points each and with the ability to Fester, they can cause lots of problems! The Nurgle Supplement will be updated with these rules in the next major chaos update that will be coming out shortly!
Alternate 40k Rules 